Products - What defines Cool?

So what is the difference between 'Cool' for customers and 'Cool' for the IT community - and how do you tell?

All too often we see a Tech based company offering products that they think will take the Cool market by storm, but they don't take off in either the Tech market or the Mass market. We all know that we want to create Cool products and I'm pretty sure that most of us start out aiming for our products to be Cool, which now begs the question - Why don't we all have Cool products?

Some of the reasons for this could be that your product is great in your eyes only. See start-up.co.nz's article titled '10 ways to tell if your product is crap!' for a quick test, or codesqeeze.com's '101 Ways To Know Your Software Project Is Doomed' for a more comprehensive list of things to look out for.

Or maybe you have the wrong target audience - being Cool in a business market requires the 3 R's Rigour, Reliability and a Reason for being there, where-as being Cool in a consumer market may need features at a reasonable price and that's all.

Or maybe the fickle Cool market has moved on to a new Cool - Maybe brown isn't the new black any more maybe orange is - Keep in touch with the market place. Who's saying what about you and your products, and review what you are saying about your products (old info is just as bad as no info). For this Google is your friend, and http://search.twitter.com for twitter conversations.

Or maybe your price point is too high and people can't afford your Cool, or maybe the price is too low so your not Cool your just cheap.

Or maybe, just maybe, the product isn't Cool.

Or maybe we should all stop aiming at Cool and go with "it does what it says on the tin, is a reasonable price, and has had the right marketing". That way if the market makes it Cool then it's a bonus but if the market makes it useful then it will last in that market and you'll actually stand a better chance of making more money from it.

We would love to hear your thoughts on this one, especially as even after all that was written above, everyone is still trying to find the next Cool.

Cheers,
The Team at Serendipity IT Ltd