Comments on: Should Early Adopters Reap The Rewards for a Startup’s Growth?

By: Kit

Kit — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:50:20 +0000

Early adopters don’t do it “for the good of the industry”.
They do it because they have a desire to be in on the next cool new thing – and while that does help boost the signal, it’s not as though the company owes them for it.
The company has a primary responsibility to do what benefits the COMPANY.
It’s called staying in business ? Making a profit ?
If your company exists for other reasons, you’re running a charity.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I am going to comment anonymously tonight – I am an early adopter and agree that it was wrong of Twitter to only show off their celebrity users – but I would say we all saw it coming.

I love helping services and providing feedback though I agree that services need to remember who helped them get big in the first place.

By: david

david — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This reminds me of how I felt when The Clash played Shea Stadium. Sad that they sold out. Sad that my personal secret favorite band was now known to everyone.

Twitter is just a tool There will be new tools to play with soon enough.

By: Andrew Shuttleworth

Andrew Shuttleworth — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I think it is good to reward early adopters in some way. Featuring them automatically is not necessarily the right thing. Some alternative ideas are:

- Giving them a little extra consideration when considering the featured list (although this should be secondary, the list should compiled primarily compiled to achieve whatever goals they are trying to achieve).

- Giving early adopters an early heads up on new features. (This is win-win because it becomes a viral marketing channel)

- Listening to early adopters and implementing features for them, even if they are not features that the mass market would want. (I think companies make the mistake of ignoring the needs of the early adopters once they start to reach the mass market).