⚡ MC - Danger of Building Business Around a "Feature"

The danger of building a business around a "feature"

It's the sort of warning that makes sense but doesn't seem serious until you're on the receiving end of it:

"Don't create a business that your competitor can easily kill by adding a feature to their product."

Farez created Markfolder - a tool to bookmark and organize tweets into folders or collections. He launched it as a free tool last August. He was planning to launch a 'pro' version this month.

Yesterday, it was leaked that Twitter is working on collections for its bookmarks. This will essentially render Markfolder obsolete.

This is one of the perils of building on top of a platform, with better resources than you. If there is enough demand for a solution to a problem that exists on that platform, it's more than likely that the platform will create a solution for it. Or buy you out.

P.S. Clubhouse is also struggling as the whole business is around one feature.

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Snippets

• Notion's API is now in the public beta.
• MVP is not equal to a shitty product. (Tweet link)
• Hold yourself accountable for high achievement. If you're a cab driver, drive the most miles. If you're a fisherman, get on the best boat. (Tweet link)
• A yawn is a silent scream for coffee! (Tweet link)
• On Audience vs. Product: If you are good at building products, do that first. If you are good at building audiences, do that first. Play to your strengths. People/customers gravitate towards those who excel at whatever they are doing. (Tweet link)
• Who the fu*k assigned colors to these emojis? 📈📉
• Learn to sell; learn to build - if you can do both you will be unstoppable. - Naval

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Worth Reading

1. Kyle increased prices 800% and made $100k in revenue. According to him, If he was still selling a $99 boilerplate, it would be making $12k vs $100k now. Plus, it would be a side project, not a company.

2. Building around a niche: How Carrd went from MVP to success.

3. According to Bookstat, there were 2.6 million books sold online in 2020 and only 268 of them sold more than 100,000 copies—that’s only 0.01 percent of books. The one where writing books is not really a good idea.

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