The 53,651 meme

The web is evolving very fast these days. It seems to me that because of our connections and web browsing habits, people reading this are often disconnected from how "normal" people view the web. Let me assure you, this web 2.0 craze we are seeing is no bubble. What will happen? well, in a sense, web 2.0 is really interactive web 1.0. The future leaders of the social web will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of today's leaders: Google, Facebook, Myspace, Del.icio.us, Wikipedia, and Craigslist. (technology increases exponentially: never forget this)

When a website incorporates all the positives of these types of websites into 1 all encompassing tool for organizing the unlimited information of the Internet, then we will see something great. We will see an evolution of these tools and it will not only be something people can use to get more efficiency out of life, it will actually improve people's lives and societies (globally).

If you think the effects social networks and human/computer interaction are amazing, wait until you see the children of these sites. It is *absolutely* not a coincidence that the founders of Reddit played WoW. They realize that power of a website is directly correlated to the amount of user input into a website. The dilemma we entrepreneurs are faced with today is creating systems that encourage maximum participation.

How does this tie into the 53,000 theory? None of the big winners, and I am talking the big ones, facebook, myspace, google, msnpages, orkut, (these are the sites that lead the world in user participation) succeeded because of blog recommendations. They succeeded because they were better ways of experiencing the Internet, not because some “expert” on techcrunch told the geeks it was a cool product.

Well, there are many amazing "web 2.0" websites out there that will never be used by the masses until their friends, not techcrunch, invites them.

On the Internet, the best solution always win. Humans are economical; they do what is best for themselves. When we create a search/browsing tool that is at the same time more rewarding and fun than myspace/wikipedia/delicious/digg we will see the whole world adopt this method, the same way the world has adopted the Google search, the same way all the “cool” people are on myspace. This website will not only be as "cool" and as fun, it will actually enhance people's lives.

This is the future of the web. It is also no coincidence that VC's like the one whom this post is referring to, have seen a lot of "like delicious but XXX" or "Digg killers" This is not just hype, one day it will happen. One day there will be a delicapedieddit that will emerge as the new Internet powerhouse.

Another way of looking at this is to realize that beta testers are hard to come by, and one could leverage from the already existing pool of beta testers (53,651). Most startups want to improve their pre-money valuation before going to the VC, the most important ingredient for achieving that is a stable system that is a result of successive relevant iterations of the features. This could as well be part of any Web 2.0 company's road map for the first few months upon going live. It is needless to say that for a VC to be convinced, it is important to have the right kind of users. If there is even a little bit of overlap between the 53,651 web savvy users and the ideal end-user, it is safe to assume that viral marketing will take care of itself. An example that glares in the face is Google. Their systems are the way they are, thanks to their #1 beta testers, their employees. And one could argue that there are other beta testers at various levels, namely the actual end users. This statistic seems to do more good than harm, if regarded positively. The eventual end users of the system could just be an extension of the 53,651 initial users. Go Techcrunch!!!

I think it's reasonable to design for the 53,651. What they use, others will later. The Apple II was designed for the 53,651.

TechCrunch has 351k feed subscribers not 53,651. I remember when Mashable covered mainstream startups but, in face of competition, positioned itself towards a smaller niche (covering social networks). Today Mashable has close to 80k subscribers.

There is nothing wrong with aiming small.

I'd say there're two kinds of startups which are unknown to mainstream America. One is the kinds the general public have actually used, but just may not realize that is a service provided by a startup company. This includes the likes of Slide or Meebo, which many more people have put their widgets on their blogs/Myspace than going on to their proprietary website. These startups are fine; they may just need more PR to the mainstream media.

The startups that are really hard to reach mainstreams are those me-too startups, which are those "social network for XX" or "youtube cross wikipedia" kind of thing that users could not tell a slight difference from the sites that they have been using.

Check out this graph in an old post by Seth Godin: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/12/squid_soup_part_2.html His point is that in order for a new idea or product to catch on, it first needs to be adopted by the "innovators" -- the "geeks". Then, and only then, can it spread to the broader population. If you try to skip the geeks and go straight to the mass market, you will fail.

I'm not sure I buy that as a hard and fast rule, but I think the concept is generally solid. If a company makes it on TC, it will subsequently and consequently grow beyond TC.

This is an interesting problem that I've wondered about myself. We all talk about Web 2.0 not being a bubble but maybe that's just because the 'average joe' doesn't know anything about what's going on. Other than a few stories about MySpace and YouTube most people never hear about any Internet startups. How do you cross that divide without spending alot of money on TV commercials? During the first bubble they were great at getting people's attention but bad at software, it seems like now things are exactly the opposite.

I think the main point in this posting is not how bad it is to start off with the first adopters, but instead to think how they will be alot different than mainstream users, and what you learn from them (click through, advertising, new users, etc...) might not be exactly how things will work with the mainstream crowd.

All business start off as micro-niche. Friendster's demographic was considered a niche just four years ago. Now it is considered "mainstream".

The one thing startups do risk for aiming small is VC investment. Venture Capitalists are reluctant to write a 7 figure check to a startup aiming for the 53,651 audience.

I think it's a good idea to target the early adopters. If you don't, you risk basing your product on old technology.