Ask HN: Breadth vs. Value in product design

[ErikVandeWater]

Paul Graham's 5th piece of advice in his post "Startups in 13 Sentences" was "Better to make a few users love you than a lot ambivalent."

But it seems many startups go broad to start (Reddit, Mint.com, Google) and have succeeded, so how would a startup founder decide whether to go broad with their design vs targeting a particular user segment?

[endswapper]

You appear to be missing the point of the sentence and your question demonstrates this.

It's more valuable to have unbridled enthusiasm from a few users, than a bunch of users who don't care, and would easily swap you out for an alternative. Those enthusiastic users will be your champion, your marketing, your calling card and perhaps your best sales presentation. I think that is straightforward.

Using your Google example, their focus, initially was very narrow - search. Anyone might need it, but if you do that one thing really well, they'll love it and other people will hear it and have to try it.

It sounds like you are twisting up model, focus, opportunity and value.

[ErikVandeWater]

Search is actually very broad. Who is the target market for "search"? Basically everyone with a web-enabled personal computer at the time. Google addressed everyone with search needs mostly equally: if you wanted to get the weather, or search for an academic article, Google would serve the need. This is as opposed to say Amazon, which started with a narrow target market by only offering books.

[PaulHoule]

Is Reddit really broad? It seems to cater to a certain sort of person.

For instance, my mother in law is into Oprah Winfrey and might get that itch scratched by something a bit like Reddit but that is appealing to her. Maybe Pinterest is closer to that.

[valhalla]

I agree. It wouldn't surprise me if Reddit's initial subreddits were narrow and reflected the interests of the founders and early employees – they created a proto-listserv for people like them and it grew from there