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December 26, 2005
The Price of Passion
Kathy Sierra writes about The Koolaid Point (via Barry Moltz's blog), where your users become so enthusiastic about your product or service that other users or non-users start to hate it, or you, or the enthusiastic users. (Think of the abuse a Starbucks addict gets from someone who hates Starbucks.)
No one has tattooed my logo to their chest yet, but years ago I visited one of our distributors and was surprised to see our logo (in cut vinyl) covering the back window of his car. We didn’t even have it on our company-owned vehicles.
Since then our users have only become more passionate. I’ve seen computers decorated with our graphics and homemade t-shirts made with our brand. People love our product.
Some people hate it, though. I have received near rabid emails from people who don’t like our software, or our web site, or, well, all-of-you-and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on. I used to be hurt, and to spend a lot of time trying to win these people over. But Kathy has it right: trying to please everyone can lead to death by mediocrity. It is better to build something people are passionate about, and to accept the detractors as the price of passion.
Posted by Bob Pritchett at December 26, 2005 06:13 AM
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