The most disruptive tools of the past decade start with a utility that can be applied immediately and give an advantage to early adopters. I can’t think of anything that is focused on a feature 5 years into the future that has been successful yet (the only exception I can think of is still on the horizon with VR/Augmented Reality which still hasn’t had its moment yet). Start with a great feature today and then evolve or jump ahead with a live user base.
A related topic to this is over-complicating a first release. There are few scenarios where simple isn’t better. A few rules:
- Never release a system that makes a new user’s life more confusing. Doing so gives you too big of a hurdle to overcome.
- Never release a system that promises to immediately cut the people required for a process. Anything new requires a learning curve – even if that curve is around internal processes. Learning curves can take a year to get through.
- Never release a system with huge promises about the future. If you make the future look too good, users will simply wait for that.
Technology is hard, stop making it harder than it needs to be.