The biggest mistake I made for the last couple of startup ideas was
that I
worked on ideas that were not important or valuable enough to
users. I did this
because I wanted to focus on niche use cases and
small markets to avoid
competition. But I mistakenly thought
unimportant use cases were attractive
markets. The biggest problem
with an unimportant use case is that it doesn't
matter to users. So
no matter how great the product, users don't care.
Now I realize user demand should be the number one factor to consider
when
deciding whether to pursue an idea. I think it's more important
to pursue
important use cases and serve a niche group of people who
truly care about it.
Notice that I am still focusing on a niche group
of people, but for this niche
group, the problem has to be really
important to them.
The worst-case scenario is not losing in a competition but building
something
that is not important or that people don't have a strong
need for. Zhang Yiming
said: "看似一片红海的行业，我却觉得是一片蓝海" (An industry
that seems like a
red ocean, i.e. full of competitors, I see it as a blue ocean, i.e. full of rewards).
Take Douyin's Soda Music product— the music app market has lots of
competition, and Douyin is certainly not the only player in it. But
music is such
an important area that users have a strong demand for
it. Douyin focuses on a
relatively niche section of the large market:
music for young people.