adrianmott.com

Wow, talk about a breath of fresh air – Many fellow entrepreneurs these days including myself have been fortunate enough to get a lot of guidance from both Seth Godin, author of such marketing classics as “Purple Cow” and the guys at 37 Signals, who have written a great little book called “Getting Real“.  The book is a really quick read and totally logical in so many ways.  It’s main points revolve around product development philosophy and keeping things lean, fast and in-house around your company.  I would call it a must read for anyone just starting out (as I am).  Oh, and Purple Cow too – great read.

Some critiques of the 37Signals philosophy maintain that charging money for software (as they heavily advocate) is not the right model for every application, and I agree.  Though I think that more of what they’re getting at is that entrepreneurs shouldn’t begin by thinking about a product’s business model without a monetization formula.  Sure, advertisement revenue is great and does work on many levels, but what doesn’t (usually) work is making an application, not charging anything for it and then depending on VC money and an acquisition to bail you out before you go broke.

Godin’s message revolves around making remarkable products that don’t become “invisible” against many similar products in a commoditized market.  If you are entering a commoditized market, you better make something that is different and stands out from the group or your product will fail.  Great advice, though not very easy to execute.  What might be the best advice here – as Michael Arrington hit on in his post linked to above is this – if you can’t make a product with a) a good (or at least valid) monetization route OR b) a totally revolutionary product that changes or defines a market, then you shouldn’t be making products for a living.  (And that’s ok too!   The first product that we at Firelight worked on ended up not even getting to market, mostly for reason A above, but there was also a little bit of B too.  In the end, the right decision was to not enter the market.  It was still a good experience.

In any case, these people have been totally influential to me and us at Firelight as we work on our new product (shhhh).  This guidance has forced us to spend much of our time innovating and trying to come up with solving old problems in new, more simple ways.  And oh yes, our products will cost money, just not that much.  Stay tuned…but in the meantime, see David Heinemeier Hansson’s talk at Startup School earlier this year in Palo Alto.  Great talk: