Scene 1: At a recent conference, Cal Henderson, cofounder of Slack, said: there’s no better feeling than him walking into a random cafe in a random city and seeing someone using Slack.
Scene 2: A few years ago I was having dinner with an early member at LINE, a messaging app practically everyone in Japan uses. We were at a rooftop restaurant in Tokyo. Looking out over the city, he said: “see all these people, on the streets, in the cars and inside those buildings? I bet EVERY single one of them is using LINE. Isn’t that amazing?”
Seeing a random stranger you have never met using the product you created. That’s the best feeling – it’s the strongest substance a founder can ever taste.
But you might say: only a handful of products reach everyone. The top 20 apps and top 20 websites probably barely changed over the last few years.
It can be a different story if you niche down. Maybe not everyone uses your product, but what if every mom of a newborn baby does? Or, every classic car enthusiast?
My friend Sung M. Cho built Chartmetric, a smart data platform for music labels. Not everyone on the street uses it. But everyone in music industry knows it. Guess what kind of treatment he’s getting when he walks into a music industry conference.
For founders, this is the real dream. Not big exits, not making more money. But walking into a place and seeing a random stranger using the product you created. That’s our opioid that keeps us going, despite all those impossible odds.