The Adjacent User Theory
andrewchen.co
andrewchen.co
So, it's good to map out those niches and help them one-by-one. Likewise, studies like this became a research field soon after gmo corn became a thing, and worth understanding the many kinds of innovation adoption if your job is here. (Broad area is called the Diffusion of Innovation.)
The Adjacent Users are aware of a product and possibly tried using the it, but are not able to successfully become an engaged user. This is typically because the current product positioning or experience has too many barriers to adoption for them.
While Instagram had product-market fit for 400+ million people, we discovered new groups of users who didn’t quite understand Instagram and how it fit into their lives.
There's so much assumption there. "not able to successfully become an engaged user"; "too many barriers to adoption"; "didn't quite understand [...] how it fit into their lives". No question about whether potential users are interested in the product in the first place? It's so life-changing that if someone decides not to use the thing, it's because they failed at becoming engaged, or just don't understand that it's life-changing?
I'm confused. Maybe this is the level of delusions of grandeur you need to succeed at that scale with that kind of product, and I'm just hopelessly naive :(
They do show interest, tho. From the article:
> There are a set of users who show intent for your product but are not quite able to get over the hump. Those are your adjacent users.
But isn't that the point of the article? To figure out how to change the product so that it meets more people's needs.
I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.
E.g. a government may not know all its citizens in a personal sense, but it can establish charters of rights and freedoms, it can design humane and accessible services, etc. Scale doesn't prevent these things, rather it necessitates them.
There seems to be a rash of people blogging up with 'new' ideas and theories that have existed for a long time.
Because cancerous cells prioritize their own growth over the health of the wider system in which they exist.
Companies with this mindset do not reach a point at which they say "ok, we're big enough now". There is no target size they're trying to reach, there is only a target year-over-year multiplicative growth rate. They prioritize growth over providing value to the users they have. They grow without regard for the effect it has on social dynamics within the system (changing what the product is good for and what it's bad for), or the effect it has on social dynamics beyond the system.
It's the Paperclip Maximizer approach to business. And, of course, it's the stock market approach to business too.
Several companies / communities came rather close to that goal, say Google or Facebook or Wikipedia.
They often do, this is part of the innovators dilemma in that early adopters aren't often mainstream customers, so the feel unheard, when in fact the company is listening to its more mainstream users (once they arrive) - which often causes the early adopters to lament and chase the next thing.
> They aren't chasing anything other than that metric
It isn't that these companies aren't listening users, or aren't creating value. They would fail if that was the case. The metric is profit and a big presumption is that with free-trade and free-markets any transaction is mutually beneficial. If they don't provide value to the customers, the customers don't pay. If they keep providing value for more people, enough value that people will pay, then value really is being created.
I think the concerns more have to do with with:
* Hidden costs - such as giving up your data or privacy aren't usually clear (and if they are, in the sense you are giving your data, the implications and risks aren't clear) * The value might only be "on-net" better. For example, network effects have "value" in the context of the data, even if better platform might exists that don't the enough critical mass participation. * A related problem to the above, the product might be on-net better but still not optimal for your country, demographic, social group etc ... (non-bay-area-based-white-affulate-males) * Markets aren't always free (enough) so disparities and distortions cause real issues. All sorts of externalities abound. * Indirect user/purchaser models like advertising will optimize for things that while they may maximize overall profit (if done well) are NOT optimal from a purely user-centric view. * Change, of any kind for any reason, good or bad, is often lamented by users