The media reaction to the recent Apple Launch has been a joy
to witness. Self-confessed ‘experts’ have labelled it as everything from the
dawn of a new technical age right through to the nail in the coffin for Apple.
Investors would seem to agree with the latter camp as $30B was wiped off the
value of the company in one day. Are Apple’s new products that far off the
mark? Was the Apple Launch a failure?
Of course not. Product launches should be examined by one
merit and one merit only; noise. Unless you were hiding under a rock, you were
more than likely exposed to the brand of ‘Apple’ in some shape or form over the
past couple of weeks. If you own an iPhone, have you updated to iOS7 yet? That
is the true litmus test of their launch.
Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, stated that “iOS 7 is the
biggest day in technology ever”.
“There’s never been another day like this in the history of
the universe where hundreds of millions of people will see a big change to
something that they’re used to”.
When you think about it, it’s hard to disagree with this
sweeping statement. Analysts and investors might react (negatively in this
case) to the products launched but consumers react to the launch itself
(updating their iPhones accordingly). Investors may care that the price point
of the iPhone 5C is too high for the Chinese market. Consumers really only care
about staying on top of technology trends and validating their own choices. In
an information age, getting above the noise is everything. Product launches are
still an effective way of doing this.
Peter Thiel, in his class on start-ups in Stanford
University, spoke about about how most people generally underestimate the
importance of distribution. In short, he argued that the distribution of a
product is everything. He compared the adoption of Thomas Edison’s Direct
Current (which was an inferior offering at the time) over Nikola Tesla’s
Alternating Current (a superior offering) as an example of this. Edison was a
shrewd businessman who knew how to market his products, eventually going on to
found General Electric. Tesla was a genius who could not ‘market’ his
inventions and he eventually went bankrupt. The best product doesn’t always
win.
In fact, if you look at most start-ups today, the main
hurdle that they face is market risk as opposed to technology risk. Unless
you’re building the next and best microprocessor, the chances are that a lack
of customers will be your biggest challenge. If you build it, they won’t come.
This is something that we’ve been acutely conscious of since
the inception of Soundwave. Our goal is to build one of the world’s most used
and loved smart-phone apps and to make music discovery an enjoyable experience
in the process. According to Google, the Play Store recently hit the 1,000,000
app mark (eclipsing the App Store which has 900,000 apps). Does that mean that
we’ve a million to one shot of making it to the top spot of the stores?
Although the majority of developers underestimate just how
hard it is to get noticed, we worked tirelessly for months before our launch
developing our community, building up relationships with the press and media
influencers and generally marketing the app in any way that we could.
By the time we pressed the launch button on 20 June 2013, we
had done everything we could to get above the noise. Thanks to our awesome
community of users, we were picked up by all the top media houses in both
Europe and the US. We were also featured by the App Store as a highly coveted
‘Editor’s Choice’ app and as a ‘Staff Pick’ by the Play Store.
On the release of iOS7, we’re delighted to announce that
we’ve been chosen by Apple again to be featured worldwide. We’re now front and
center on the App Store (Best New Apps, Designed for iOS7) in 53 countries.
There is no better feeling then waking up to see your app in the shop window of
the most important shop in the world to all developers!
To be featured once was an honor. Being featured twice has
blown all our expectations out of the water and we’re genuinely humbled to be
named along with the Evernotes, RunKeepers and iTranslates of the app world. We
genuinely could not have asked for a better start. Although our launch was only
a stepping stone towards reaching our goal, we’re confident that our product is
also good enough to back up the hype. This is fundamental to the power law of
distribution because the best launch in the world (or series of launches) will
not be enough to help a crappy product reach a critical mass.
When you break it down, there are really only four main ways
in which a product’s life cycle can pan out in the early stages. For ease, I’ve
put together a matrix below which sets these out:-
Product/Launch Matrix
QUADRANT ONE
Ideally, you will find yourself in Quadrant One which
equates to a good launch backed up by a good product. The now legendary launch
of the iPhone by Steve Jobs at MacWorld 2007 is a perfect example of this. Self-described
by Jobs as the day that Apple ‘reinvented the phone’, the launch was
unprecedented in the amount of publicity it received. More importantly, on
release, the iPhone became the greatest selling Apple product of all time with
over 250,000 units shipped in the first weekend alone. This launch and adoption
by consumers ultimately set the bar for product releases in the Twenty First
Century.
Since then, every other smart-phone manufacturer has tried
to emulate this formula. More often than not, they’ve also failed magnificently
for the simple reason that the 2007 iPhone launch was a perfect storm of
product, press and a pitch by the only person who could give it the gravitas it
deserved; Steve Jobs.
QUADRANT TWO
Products that fall into Quadrant Two are those that have a
good launch but then fall away into obscurity because the hype is not justified
by the product itself. There are countless examples of these types of products
(remember Color!) but the one that comes to mind most recently is Twitter
Music. #Music became one of the most anticipated consumer tech launches in
recent memory (and if truth be told had us very worried before it launched). At
its peak, Twitter Music hit number 5 in the Top Free Apps Chart in the App
Store. However, just one week after the launch and despite all the media
attention, Twitter Music fell out of the top 100 free apps in the App Store. To
add insult to injury, the person who spearheaded the project reportedly jumped ship
one week after launch and joined another company.
Now struggling to gain traction, Twitter Music has turned to
Rdio’s and Spotify’s platforms in an attempt to drum up some interest. I think
that it’s fair to say that the product itself isn’t good enough and no amount
of hype, strategic partnerships or media attention is likely to change that in
the near future. Good launch, crappy product.
QUADRANT THREE
Products that fall into Quadrant Three typically don’t
market themselves very well at the launch stage but manage to succeed anyway
through their ability to meet consumer demand with a fantastic offering. A good
example of this is AirBnB.
It’s not a widely known fact but it actually took AirBnB
three ‘launches’ before they started to get real traction. Initially, the
founders launched the product at SXSW in March 2008 but only managed to rent
out 60 rooms. They tried again in the summer of 2008 at the Democratic National
Convention and fared better that time letting 800 rooms in the process. But as
CTO Nathan Blecharczyk admitted in this interview, AirBnB still could not reach
a critical mass in the cities it was in following the second ‘launch’.
Realizing that they were nowhere closer to navigating through the market risk
challenges that they faced, the founders decided to move to San Francisco and
enroll in Y Combinator. They eventually reached a critical mass (in no small
part thanks to the distribution channels that Y Combinator can provide) and the
rest is history.
Crappy Launch(es), Good Product. Analysts have predicted
that AirBnB could go public for north of $10B and is currently valued at $2.5B.
It’s frightening to think that it might not exist today if the company hadn’t
been accepted into Y Combinator in January 2009. On a side note, AirBnB
recently confirmed that their European HQ is going to be in Dublin (my
hometown) which is great news!
When it comes to life cycles, most start-up founders will be
all too aware of the ‘Start-Up Curve’ as set out below. This cyclical process
documents the stereotypical experience that any emerging company faces as it
strives to scale. Typically, products that fall into Quadrant Three take much
longer to scale and some may not even make it through the ‘Trough of Sorrow’
because of the initial lack of traction. Without a user base to iterate the
product around, start-ups will struggle to scale with any velocity. Give me a
‘TechCrunch of Initiation’ and a corresponding ‘Wearing Off of Novelty’ any day
over a flat line of growth.
Image courtesy of www.avc.com
The worst outcome for a startup is not failure — its
mediocrity. — Darmesh Shah
QUADRANT FOUR
Products in Quadrant Four never even have the chance to be
rejected by the masses. You will simply never hear about a crappy product with
a crappy launch. These products are the ones that are non-starters and never
even get out of the traps. Unfortunately, the world is full of these companies
that you’ll never know even existed.
CONCLUSION
A product launch should be viewed simply as the lighter fuel
that is needed to accelerate a hot product. Without a successful launch — poor
products fail more quickly, good products are slower to take off.
Brand awareness is everything in this day and age so why not
increase your chances of success by going big from the start. If you’re
confident in your product, why not quicken the typical curve faced by most
consumer tech companies and reach the ‘Promised Land’ sooner than later.
This is our key focus at the moment at Soundwave. We
completely overhauled our app for iOS7 which was a big task and something which
our lead iOS developer, Brian Boyle, should be very proud of. We treated this
release as another opportunity for PR and started the spin cycle all over
again. Taking a leaf out of AirBnB’s book — we attempted to take more than one
bite at the cherry and ‘launch’ our product again. Whatever it takes, you need
to stay above the noise.
In my view, there is no such thing as over exposure (if a
product is good enough). The product doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to
be better than bad to make sure you can retain some users who you can turn to
as the foundation of your user base. If you have 1000 users who love you, you
can find a million more of these.
You can also launch on a shoe string and unless you’re an
Apple of the world, you’ll probably have to anyway. Look at Dropbox which ‘launched’
with a video on Digg. They went from a waiting list of 5,000 to 75,000
overnight as a result.
In sum, it doesn’t matter if Apple’s recent launch is
considered a flop or not as the company is firmly back in the limelight and
they’ll do everything in their power to hold on to this publicity right through
to Christmas. iOS7 will continue to gain traction and the same investors will
probably go long on Apple again. The uptake on the newest breed of iPhones has
already been described as ‘incredible’ according to AllThingsD. Opinions about
products may come and go but consumers vote with their wallets.
For this reason, product launches still matter because hype
is a self-fulfilling prophecy and one of the key ingredients to improving
distribution in the initial stages. There is no such thing as bad publicity.
At the turn of the 20th Century, the French came up with a
great term for this — ‘Succès de Scandale’ — which means success from scandal.
If you think anything has changed since then, just ask Miley Cyrus about the
reaction to her recent VMA twerking episode. Following the VMAs, her music
video for the song ‘Wrecking Ball’ was viewed 19.3M times on VEVO during the
first 24 hours of its release shattering VEVO’s previous viewing record. Good
launch, good product? I think the vox populi has already cast their vote.
Thanks for reading!
Credit: https://medium.com/soundwave-stories/why-product-launches-still-matter-50032296d209#.cowc9xuyy
Written by: Craig Watson
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