💀 Easy To Get Started but Hard To Get Good: Why Some Good Products Like Airtable Fail
"Act as if what you do makes a difference" [William James]
Can a simple framework change your life?
Doubtful. But it can change the way you think. Which can change the way you act.
Here's a simple way to understand why some good products fail and what it means for Ai startups: Easy to Get Started but Hard to Get Good - by Gary Bailey for Monetization University]
In the News: Airtable Adopts Enterprise Focus [and lays Off 27% as firm Shifts Focus To Big Clients]
Airtable changes its go-to-market strategy from PLG towards large, million-dollar enterprise deals.
Airtable, the code-free software company that was recently valued at $11.7 billion, today announced that it will lay off 237 people, or 27% of the company.
Howie Liu, Airtable’s founder and CEO, says the cuts are part of a plan to focus the company on winning large enterprise clients and get spending under control.
The cuts follow a December 2022 layoff that shed 254 people.
Airtable’s revenue is estimated at $150m per annum
Source: Forbes / Airtable CEO / Elena Verna
So What?: A Hard to Get Good Framework
Airtable is a great product. I’ve used it many times. But I’m still, let us say, a novice. And this is the problem! I found it easy to get started but hard to get good. This is partly my fault, but who blame themselves, when you can blame the product!
This simple framework explains why some good products fail.
The 2x2 Matrix has:
Easy to Get Started vs Hard to Get Started &
Easy to Get Good vs Hard to Get Good
Easy to get started and easy to get good is something like email. We can all do email. It’s very easy to get started and most people can reach 7 out of 10 level fairly easily.
As such, this product is easy to copy and hard to defend from a startup point of view as such, it’s normally bundled in as free
Therefore very little innovation is prioritised in this area BUT
There is an opportunity to take people from Good to Great i.e. to raise their game to 9 out of 10.
This opportunity was seized by SuperHuman which charges $30 per month and offers what could be classed as email coaching in addition to a great product.
Hard to get started but easy to get good is something like reading. Teaching my younger child to read was not easy. She struggled. As did I. But now she’s able to read like 8 out of 10 and she’s only seven
These are foundational products or services with very little post completion monetization potential. Think schools post graduation.
Hard to get started and hard to get good is the very definition of computer programming.
This ever-changing landscape offers multiple monetization opportunities such as training, frameworks, tools and more.
But, unfortunately very few can be venture scale.
Easy to get started but hard to get good is a good area for monetization but not easy to command defensible revenue.
Excel is the best example of a product that is super easy to onboard users and to get them started.
But, very hard to get them to 7 or 8 out of 10.
However, Excel offers a myriad of eco-system monetization potential such as training, pre-done models etc.
Just look at the success of Ms Excel who’s killing it on TikTok with her Excel tips
The key to success in this quadrant is bundling [Microsoft/GoogleSheets] and eco-system
In contrast, Airtable only has a small eco-system and is not bundled onto any platforms, therefore found it hard to help people get to a master ‘Airtabler’
Yes, it had some pretty good templates, but that’s not enough!
This is important for Ai startups
Now What? Takeaway:
Most Ai products are very easy to get started on. But mastery eludes most people and they churn. The usage stats from OpenAi [which is one of the current best in class] shows month on month declines.
This is not because it’s not good, it’s because it’s hard to get good.
OpenAi has already part-bundled their software with Microsoft. That’s stage one done
Stage two is building an eco-system of training, templates, frameworks, influencers and school/college/university courses…anything that can help transform users into masters!
Ps. If you have any great frameworks you’ve created or seen that you want featured in this newsletter, please shoot them over.
Bye.
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