When developing a new product, entrepreneurs shouldn’t strive to get to where they can imagine people using it, but instead to where they can’t imagine people NOT using it.
Any new product can promise some benefits and sometimes that is enough. But if utility remains unchanged when I DON’T use it, then there is an impasse.
Assuming that people typically take the path of least resistance; they will typically not proactively pursue products that increase utility with use, but that don’t affect utility one way or the other with non-use (early adopters aside). One way around the predilection towards inaction is to market the hell out of a product. If you manage to penetrate the consumers’ psyche with sheer virility or cleverness, then you can overcome the inertia towards action. However this is often beyond the budget or marketing savvy of many startups.
As an aside, this happens to be the “Hollywood” method: spend X on the product/content itself, and then spend multiples of X on firehosing the public with exposure. Once you do that, you can have a crap product and still pack the theatre. This isn’t conjecture, this happens all the time.
Another way around the tendency towards inaction is to arouse advocacy from early-adopters who are willing to proactively pursue higher utility, and are highly respected by others.
I prefer to create a product that is so compelling there is actually a disutility to not using it. This ups your odds dramatically. Typically a new product that exhibits a network effect (utility to a given user grows exponential as a function of network size) but that actually increases productivity/makes life better rather than detracts from it. This will have the ingredients necessary to get to where the founder justifiably “can’t imagine people not using it”
Disutility can come in many forms. If you would be objectively better off when using a product, and are made aware of the benefits of such, then there is a disutility to not using it directly stemming from the awareness of what you are missing out on. The social ecosystem (or echo-chamber) has amplified “the fear of missing out”. If the product is cool enough that people weave it into their vernacular, dropping clues everywhere; then FOMO might drive someone to trying it out, because not knowing what friends/coworkers/strangers are talking about is a disutility in itself.