Friday, August 9, 2013

Bootstrapping 101 - The Next Big Thing

What's your next big thing?  Is anybody asking for it?  Is there a tribe that's waiting for what your going to make?  Unless you're doing your remarkable stuff just to do your remarkable stuff, these are questions you have to answer.

In his book The Bootstrapper's Bible Seth Godin reminds us that we need to find an unmet need to meet.  It would be nice to "build it and they will come" but bootstrappers generally don't have the resources to establish a need. As bootstrappers we need to listen for and find an unmet need around which a tribe is waiting to be born.  

OohLaLa is doing just that with their campus event social networking app.  Colleges need a way for their events to rise above the chatter and give students a away to use social networking to connect with what's going on at their campus.  OohLaLa built an app that meets that need and is selling it like hotcakes all over the world.

By tapping into an existing need the cost of building the tribe is within the bootstrapper's budget. Trying to build a tribe where they don't yet know they have a need is herculean considering the noise you need to rise above to get the attention of the market.

So what's your next big thing?  The tribe will tell you if you'll stop and listen.  And whatever it is, make it remarkable.

Go, do something remarkable.