Interesting point. I think that's the first half of the presentation:
"we have taken the entire messy and complex world of telephony..."
Twilio _chose_ and solved a problem that sucked. If your product doesn't solve a tough problem, it will be almost impossible to get the same "wow" factor that Twilio does.
Maybe the answer is that less obvious applications will simply be at a disadvantage right out of the gate.
I think it's important to point out that not only did Twilio choose a great problem to address, it was (critically) also one that a large audience already understands is very difficult. There are plenty of equivalently "valuable" problems to solve, which aren't as easy to communicate effectively, because most people lack enough domain-specific knowledge to understand the difficulty of the problem.
This, I think, is the core truth behind the oft-repeated observation that you should "pay attention to the startups with a few customers that absolutely LOVE their product". Not all valuable problems are ones that a general audience is likely to comprehend, but when you narrow it down just to the audience that does, how do they feel about what you're doing?
Put differently: the Twilio demo is so effective not just because they have a very good problem, but because it's an exceptionally common one as well. They have an impressive solution to a tough problem, sure, but they laos did a very good job aligning "the people who have this problem" with "the people listening to this demo", and that's what makes it great.
"we have taken the entire messy and complex world of telephony..."
Twilio _chose_ and solved a problem that sucked. If your product doesn't solve a tough problem, it will be almost impossible to get the same "wow" factor that Twilio does.
Maybe the answer is that less obvious applications will simply be at a disadvantage right out of the gate.