If you’ve never heard of the Gartner’s Hype Cycle, I implore you to check it out. It’s a very cool tool that tries to pinpoint where at in the cycle of the market a certain product is.
Pictured above is the typical layout of a Gartner’s hype cycle. There are 5 separate stages.
- Technology Trigger – this is the conceptual stage of the cycle. There may or may not be a prototype yet for this product. This is usually the beginning stage of a concept where media starts to catch on to the idea. Possible proofs of concept.
- Peak of Inflated Expectations – this is where to concept comes to the public. Mainly, the early adopters. Media really catches on about the successes and downfalls that may come with using this product.
- Trough of Disillusionment – disappointment in the technology is caused by failures, leading to the product being dropped by some producers. Further investment in the product upon addressing and fixing the flaws.
- Slope of Enlightenment – uses of the technology starts to become more understood. Companies start to become interested in the other applications of the product and may begin to create more generations of the product or technology.
- Plateau of Productivity – the technology is widely understood and implemented. It has finally found its place in the market and the standards for the product or tech begin to emerge.
Check out the post Gartner’s Hype Cycle Video to find a more in depth video about this concept.
- The Ever-changing World
- A tale of Hype – Vero
- The Ins and Outs of Vero
- Truth in who it Targets
- Versus Vero
So where is Vero?
Vero was started in 2015. Undoubtedly, it has passed through the entire cycle. Currently, it resides in the Plateau of Productivity. It began in 2015 to little market use. It was after all competition to Instagram and Snapchat, the two biggest platforms on the market. With little growth for several years, it began to climb its way through the hype cycle. In 2018 it exploded, taking it through the peak of inflated expectations. At one point, the user count was growing quicker than both Instagram’s and Snapchat’s growth.
However, this ended quickly. When information came out about the founder, a billionaire Lebanese businessman, and his working conditions for his workers, the company went through the Trough of Disillusionment. A hashtag #DeleteVero came about as social media tore the application and the owner’s shady past apart.
More about this can be found here.
After this, the application never fully recovered. It began to cycle through the rest of the cycle until it eventually ended up at the Plateau of Productivity, where the user count has leveled out to around 3 million. It is still used today, but is nowhere near it was expected to be during the Peak of Inflated Expectations stage.
And that is where it will stay. Unless Vero finds a way to reinvent and innovate itself to create a new UVP or something that causes an influx of users, it will likely not grow much more than it has.
For more stats and information on Vero follow these links!
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