The prior. Now-a-days, the majority of developers can build a quality app since infrastructure and tooling (heroku etc) are widely available, that you can paper over most completely horrible / unacceptable experiences by limiting features early on. If you pick a huge market and have simply 1-2 compelling features, you can go from nothing to something within 90 days typically, and then use that to become unstoppable.
I'm not sure I agree that quality isn't a major driver of success.
Two counterpoints:
- Shopify came in and dominated Magento and others via a much better quality product (later they built network effects with app store, but originally it was just an easier platform)
- Slack came into a workplace communication space where there were (arguably) free alternatives in IRC and others and won with a better, simpler product.
I think product quality is extremely important in determining success. I think it was less important 10-15 years ago as the web was establishing itself, but today consumers expect a polished, feature-complete experience.
But then how do I sell my mvp startup newsletter to all the people not capable of actually building a quality product? /s
In all seriousness, it is comical how often people apply revisionist explanations for the rise of certain companies. Its simple really. Great product + big market. You must have both, no exceptions.
