11 Things Startups Should Know About Enterprise 2.0
readwriteweb.com
readwriteweb.com
Internet marketing relies on the fact that the customer is aware of a need. Creating demand in a new market is something most start-ups can not afford to invest in.
As I understand it, Blue Ocean is primarily about differentiating yourself in the marketplace in such a way that you get to own your own space. Lock-in may be a consequence of it, but I think that's still missing the point.
Take Apple or Nintendo, for instance. Dell or HP competing with Apple is like XBox or Playstation competing with Nintendo. Nintendo has defined its own space, which it basically owns almost completely. Neither Sony or MS are likely to be very successful at cracking the Nintendo market because of the unique mindshare and approach to gaming that Nintendo has. Most of the time, Sony and MS will be busier competing for the same customers in that space over there.
Apple has done something similar. Competition with Apple tends to be indirect, more often than not. How does Apple continue to grow despite the lousy economic outlook for other computer manufacturers? How was it able to insulate itself?
"Apple" is essentially its own marketplace with its own ecosystem.
Another corollary might be the idea of "opinionated software". If you have an opinion on how something could be done better, well then you may have just identified your target market - your own "Blue Ocean" - and these are going to be the people who have the same unmet needs as you and wish for the same things you do.
"Man, I sure like [insert product or service here], but what would really make it sweet is..."
That's when you know you're onto something.
In any market, you can find gaps and cracks where products and services don't overlap, and possibly never will for a variety of reasons. Those gaps represent opportunities. Most of these may not turn out to be billion-dollar opportunities, but they are probably profitable enough to satisfy most of our ambitions.
No?
This is the exact same strategy that got the PC into the enterprise. At first, IT departments wanted nothing to do with them and considered them "toys". If you needed anything, they insisted you go through them (and wait).
With the invention of the IBM PC and Visicalc, accounting departments bypassed IT and bought their own PCs using their own budgets. Fortunately, the cost was low enough to be under the radar. Several years later, IT had no choice but to accomdate PCs and real user needs into their plans.
History is repeating with web apps. There's nothing to stop you from finding a user or entire department that needs an app and isn't getting what they need from their own IT department.
Just sell directly to the end user. They have plenty of desire and budget to bypass IT once again.
Consumers buy these things and bring them into work. Then, IT tries to get them under control once they fail to prevent them from getting adopted. These products are all useful to regular people as well, so this variant (Consumer->Enterprise, vs Individual Department->Enterprise) is only interesting if you're building something that is interesting to both Consumers and Enterprise (or Consumer->Individual Department->Enterprise).