This happens everyday here in Silicon Valley: an entrepreneur whips out his latest thingamajig and runs it through its paces in front of an audience, and the reaction is “Wow! That’s cool!”
And the entrepreneur thinks that he has it made.
What has this got to do with babies and dogs?
Well, when your friends bring their baby to visit you, your reaction will probably be “oh, how cute!” or “that’s a beautiful baby!” and coo at the kid.
The question is: will you want to stay 24/7 with the baby?
As a parent, I would say that babies cute but only if they are someone else’s, at arms’ length and for no more than 5 minutes at a time.
The same applies to dogs. The cute, fluffy pomeranian at the park may be a whiny, demanding dog at home.
And that applies to any new product or product concept.
When you, the entrepreneur, talks about a new product idea or when you demo your new thing, you may get a very positive reaction from the audience.
The questions you need to ask yourself and that audience are whether:
(a) they are willing to pay for that new product
(b) they are willing to use that new product everyday of every week
In the consumer package goods (CPG) world, this is called repeat purchases. When you run a promo for a new toothpaste, you can see a spike of orders. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything. The key indicator of success are the repeat purchases: customers who are so satisfied with the new toothpaste, that they come back for more.
A case in point is that ultra mobile PC (UMPC) I talked about in my previous article, the Asus R2H. It had very positive reviews. Some users referred to its “wow” factor.
But ultimately, it was not a usable product: you could not use it everyday of every week without getting frustrated.