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I would define "need" as per Reiss 16 Motives:

- Acceptance/Self-confidence - the need to be appreciated

- Curiosity, the need to gain knowledge

- Eating, the need for food - Family/Love, the need to take care of one’s offspring

- Honor, the need to be faithful to the customary values of an individual’s ethnic group, family or clan

- Idealism, the need for social justice

- Independence/Freedom, the need to be distinct and self-reliant

- Order, the need for prepared, established, and conventional environments

- Physical activity/Vitality, the need for work out of the body

- Power/Efficacy, the need for control of will

- Romance, the need for mating or sex

- Saving/Ownership, the need to accumulate something

- Social contact/Fun, the need for relationship with others

- Social status/Self-Importance, the need for social significance

- Tranquility/Safe, the need to be secure and protected

- Vengeance, the need to strike back against another person



But that only defines human needs, and not whether a specific app is a need and/or whether it’s just a nice to have.

I could make the best new social network, which addresses a need, but hardly anyone really needs another social network.

So how do I distinguish between a need or a nice to have within this context?


You actually answered the question in your statement above.

It has to be an unmet need. The key word being "un-met"

You said:

> "hardly anyone really needs another social network"

You're absolutely correct.

The first phase of social networks had a lot of early adoption for many different social networks circa 2003, because at that time the need was unmet.

Then the world settled on a winner, Facebook.

Now that's no longer an unmet need.

But in reality, there are limits to being able to predict a winner.

If that existed, starting a winning business would be easy.

We only have heuristics, no crystal ball.

Also, spotting a need is not the same as satisfying it.

It's why Steve Jobs could arrive late to the party and build a winner that leapfrogged the competition over and over again.


The process of getting from nice to have to need is called marketing.


I think that’s an oversimplification, that downplays the necessity of having an idea that’s not just a nice to have.




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