Buchheit: Startups should build deep appeal for a few rather than broad mediocrity
Paul Buchheit · The Path to $100B by Paul Buchheit · Y Combinator · Oct 24, 2018 · at 17:55
Paul Buchheit, creator of Gmail and partner at Y Combinator, outlines the core product principle of building intense love from a small initial user base rather than broad mild interest.
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“And so there's like all this history, so it's pretty much impossible to enter a space like that and make a thing that appeals to everyone. And if you try to do that, what you end up making is just like a mediocre product that nobody really loves. And so my philosophy and what we try to get, you know, all the startups to do is figure out a thing that will just have really deep appeal. Even if it's to like a tiny fraction of people, if you can make that small fraction of people just like obsessively love what you're doing, It's easier to then grow that group, you know, because like there's always people at the margin where if I just make something slightly better, they're going to join into that group. So it's easier to start with that like that deep but narrow appeal and then broaden it over time than it is to start with just sort of like broad meh and then try to like convert people from meh to like loving your thing in mass.”
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