{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-blog-post-js","path":"/hunting-for-the-big-ideas/","result":{"data":{"site":{"siteMetadata":{"title":"Catwomaniya"}},"mdx":{"id":"559029d6-a818-5bfe-9f9a-de4dc3349394","excerpt":"An idea is born somewhere relatively obscure (maybe in a garage somewhere), spreads to small communities of hardcore enthusiasts (like Kickstarter and Reddit…","body":"function _extends() { _extends = Object.assign || function (target) { for (var i = 1; i < arguments.length; i++) { var source = arguments[i]; for (var key in source) { if (Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(source, key)) { target[key] = source[key]; } } } return target; }; return _extends.apply(this, arguments); }\n\nfunction _objectWithoutProperties(source, excluded) { if (source == null) return {}; var target = _objectWithoutPropertiesLoose(source, excluded); var key, i; if (Object.getOwnPropertySymbols) { var sourceSymbolKeys = Object.getOwnPropertySymbols(source); for (i = 0; i < sourceSymbolKeys.length; i++) { key = sourceSymbolKeys[i]; if (excluded.indexOf(key) >= 0) continue; if (!Object.prototype.propertyIsEnumerable.call(source, key)) continue; target[key] = source[key]; } } return target; }\n\nfunction _objectWithoutPropertiesLoose(source, excluded) { if (source == null) return {}; var target = {}; var sourceKeys = Object.keys(source); var key, i; for (i = 0; i < sourceKeys.length; i++) { key = sourceKeys[i]; if (excluded.indexOf(key) >= 0) continue; target[key] = source[key]; } return target; }\n\n/* @jsx mdx */\nvar _frontmatter = {\n  \"title\": \"Hunting for the big ideas\",\n  \"date\": \"2021-05-30\",\n  \"description\": \"\"\n};\nvar layoutProps = {\n  _frontmatter: _frontmatter\n};\nvar MDXLayout = \"wrapper\";\nreturn function MDXContent(_ref) {\n  var components = _ref.components,\n      props = _objectWithoutProperties(_ref, [\"components\"]);\n\n  return mdx(MDXLayout, _extends({}, layoutProps, props, {\n    components: components,\n    mdxType: \"MDXLayout\"\n  }), mdx(\"p\", null, \"An idea is born somewhere relatively obscure (maybe in a garage somewhere), spreads to small communities of hardcore enthusiasts (like Kickstarter and Reddit), and sometime later takes the mainstream by surprise when it suddenly explodes into popularity.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"The journey is familiar in the context of startups, but it applies to important ideas and technologies more broadly.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"One example is bitcoin, which began as an interesting whitepaper published in 2008 that was circulated among cryptography experts for a few years before coming to the attention of the mainstream startup community. Now, it\\u2019s a cryptocurrency\\u200A \\u2014 and blockchain protocol\\u200A \\u2014 sensation where activity is being tracked closely and community splits are being chronicled by newspapers around the world \"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"Is there a way to catch these ideas as they emerge, in their very early stages?It\\u2019s difficult, because the places where these sleeper trends begin are seemingly random and obscure.\"), mdx(\"h2\", null, \"WHERE NEW IDEAS \\u2018COME FROM\\u2019\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"Spotting these ideas has an element of serendipity and luck to it, but there are some things we can all do to improve our chances of finding an important trend before it hits the mainstream. The techniques aren\\u2019t different from what media and marketing \\u201Ccoolhunters\\u201D or trendspotters do to find pop culture trends early: It\\u2019s one part looking in the right places and cultivating the right sources, and one part noticing anomalies and acting quickly.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"The places where sleeper trends begin are by definition unpredictable, so it\\u2019s important to cast a broad net among interesting discussion groups or hobbyist communities\\u200A \\u2014 virtual or physical\\u200A \\u2014 \\u200Athat seem like good incubators for new ideas.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"The next step is to keep track of what these groups are doing by setting up streams of information about them\\u200A \\u2014 \\u200Aanything from subscribing to newsletters and discovering good blogs in that space, to attending meetups and conferences.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"One of the best ways to stay informed is by building a network of \\u201Csocial gateways\\u201D, people who are well connected in the communities you want to watch but that are also far enough outside your usual network that you are hearing about new things. Then, when a particularly compelling idea surfaces, you will hear about it early.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"Some communities are far more likely to produce winning ideas than others. In his classic work \", mdx(\"a\", _extends({\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, {\n    \"href\": \"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations\"\n  }), \"The Diffusion of Innovations\"), \", sociologist Everett Rogers describes the characteristics of so-called \\u201Cearly adopters\\u201D\\u200A\\u2013\\u200Apeople who are more likely to find and use new technology.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"These people are usually open-minded and scientific in their mindset, and have time or money to spend on trying new things. Any group with these characteristics is a good place for technologies to germinate, which is perhaps why college campuses make great testbeds for not only spotting but trying out new products.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"The best groups of early adopters are extroverted and have lots of social ties, because the more connected they are, the faster new ideas spread through the group. This is why trends often start with young people in cities, rather than in sprawling suburban neighborhoods, even though the latter group may be just as willing to try out the same new things.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"Highly connected groups can be either offline (densely populated cities or other clusters) or online (tight-knit online communities). A really good sign of such a highly connected group is one that has a newly formed, makeshift online presence, like a dedicated Slack channel or fast-growing subreddit (r/nameofgrouportopic). That usually means the group is both new and highly connected.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"The number of small groups where ideas could surface is too large to watch them all, so it may be preferable to look further along the path, where ideas collect\\u200A \\u2014 \\u200Ain communities that aren\\u2019t very big, but have outsized importance or influence. The places to watch aren\\u2019t so much \\u201Cgatekeepers\\u201D or curators of culture, like influential editors, as they are tastemakers.\"), mdx(\"h2\", null, \"SPOTTING AN IMPORTANT TREND\"), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"span\", _extends({\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, {\n    \"className\": \"gatsby-resp-image-wrapper\",\n    \"style\": {\n      \"position\": \"relative\",\n      \"display\": \"block\",\n      \"marginLeft\": \"auto\",\n      \"marginRight\": \"auto\",\n      \"maxWidth\": \"554px\"\n    }\n  }), \"\\n      \", mdx(\"a\", _extends({\n    parentName: \"span\"\n  }, {\n    \"className\": \"gatsby-resp-image-link\",\n    \"href\": \"/static/286f3be7090e8c923d447d51901561c3/04abd/s88.png\",\n    \"style\": {\n      \"display\": \"block\"\n    },\n    \"target\": \"_blank\",\n    \"rel\": \"noopener\"\n  }), \"\\n    \", mdx(\"span\", _extends({\n    parentName: \"a\"\n  }, {\n    \"className\": \"gatsby-resp-image-background-image\",\n    \"style\": {\n      \"paddingBottom\": \"69.5945945945946%\",\n      \"position\": \"relative\",\n      \"bottom\": \"0\",\n      \"left\": \"0\",\n      \"backgroundImage\": \"url('data:image/png;base64,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')\",\n      \"backgroundSize\": \"cover\",\n      \"display\": \"block\"\n    }\n  })), \"\\n  \", mdx(\"img\", _extends({\n    parentName: \"a\"\n  }, {\n    \"className\": \"gatsby-resp-image-image\",\n    \"alt\": \"technology adoption cycle\",\n    \"title\": \"technology adoption cycle\",\n    \"src\": \"/static/286f3be7090e8c923d447d51901561c3/04abd/s88.png\",\n    \"srcSet\": [\"/static/286f3be7090e8c923d447d51901561c3/12f09/s88.png 148w\", \"/static/286f3be7090e8c923d447d51901561c3/e4a3f/s88.png 295w\", \"/static/286f3be7090e8c923d447d51901561c3/04abd/s88.png 554w\"],\n    \"sizes\": \"(max-width: 554px) 100vw, 554px\",\n    \"style\": {\n      \"width\": \"100%\",\n      \"height\": \"100%\",\n      \"margin\": \"0\",\n      \"verticalAlign\": \"middle\",\n      \"position\": \"absolute\",\n      \"top\": \"0\",\n      \"left\": \"0\"\n    },\n    \"loading\": \"lazy\"\n  })), \"\\n  \"), \"\\n    \")), mdx(\"p\", null, \"In the early days of a new idea, it\\u2019s often the case that nobody is paying for anything. One way of guessing at economic impact, is by looking at \\u201Cproxy for demand\\u201D\\u200A \\u2014 \\u200Ahow much people will pay for similar alternatives\\u200A \\u2014 \\u200Aand on the other side, looking at \\u201Cproxy for supply\\u201D\\u200A\\u2013 how expensive something was to produce before.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"But it\\u2019s still tricky, because it\\u2019s so hard to estimate the economic changes brought by a disruptive technology. It can be dangerous to dismiss or embrace trends solely for this reason.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"Finally, while rapid exponential growth is a good sign, it\\u2019s not everything. Internet memes have huge growth as well. Most ideas that quickly attract a large audience are actually just fads, and it\\u2019s important to be able to pick out the important ones. One good sign is evidence of a \\u201Csecret\\u201D, or some plausible reasoning why this idea couldn\\u2019t have manifested itself before now. With bitcoin, the secret is the technical breakthrough described in the bitcoin paper; where previous efforts at distributed trust and decentralized resourcing failed, it coupled bitcoin (incentives) with the blockchain protocol (distributed ledger) to solve those problems.\"), mdx(\"h2\", null, \"GOING MAINSTREAM\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"Having a breakthrough or a community of early adopters clearly isn\\u2019t enough. So how does one tell a trend\\u200A \\u2014 \\u200Asomething that continues to spread\\u200A \\u2014 from a fad\\u200A \\u2014 \\u200Asomething that flares briefly and dies? The key is it needs to spread beyond the group of early adopters to the rest of the world, and there needs to be a real pathway for this to happen.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"Before the internet, this path was from metropolitan centers, through the suburbs to the rest of the population. For ideas that spread purely online, the path could be through a big aggregator site like Reddit. Another pattern is spread by institutional similarity: Facebook was able to easily spread from Harvard to clusters of students in other schools, because of the structural similarity of most universities to each other despite other differences they may have.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"Another path is by latching on to a different fast-growing community. In the 1990s, one of the big marketing successes of Sprite was advertising to the hip-hop subculture before it became mainstream. This type of path is especially important in technology, as subcultures that go through massive exponential growth are common. Targeting fast-growing communities is a common strategy for startups who want to see their user base grow. \"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"Gaming has been a good example of an underrated community for the last few years\\u200A \\u2014 \\u200Adespite little prestige, it\\u2019s a surprisingly large and influential subculture, and gamers have been early adopters of ideas like livestreaming and VR.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"And while in an ideal world, futurists could rationally deduce what the next big trend will be- , the reality is that these systems are complex and more fluid, change compounds and build on each other, and there are lots of unknown unknowns to account for.\"));\n}\n;\nMDXContent.isMDXComponent = true;","frontmatter":{"title":"Hunting for the big ideas","date":"May 30, 2021","description":""}}},"pageContext":{"slug":"/hunting-for-the-big-ideas/","previous":{"fields":{"slug":"/NFT-what-are-they/"},"frontmatter":{"title":"NFTs - What are they. Why are they amazing and why they suck."}},"next":{"fields":{"slug":"/how-to-create-a-NFT-marketplace/"},"frontmatter":{"title":"How to create a NFT marketplace"}}}}}