When we first think of any product idea, we believe it should be new and original.
However, when we present this to people, it confuses people and turns them away.

So, How should our product idea be? Does it need to be absolutely new or similar to others?
The answer is simpler than you think. All you need to do is to be similar to others and yet something new. Find out how in this podcast.

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Bill Gates predicted in 1991 that Kodak company would be bankrupt.
He didn’t say when, but Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012. That’s 21 years after he predicted. When he predicted that in 1991, the stock price of Kodak would be $30, it even hit a high of $94. Since then, the stock price has gone downwards, and Kodak has struggled badly to survive. Well, Bill Gates predicted way too early and but this not the only time he predicted too early and came true after many year. Again, He also not only got wrong with way too early prediction and failed.

If you think the Apple iWatch is the first smartwatch, here’s something you may not know.
Bill Gates launched the smartwatch in 2002. He launched the first-ever smartwatch called Microsoft SPOT at the Comdex Trade Show in Las Vegas. It was 13 years before Apple launched its iWatch in 2015. Unfortunately, Microsoft SPOT failed miserably. At that time, there was no Bluetooth or Wifi. It was running on FM transmission, and people had to pay $60 a year to use it. So, it failed miserably.

It’s worse to be too early than to be wrong. And the Microsoft SPOT was too original in 2002.
You have probably heard from others to come up with an original idea. In fact, we all think of coming up with something novel and an original product idea. But you can not come up with an absolutely new idea. In this podcast, we will discuss two things.

1. Why will vastly different product ideas from the market would fail?
2. How should your product be similar to others and still be successful?

Let’s dive in.

The person who came up with the feature on Spotify called ‘Discover Weekly’ is Mathew Ogle.
He came up with the idea of generating an automatic playlist for users based on what they like. It’s the personalized playlists of new songs the users may like to listen to. It was called “Your Daily Mix” and it became a useful tool for Spotify. When this feature was built up, a bug came up that was showing a few songs that people had listened to before. Ogle’s team fixed this bug and showcased to the listeners songs they had never heard before, and they thought people would like this feature. But it failed.

The engagement dropped dramatically!
When the listeners were finding songs they never or less likely heard before, they stopped listening. This feature of recommended songs was annoying listeners. So, Ogle’s team reintroduced this bug and showcasing few of the known songs to listeners. As a result, the engagement dramatically increased. Listeners were feeling comfortable with familiar songs.

Familiarity increased the engagement.
It’s because people trust familiar things more than they trust unfamiliar things. This idea works not only with songs. It applies to any idea, product, service, concept, belief and even opinion. People buy the product because they have seen something similar to it before. People feel uncomfortable and sometimes less confident about the brand new or novel idea, product, belief or opinion. The question we are going to deal with now is how our product can be similar but not exactly similar, better, and still unique for customers. Let’s talk about it in the second part of this podcast.

What if you could carry a whole library of your own books anywhere and read them at any time and anywhere?
This is possible with one of my favourite devices, the Kindle Reader. Amazon developed Kindle reader at Lab126, which is Amazon’s secret hardware lab established in 2004. Amazon spent millions of dollars to create a device that is easy to use and simple to access device to read your books. They launched in 2007 and it has created a whole new experience of reading books. It’s convenient, compact and user-friendly. It didn’t only change the experience of reading but also gave access to publishers and authors to reach to readers who could not have access to their paperback or hardcover books.

The Kindle reader is not an absolutely new idea.
Yes, you can buy, download and read the books instantly but Amazon created this product to provide the same books digitally to all over the world as an option to paperback or hardcover versions of the books. The idea of Kindle was connected with the familiar idea of Books. By connecting your product to an existing successful product, you can easily convince people to trust you. Many big companies use the same concept of familiarity.

For example,
YouTube was pitched as ‘Flickr for Videos.’
Airbnb was pitched as “eBay for homes.’
Uber was pitched as ‘Airbnb for cabs.”
In the same way, the Kindle reader was pitched as “iTunes for books.’

“X” for “Y” is a format that works well for distilling and connecting your idea so that it can be understood more easily.
It helps people relate to something they already understand more easily. What’s the lesson? People fear things that are too novel. Familiarity generates trust. So, connect your new ideas to existing familiar ideas. So, what’s your product idea, and how can you connect with something that is already familiar to others and still better than others? Before we end this podcast, here’s the quote from Raymond Loewy

“To sell something surprising, make it familiar, and to sell something familiar, make it surprising.”

I hope you find it helpful. If you like it, share it far and wide.

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