Last May, First Round Capital's Josh Kopelman caused a stir in the blogosphere when he wrote "too many companies are targeting an audience of 53, 651." He was referring to the number of TechCrunch's subscribers at the time and the fact that so many consumer Internet companies were offering online services with little appeal beyond early adopters in Silicon Valley.

It was an astute observation made before any Web 2.0 companies had folded and foretold many of the problems some of these companies would have later. This afternoon, Kopelman, speaking on the Venture Capital 2.0 panel moderated by TechCrunch's Michael Arrington at the Web 2.0 Expo, expanded upon the need to target large audiences. "Success in this market is necessary, but not sufficient, to build a business." He added that he gets a reality check when he returns to his home in Philadelphia from his frequent trips to Silicon Valley. "The real world doesn't understand the ecosystem we're in here."

I'm not sure that idea sunk in with too many in the audience. Nor am I sure that you can determine with any degree of certainty whether a newly launched product will gain traction among geeks or grandmas. But, if you're running one of these companies, I think Kopelman's point is that you should do your best to appeal to both.

For more on the Web 2.0 Expo, see:
Shannon Latta
Jon Fortt

Tags: web2, web2expo, josh+kopelman, techcrunch, vc, venture+capital