A founder who started an agency after the App Store launched argues that software falls into two categories: tools that save time and entertainment that makes time fly. Google and TikTok blur the line as consumer utilities that do both, and a product's success often hinges on how well it serves one of these core needs.
Well over a decade ago, I had an agency called Evalight, and it started pretty much after the first iPhone came out and the App Store. And it was mostly focused on creating apps that save time or make time fly. We did that for ourselves and for other companies, and that principle Is a primary use case of why people and companies use software. So if you're trying to figure out what type of product to build, perhaps in a consumer setting, it's to make time fly, i.e., entertainment. And in an enterprise or work setting, it's to save time, make things more efficient. Right. So instead of something that would take me 100 steps, I use your software and I push a button and it's one step. There's things in the middle, a term we've coined called consumer utilities, where it combines both save time and make time fly. So that would be something like Google, right? It's a utility where you do a web search and they also give you a little Google Doodle. So a reason to keep you coming back, slightly entertaining. TikTok has done this really well, and they're now supposedly beating Google in search results because they've entertained billions of people using their short-form video app. And then they have a utility of teaching people things just based on search results. So how to make a cake, and there's your video for it. So yeah, as you think about what you build and why your product may have traction in the market, Odds are, if it does, it's because it saves time or makes time fly. That's it. Have a great one.
