Day 561 - Liquid Death - https://golifelog.com/posts/liquid-death-1657845395662
Liquid Death is one brand that's fascinated me recently.
It's just water sold in a can. But it's not just water, it's MAN water. It's badass water. The can is designed to look like beer cans, with heavy metal-inspired font and designs, combined with marketing taglines like "Murder your thirst". You look cooler and hotter holding that can, than a clear plastic bottle of mineral water.
[Liquid Death ad](https://static-prod.adweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Liquid-Death-five-cans-lineup-2022-1024x538.png)
It's a product that's 100% branding. No one buys it for the water inside.
I'm fascinated because before bottled water felt like one of those 'dead' product categories. Differentiation is dead there. Where every brand looks the same. Where the main product is a commodity. Where the core experience of consuming it is 99.9% similar (because come on, distilled water and mountain spring water tastes the same to the average bear). It looked like that's all to it forever more, with nothing left to innovate in this product space. Yet along came this irreverent brand and is killing it.
It made me wonder: What other 'dead' product categories—physical or digital—are out there, waiting to be disrupted this way? Which boring products out there do we take for granted?
A few I can think of:
Milk
Ice cream
Bread
Meat
Vegetables
Airlines
Office supplies
Printers
Credit cards
Ecommerce stores
Web browsers (Chrome, Edge)
Email clients
Smartphones (surprise, surprise)
*Do you agree with the categories above? What did I miss?*
*More importantly, what's some 'dead' product spaces that indie hackers can work on?*
It's just water sold in a can. But it's not just water, it's MAN water. It's badass water. The can is designed to look like beer cans, with heavy metal-inspired font and designs, combined with marketing taglines like "Murder your thirst". You look cooler and hotter holding that can, than a clear plastic bottle of mineral water.
[Liquid Death ad](https://static-prod.adweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Liquid-Death-five-cans-lineup-2022-1024x538.png)
It's a product that's 100% branding. No one buys it for the water inside.
I'm fascinated because before bottled water felt like one of those 'dead' product categories. Differentiation is dead there. Where every brand looks the same. Where the main product is a commodity. Where the core experience of consuming it is 99.9% similar (because come on, distilled water and mountain spring water tastes the same to the average bear). It looked like that's all to it forever more, with nothing left to innovate in this product space. Yet along came this irreverent brand and is killing it.
It made me wonder: What other 'dead' product categories—physical or digital—are out there, waiting to be disrupted this way? Which boring products out there do we take for granted?
A few I can think of:
Milk
Ice cream
Bread
Meat
Vegetables
Airlines
Office supplies
Printers
Credit cards
Ecommerce stores
Web browsers (Chrome, Edge)
Email clients
Smartphones (surprise, surprise)
*Do you agree with the categories above? What did I miss?*
*More importantly, what's some 'dead' product spaces that indie hackers can work on?*
I listened to my first million and they talked about how quilting is a huge market. Heavy metal quilt patterns would be cool
Jason Leow
Author
@poppacalyse that's probably a good thing for the brand/customers… anything to look more macho - "look me drinks rat poison!" 😂
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