Do You Develop Software or Experiences?

I read an [interesting article](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog\-static/2009/12/21st\_century\_phone.html) today on Apple's marketing strategy. A certain section stood out to me, regarding their hardware manufacturing:

Apple is an experience company. They're a high-end marque; if they were in the automobile business, they'd be BMW, Mercedes, and Porsche rolled into one. They own about 12% of the PC market in the USA... but 91% of the high end of the PC market (laptops over $999, desktops over $699).

— Charlie Stross of Antipope.org.

## The Point:[Seth Godin](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/) and [37Signals](http://37signals.com/) both recommend marketing yourself to the early adopters and geeks. Apple, however, does the opposite. They market themselves to the middle market — the incredibly non-technical. The geeks come on their own, with no marketing needed. They love it. And this makes Apple *enormously* successful.

**Develop your software/experience for the masses**. Make the geeks love it, but make them find it on their own. Just a thought.