Comments on: Startups Are Missing the Mac Opportunity

By: Johnnie Manzari

Johnnie Manzari — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:00:07 +0000

Great post. Especially if you’re working in the multimedia space you’re making a huge mistake by not embracing the Mac crowd.

By: Om Malik : » Slide For Mac, Almost Ready

Om Malik : » Slide For Mac, Almost Ready — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 16:26:56 +0000

[...] So far there has been a little buzz on the company because for one simple reason - many of the bloggers are Mac users. I have argued in the past that a start-up short on cash to spend on PR efforts should try going the Mac route first, because it brings in early adopters and influencers. (John Dvorak would disagree and call the influencers biased… but then…) The Gizmo Project is a perfect example. Of their 250,000 users nearly 1/3rd are Mac users. Imeem is working on a Mac client as well. [...]

By: Random Jottings

Random Jottings — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 22:20:37 +0000

I think this makes sense…

Om Malik writes; A few months ago I wrote that start-ups are missing out a big opportunity by not addressing the Mac market first. Mac users are early adopters and amongst them are many bloggers/media people who can help…

By: The Apple Blog » Entrepreneurs: The Mac Opportunity

The Apple Blog » Entrepreneurs: The Mac Opportunity — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 00:33:28 +0000

[...] iasm from the Mac Community. It would appear Michael Robertson heeded the advice he had sent out to developers of online communities. Mac OS X is o [...]

By: rajesh

rajesh — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 12:30:52 +0000

Oops - you did say it in your article. Never mind

By: rajesh

rajesh — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 12:29:52 +0000

Om - dont forget, Mac users also tend to be early adopters of newer technology.

By: Alexander Grundner

Alexander Grundner — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 03:12:11 +0000

I’ll put my vote in for Linux as well. I’m seriously considering moving from Windows to Linux and would love to see more “mainstream” products and services working on the platform. With that said, I’m sure a group of Linux software developers will create a sourceforge project that will do what Orb does and make it freely available with no monthly fees. The trick to this application is to have your PC at home optimize the files for your mobile/remote device (Orb uses their own servers for this process).

Side note: Om, checkout Xandros and Novell SUSE Linux desktop — both kick major butt. Also one of our eHomeUpgrade readers listed his Linux Desktop Media Center PC configuration (http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=685)

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 01:14:07 +0000

Will, Linux is cool but I guess when I wrote the piece I wanted folks to know that this mac thing is what gets people writing about your stuff and create the buzz any new company needs sorely. linux is not mainstream desktop use right now -

By: Will

Will — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 00:51:16 +0000

I think there is a lot of truth in marketing to the Macintosh, particularly if you have a new innovative product that takes a big marketing push to convince people that they need it.

I’ll stand corrected if I’m wrong, but I believe in the early days of Palm, a big percentage of users were Macintosh despite the Windows/Macintosh ratio at the time. The same I believe was true of Visioneer PaperPort and their sheetfed scanner product in the mid 90s.

The only caveat I’d add would be to add Linux to the mix. If you want to go ultra-cheap on marketing and development, why not create your product on Linux first? If the business model can handle the source code being available to competitors, not only does Linux help get you a community of avid users quickly, it also gives you a better channel to communicate directly with your users, strengthen the robustness of your application, and help identify future features that are key to your success. It puts some risk to the business plan, but it certainly gives a company momentum if they are first to market.