The most important decision when making a product is to decide for whom you are making that product. The implication here is that companies can choose their customers just as much as customers can choose companies (I'm not the first one to say this).
I have an observation that goes one step further. The most successful companies make products that appear to not need marketing at all, because the customer and message is hard baked into their identity.
This seems to be the successful strategy: make products for extremophiles(1) at the creation of your company and then continue to nurture that base as you grow. Extremophiles are sub groups of people that have a deep dedication to something obscure, identify with each other, and are loud. So they take notice when you make something specifically for them.
But that alone does not guarantee your success. Your product has to actually be great and help them become better at the things they already care about. If you can win them over, they might become radical evangelists.
Tesla wanted to build an efficient electric car for every family. But instead of attacking directly the complacent and boring family sedan market, they built the fastest electric car in the world and charged six figures. They knew that anyone trying to go from 0-60 in 3.7 seconds and also willing to pay top dollar would be an extremophile indeed. In fact Elon told everyone about his plan in 2006.
Facebook had the vision of connecting everyone in the world. Instead of asking everyone to put all their information online, they targeted college students. College students are an extremophile in many respects, but they have an especially high tolerance for being public with their life, and take more (taboo?) photos than anyone else with their newfangled smart phones. At least this was the case in 2005.
GoPro set out to make the smallest high definition video camera possible. Instead of selling to photography directors in Hollywood, where the quality standards are paramount, they went direct to extreme sports enthusiasts. Extreme sports, extremophile, you get the idea.
By making products for extremophiles, you might be able to convert them into radical evangelists.
P.S. More than a couple authors I respect have referenced Kevin Kelly's 1,000 True Fans in their writing before, and this was initially got me thinking about this concept. Perhaps 1,000 is good, but 1,000 extremophiles is better.
(1)I initially thought I made this word up, perhaps in an espresso induced sublimation. It turns out that an extremophile is "an organism that thrives in physically or geochemically extreme conditions that are detrimental to most life on Earth." So, I probably read about it some science news website somewhere and then transferred it accordingly. A fitting definition indeed.
