These are crucial: How much better is your solution?
Why would they switch to your solution?
Switching costs are often underestimated and it's hard to come up with a solid answer for this in many businesses. And even if you do have people who would switch, it's hard to get the distribution to implement a way of getting those users who want to switch.
"Did you know Airbnb thought the “breakfast” in Airbed & Breakfast was a crucial part of their product experience at one time?"
There's a screenshot I've seen from an early version of Airbnb where the listing page was divided into thirds, with a photo of the apartment, a photo of the host, and a photo of the breakfast (!!) all the same size. They really thought a good breakfast was important for listing your unit.
In early days of Airbnb, they were entering market with bigger competitors like HomeAway and Couchserfing. In those days their breakfast service was one of the biggest differentiators. They focused on small niche of the market. Once they outgrew that niche, they dropped the breakfast option. It makes nice narrative, when Brian Chesky says how naive they were in the beginning to insist on breakfast. But actually it was well executed entrance into a market - focus on small niche, until you have product market fit and then drop the features that prevent from extending from that niche.
Agreed. That question could be added to the list. The problem though is that question rarely gets an honest answer from the startup founder. The founder HAS to say yes. It's best for the questioner to ask these other questions and then make a judgement on this one in the background.
Yeah, I don't know whether they would ask that. It's definitely something that entrepreneurs need to ask themselves though. I see too many people running around the Valley like chickens with their heads cut off, getting excited over solutions without a problem. Both technical guys who are so excited about the shiny product they're making and non-technical guys who are convinced that their "vision" is correct. As a technical guy, I don't write a single line of code until I have confirmed that there are actually people with a problem who will pay me for what I'm hawking.
Switching costs are often underestimated and it's hard to come up with a solid answer for this in many businesses. And even if you do have people who would switch, it's hard to get the distribution to implement a way of getting those users who want to switch.
"Did you know Airbnb thought the “breakfast” in Airbed & Breakfast was a crucial part of their product experience at one time?"
I did not! Interesting.