Are you going to create the "best web App of your type on Steem" or are you going to create "the best App of it's type anywhere"
... which market would you like to bring in? Steem users only? or the millions of disenchanted social media users and disenchanted content creators? People wishing there were a better place to share their audio-visual-written creations and who have millions of people who already want to see that? The people that don't have facebook loyalty and if you created a beautiful easy to use app AND said they could get rewards as well would jump on over?
AIM HIGHER
I just can't see how it's sustainable for apps on here to focus only on competing with eachother for the same 60-100k already onboarded and active steem users... as if that's all that is possible.
There's a whole world out there. There are millions of disenchanted content creators. Writers, photographers, video creators, ideas people... and they all have people consuming their content. I know lots of full time successful youtbuers they feel uneasy about the destiny of youtube, they know they need to diversify at the very least and they're looking. But to get their interest and time the app does have to be good, really good. They would love to have more control of their destiny for one thing but they need a good proposition, not just the idea of blockchain or rewards pool, they need us to create something great and then create momentum (aka marketing).
And yet apps here need to step it up and show that they themselves can control their destiny and not be tied to steemit inc or anyone else here...
MAKE YOUR OWN DESTINY
How? 1. don't tie yourself to the "good ship steemit inc". 2. don't depend on the users here to teach and convince their friends that steem is the place to be, just so you have users. 3. don't simply lay in wait of taking advantage of others efforts to bring in new users 4. Create something compelling for a much bigger audience 5. Make the Steem system the place to be for that audience. 6. Maybe don't even make your value proposition to those users require this philosophical acceptance of blockchain or the steem rewards system... just USE the technology. 7. Don't even wait for me and 
When you're basing your pitch to a new user and it requires them to believe in and accept everything about steem I call that dependence. Steem has some awesome concepts and tools you can just use without having to convince people of the whole system's merits: Blockchain, 3 second transactions, wallets, free transactions and hopefully some good decentralization. Use those tools and the things we already have to make something awesome... stop waiting for that one final feature to be in place. Put it into place yourself or ADAPT When you talk about your app mentioning they can blog on steempeak should just be a bonus not a dependence to their accepting your project or blog.
On another note if Steem had 1+ million users perhaps a company could be successful maybe even thrive if they captured a good part of that audience. But why not focus on bringing in 1 million plus of your own users. Even if you aim high and only hit a few hundred thousand you're still doing better than any other app.
Perhaps the real issue is we like to blame our problems on other people... "I'm not successful because it's steemit INCs fault" even a content writer, photographer or artist should be changing their thinking. Are they dependent on the 60k active users on here or what are they doing to bring people to consume their content?
I submit steemit inc has created some great tools for us but they shouldn't be in charge of bringing us our meals. What makes us believe we're free from the need to market? Sure it'd be nice to see some money spent on marketing but not all marketing has to cost money people market using influence as well. And sometimes it's just about working hard... imagine that.
TOO MANY REWARDS BASED BUSINESSES
Perhaps too many business models on steem are way to reliant on the Steem Rewards system. You willing to rise or sink with that ship? How's that going right now? And even if steem shoots up in price... the rewards pool is only so big. It's been shown that if you capture too much of it you're likely going to be a target of the community and people won't like you because you're supposedly taking rewards away from them. Rewards is great for rewarding content makers and providing incentives it's not great for sustaining businesses. Business should probably USE rewards system as a great and unique tool of their business... not the economic model of their business.
Sure if you're providing a service maybe you want to help cover some costs through the rewards pool so that's not to say this new push (i've seen several posts about it in the last couple days) to have steemit.com do a beneficiary to help cover costs well I'm not opposed to it... they're providing a service steemit.com isn't really a business it is just a proof of concept by steemit inc. I think if they simply want to make sure steemit.com is self-sustaining then that's actually a good way to put it in maintenance mode or sunset steemit.com
Also there are plenty of people out there just wanting to explore ideas and make tools almost to see if it's possible they don't all have to be businesses.
But to you businesses out there I just don't think it's sustainable and it's way too risky to make your business on the back of the rewards model. I think you're on thin ice and you're not decentralizing your own future. You're way too dependent.
CONTENT CREATORS
You're not exempt if you're thinking of your writing as sustaining you then isn't that a business? And are you making your business dependent on rewards pool? That sounds like a recipe for disaster for me. Think like a business owner if you're gonna be one. Be creative. And I hope we can bring you tools that make your job even easier... much easier and steempeak can be succesful by finding you other ways to make money. But in the meantime don't depend on us make your own success.
STEEMPEAK.COM
I won't speak for the company as a whole but I love the direction we're headed and I will personally push constantly to look outside the box... the box being the steem users already on here and outside of the box of Rewards pool ONLY.
INTUITIVE DESIGN
To be viable outside the box we can't expect people to spend weeks learning how to survive on steem. We can't even expect them to spend hours. They should walk in here and just feel comfortable and if they want to get really good they'll go learn more, but they won't NEED to.
I'm happy there's people creating projects and sites to help educate users... but I think app creators and interfaces like steempeak need to work hard to take that need away. Focus on intuitive design so we don't need to spend any time (or much) studying how to use a website.
If you're reading this now chances are me and you started this journey on steemit.com and chances are it was painful... you are reading this now which means you didn't quit because you are the users that don't care if it takes 2 months to figure something out ... you're dedicated and loyal to a site and the concept of blockchain even if when it's a pain in the butt to figure out. I guess steempeak end the end is not really creating the site for you... we're creating the site YOUR FRIENDS. I guess in the end it's for you so that you have a network on this social network and so it saves you time teaching them what to do and convincing them it will get better. haha
MARKETING... nope we're not doing much yet. Not for reals at least. Better believe I have a plan though. Sometimes you just gotta lay the foundations and strike when the time is right, and in the meantime make sure you have a viable product and listen to the community to make sure the idea is good. Maybe we're all doing it haha well then we can't complain not many people are here. We're not alone Too many blockchain projects have an amazing idea that for some reason no one is using... and yet there is millions in funding for some reason.
But anyway thanks to everyone helping give insights to
Also just like any app we perhaps have to look at any places we're too dependent so that no one else can cause us to fail.
And here's the beautiful thing... I'm happy regardless because i set out with an aim just to help create a site with everything I WANTED. I'm already happy about the time I spent on @SteemPeak and if i can make it easier for my friends and fans to consume and interact with my content and support me then that will be a success. But then i think I can take that experience to my content creating friends and that just makes this project even more exciting.
WE CAN'T ALL JUST BE CREATORS ... WE NEED SOME VIEWERS
You know how you make content creators happy... you make their fans and viewers happy. And by "some viewers" what I really mean is that the majority of people on steempeak should some day be viewers not creators and that's how we make it the best place for content creators.
Make the best app... because of steem
Not the best app ON steem make it the best app anywwhere because of the unique and great tools you have. You don't have to maintain a huge complex expensive database for starters think of the tens of thousands if not millions of dollars head start you already have. I love the fact I was part of creating an amazing site and really it was 
Use those tools we already have. They should be more than enough to create something technically successful. You don't have to bring them to steem, you don't have to tell them about steempeak if you don't want to. Just stop waiting for us to solve your issues for you. You want users... go and get them there are billions of people with access to the internet what are you waiting for? Stop waiting to bidbot promote your post hoping you can snipe a few people from the steemit trending page only a few people look at anyway. Steempeak doesn't even have a trending page and if I do my job right then that's who you'd need to impress anyway because that's where the millions of people will be some day.
p.s. The picture is my own
p.p.s. Might as well put it out there that
click to vote