Fred Wilson had a great post last week titled, Bootstrap Your Network With A High Value Use Case. He points out how Waze's initial value proposition was to help drivers that like to speed identify speed traps. But it of course quickly expanded way beyond that and now provides lots more value to lots more drivers. It has become mainstream. Same thing with Snapchat -- it started out as a "sexting" app and has now expanded to more applications and is used by the mainstream. This is sometimes called the "bowling ball strategy" in new product development where you focus on knocking down the first pin by being very focused on one segment and one application and then you gradually knock down more pins (segments & applications) over time until your product works for the mainstream. The idea is to find a narrow niche that loves what you're doing, refine the product and expand from there.

Related to healthcare, this blog has talked a lot about centralizing patient data with the patient, as opposed to multiple medical records across multiple healthcare providers. Most would agree we need to get to this place but the path to getting there isn't terribly clear. Patients aren't clamoring for it yet and there will likely be some resistance from software vendors and healthcare providers as it flies in the face of the strategy of owning the data and, by extension, the patient.

My guess is the way that we're going to get there is similar to the way that Waze built a massive maps business and Snapchat built a massive photo sharing business -- it's going to start with a small niche.

I can see an application that has built a network of highly engaged users with a very specific and highly sensitive medical condition that shares important clinical information back and forth between provider and patient becoming the starting point for consumer-driven patient data. Big software vendors will likely ignore this application because it impacts a small niche and the patients will be highly engaged because their affliction is such an important part of their lives. Once the product is refined it can be extended to other patient segments with other medical conditions and it'll grow from there.

As Chris Dixon likes to say, "the next big thing will start out looking like a toy".

In this case, the next big thing in healthcare technology will start out looking really small: a simple tool that serves a very small, but highly engaged set of patients.