He said that one time his 4 year old niece asked for an IPod for Christmas. He said that he didn’t know what that was; but if a 4 year old did, then it was probably gonna be big.
So basically if common folks in your network interact with a particular product; then there is a good chance that it’s a billion dollar product. The inverse is the same, in that if few people have heard of a product, then it’s probably not a unicorn.
Applying that logic to both WeWork and Theranos back when Uber was at peak, I asked around within my network if people knew of the anyone who had experience with either company.
People said nope; never heard of it or used it. I thought that was very strange considering how often both companies were dominating HN at the time with mindshare about their insane success.
If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck; it’s probably a duck.