May I ask you why, being an experienced developer with an autistic child that know the actual state of the industry, you overlooked this opportunity?
It's a genuine question, because I do it all the times as well and then, when I realize it to late, I wonder why I didn't think about it in the first place. I would like to know if there is a pattern or something.
In this particular case my child is fairly high functioning and not non-verbal, so I wasn't aware of this particular need. We do use some small pictoral cards with him to help prepare him for transitions, but it's literally like laminated clip art. Don't really need something high tech. In that case presenting him with an ipad would likely just distract him...
But I sympathize with your general lament over "why didn't I think of that?" Haven't we all experienced that SO many times?
Spotting commercial opportunities is its own skill. Any experienced programmer could have made the v1 of Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc... but figuring out that people need that is nontrivial.
Is that how it works, or do lots of people build lots of things, and when a tiny handful of them go big the creators are retroactivley deemed prescient?
I think that there's no question you have to do some things right to succeed, but many people do things right and fail, because ultimately, a lot of it is just pure luck.
A lot of it is that the people build things they know will work (rather than things they think will work) tend to succeed more often. (At least in my own admittedly anecdotal experience) The hard work of research, initial sales and market validation is later retroactively glossed over as "vision" by onlookers.
Everyone is convinced that their startup is the next big thing. Some of them end up being right. Part of that was prescience, part of it was the "luck" to be obsessed with the right idea.
True. The reason why this went well for the developer is that he did direct sales to find early advocates, and didn't rely on an app store magic wand. Of course, that is possible with a $199 app, not so much with a $1.99 one.
It's a genuine question, because I do it all the times as well and then, when I realize it to late, I wonder why I didn't think about it in the first place. I would like to know if there is a pattern or something.