The internet is full of conditional phantom buys: “I’ll buy if they’d make one for less than $300”, “I’m getting it when it hits version 2”, “Until they add this feature, I can’t get it”. At the surface, all these conditions sound very reasonable. Or well, often they’re not all that reasonable, even arbitrary, but at least they represent a personal statement of value. Until this condition is met, I won’t part with my money.
The problem for anyone driving their decisions off conditional phantom buys is of course that these statements are as fickle as they are cheap. It costs nothing to claim to have ready cash if you can get a company to follow your pet goat. It doesn’t actually mean you’ll have to get money out of pocket when it happens.
The deceiving part of these birds in the bush is that the proposition is proposed as a one-to-one barter. You give me this one thing and you’ll be rewarded with all the gold you can carry from everyone who’s just like me!
Except that most such propositions are just window shopping that gloss over all the other implicit barriers to purchase that’ll surface when the pet goat has been fed.
So take the ultimatum-based shopper’s mirage with a grain of salt. It can undoubtedly contain pointers of interest, but don’t go projecting revenue growth off them.
Brian Webb
on 24 Sep 07David,
Great words. We are getting to launch a new product for churches and business, although primarily for churches at first. I’ve read your book and check your blog every day.
Today’s post is great for people like me and my team. On our new promo site which is live, but not completed yet… http://www.churchmediaportal.com - I’ve followed the formula from “Getting Real” which has been so very helpful. I’d be thrilled to get your perspective from it if it’s convenient for you. Good stuff. You can see the actual product we’re developing at http://www.loudcreative.com/mpbusiness - We’re still working out the last couple of kinks… but it’s getting there.
Keep up the great posts. They’re enlightening for us as we’re entering into this.
Brian
Darrel
on 24 Sep 07Very true.
At the same time, don’t do the opposite, either. ;o)
Phil J Leitch
on 24 Sep 07My personal favorite right now is the people that demand HD quality video for everything. Not going to buy a Wii until it is 720p. Not going to purchase video from iTunes until it is HD. Until the AppleTV can do true HD I won’t buy onw. And so on.
You have to wonder if these people only started watching television in the recent past. What were they doing before HD?
My biggest pet peeve recently has been what you wrote, it seems half of the comments on any blog related to a gadget or software are people declaring their “I’ll buy if…” pledges.
Eric Gruber
on 24 Sep 07Yeah, I’m going to have to disagree. Just because I’m one of those people that actually DOES have the money saved up for a certain item. However, this particular item ended up being released not long ago but wasn’t what I was expecting.
So, I’ll hold onto my money for now and be content with what I have. But when the item I’ve got the cash is worth of my dollar, I’ll buy it that day.
I actually WANT to put my money where my mouth is. If companies don’t listen to their customers, or even potential customers, then why are they in business?
Robert Fischer
on 24 Sep 07This is why a lot of businesses/projects don’t listen to the street, but only listen to people who are already invested. In the case of businesses, this means that they listen only to their existent customers. In the case of projects, that means listening to the people already using the library.
This is a classic chicken/pig discernment problem, and it’s one I had when I tried to start a coworking center: a lot of people were willing to sign up as “interested”, but when it came to actually sign a contract, everyone suddenly had conditions and hesitancy. Plenty of people were willing to join the coworking center—once it had been up and running for 6 months. Or if it provided all these other services (SVN hosting, etc.) for the same price. Or whatever.
Eric
on 24 Sep 07I’m one of those people too, but only because I have been burnt too many times by companies that have oversold and underdelivered.
For example Apple’s latest round of iPod/iPhones. I went out and ordered a new nano for my wife because it’s perfect for her. Simple, small, and has more than enough capacity to store the music that she wants to listen to.
For myself I have taken a pass on the latest generation because there are far too many limitations and drawbacks from what I have already ( 5g 60GB iPod ).
Neither the iPhone or iPod touch support WPA-Enterprise. These are the FIRST Apple Wireless devices in 4 years that don’t support it.
The touch is woefully lacking in storage space for a video device, has no disk mode, and the non-iPod apps are crippled.
The iPod classic seems like a nice refinement over my current model, but short of additional capacity ( that I have no need for ATM ) there is no compelling reason to upgrade.
But I don’t whine, I understand that I’m not part of the current demographic. I hope that they change the features in the future, but I’m not holding my breath, but I will hold onto my cash.
Paul S
on 24 Sep 07Perhaps we should regard “I’ll buy if…” conditionals as useful information in aggregate. When you get several people independently saying they’ll buy if condition X is met, you’re probably not looking at one bird in the bush, you might have an entire flock hiding in there.
Josh Walsh
on 24 Sep 07Often times there are good reasons for waiting to purchase. Maybe version 1 doesn’t have everything they need, and want to wait for version 2.
In retrospect, many people use this as an excuse not to buy, which is the same as never talking to a sales person in the first place.
RJ
on 24 Sep 07Maybe you’re not doing enough to educate them on why you need their product. We recently began contracting with Vito Gambrese family, and we’ve found that our largest detractors have become some of our best customers. Coincidence?
Sandy
on 24 Sep 07I saw some pet goats this weekend at the heritage farm tour in King County, WA. They’re charming animals.
Tyler
on 24 Sep 07I’ll buy a new macbook pro once they release leopard. Because why should I but it now then pay for the upgrade in a month… Flaw in that logic?
AJ
on 24 Sep 07@ Eric’s comment: > The touch is woefully lacking in storage space for a video device, has no disk mode, and the non-iPod apps are crippled.
Well, Apple decided to keep the iTouch thin. So with flash memory, 16GB is all they could fit. It’s a design trade-off.
It’s easy to criticize a device; it’s harder to understand why it is the way it is. There are usually many issues that factor in to the personality of the device (what it can and cannot do).
Jeff
on 24 Sep 07Good points. Feature requests & improvements from existing customers should have more weight.
Tony
on 24 Sep 07I have the chance to buy and upgrade to Vista but I’m sticking to Windows XP until Vista proves itself worthy of being the “next version”... or maybe it’s time to try a Mac.
David Parke
on 24 Sep 07David, your post also applies to software companies who raise venture capital. Beware of the VC’s who tell you: I’ll invest when you have a shipping product, I’ll invest when you have more than $3mm in revenue, I’ll invest when you no longer have any major client concentration, etc. This syndrome becomes especially bad if they’re trying to raise money so that they can add features to their product that people have told them: “I’ll buy this product when it has this feature…”
Tony
on 24 Sep 07When the iPhone was released, I told myself that I’d get it after a few months when the 1.) price has drop and 2.) the initial wrinkles have been ironed out. With the recent price drop, I’m glad I waited :-)
Keith
on 24 Sep 07I have to say that these “I’ll buy it if…” folks fall into that mythical 20% in the 80/20 rule in my past experience.
At first glance, a smaller start-up might feel bullied by this initially, but rest assured that if your product is good and fills a need the “feature speculators” and “If only birds” will go away and dollars will speak much louder.
That said, the rules laid out in “Getting Real” are actually pretty valuable in terms of compiling the “If only” statements to see if you really did overlook an optimization or perhaps a feature that actually WOULD help folks out in the long run.
Charlton
on 24 Sep 07I think there are two kinds of “I’ll buy if” statements.
One is a legitimate expression of customer desire: I’ll buy a MacBook if they offer a matte-screen option, because I’ve used laptops with glossy screens and they drive me azurely mad. So as it stands I’m saving my pennies for a MacBook Pro and hoping that (a) my ancient Powerbook holds out until I have enough pennies and (b) they release a 12” subnotebook first. But if Apple were to release a MacBook with a matte screen tomorrow, I would be at the Apple store tomorrow night.
Another is a rationalization of lack of interest: I’ll buy a MacBook if they offer a matte-screen option, because I really don’t want a MacBook enough to buy one. But if Apple were to release a MacBook with a matte screen tomorrow, suddenly I would decide that I was going to hold out for 802.11n networking. Or 120GB of disk space. Or 2G of RAM standard.
Both of these situations look like the same statement: “I would buy a MacBook if it had a matte-screen option.” Discerning which meaning is intended is critical; it’s as much of a mistake to ignore the former example because it’s an if-only statement as it is to jump to respond to the second one because it’s an I-would-buy statement.
some guy
on 24 Sep 07i’m waiting on the iphone because i knew the price would drop steeply in < 12 months and i bet the next generation will be a lot better, the way the 5th gen ipod makes 1st gen look like crap.
that’s not unreasonable, and not unfounded, or arbitrary. i personally know half a dozen people who feel exactly the same way.
Darrel
on 24 Sep 07“I saw some pet goats this weekend at the heritage farm tour in King County, WA. They’re charming animals.”
That’s the greatest comment ever. Made me smile.
Seth
on 25 Sep 07DHH, as owner and operator of a fledgling startup software business I think this pretty much every day.
...if I only had a dollar for every time I got contacted by a “conditional buyer”....
I’m finding it much better to stay the course and stick to the vision you have for your application. This piggybacks on the “just say no” to all new requests mantra.
The features that really matter will make themselves known just by frequency of request. Most of the time I find that you can accomplish someone’s goal in a much broader and more flexible way than they can describe it.
It’s foolish to run around implementing pet features. Who says one person’s method of working will fit for everyone else?
viewer
on 25 Sep 07I agree with charlton
Mathew Patterson
on 25 Sep 07Even if they actually do end up buying, there is a risk that in chasing after these potential customers you lose the customers you already have.
Often your time is better spent making sure the things that drew in your existing customers keep getting better and not left to moulder behind the new and the shiny.
Ron
on 25 Sep 07The issue for me is the whole, “Let’s do something for each other—you go first” idea.
It’s attempted bribery at best. At worst, it’s blackmail—“If you don’t do X for me, I’ll do Y to you” (quit the relationship, tell the world, whatever.)
Anyone who makes statements like that is already gone. They have already left mutuality-based relationship and gone into negotiations. Even if you comply, you only reinforce their view, so they stay in negotiation mode. They almost never return to relationship based on mutuality.
Vera
on 26 Sep 07I think that if enough people keep asking for something, then they would actually buy it, but the conditional aspect is very much a two way street. For example, if many people said that they wished for a converible version of a certain car, the company made it, and no one bought it, it would be easy to blame the scenario on the customer driven development. Customers aren’t developers, though. It isn’t their job, for instance, to look at whether the specific market for convertibles is saturated or underserviced. It isn’t their job to decide on how to make your convertible the best rather than the worst available. The product you develop and offer is either great or it isn’t, it either hits the spot or it doesn’t, and what potential customers said they wanted is only one of many factors involved in those disparate outcomes.
What people say they want and what they’ll buy can differ as much as what companies say they’ll build and what they actually end up offering. A lot of the differences in that can be simply a lack of communication. I can tell you I want X, but unless you know that I want it to fit perfectly with my Y and my Z, you might come up with an X that doesn’t do that. A company, on the other hand, can set out to create something that will be an organizational tool, and the end product can be terrific, but it is another X that doesn’t fit with Y and Z. So I do agree with your post, in that extremely limited communication can often have extremely limited value.
Vera
Scott Wilson
on 26 Sep 07Wherever possible, I like to turn it around and say,
If you’ll buy it, I’ll commit to adding desired feature X in timeframe Y.
Scott
schwabsauce
on 28 Sep 07in my site we let people bid on ideas as one way of figuring out which are really marketable. to drive people towards honesty, I wanted to make the bids binding if the product was ever produced at that price point. but I’ve been informed that pre-orders aren’t binding so we’ll have to enforce them through our reputation system.
This discussion is closed.