When do you know your product or service has really made it? When people write books about it. Especially if they write a manual. Then again, if your help documents aren’t good enough and someone else has to write a manual you have to wonder: are you doing a good enough job helping your customers?
Sometimes a product creates an entire cottage industry. Google search anyone? SEO started because of Google. Then again, as soon as an industry starts the company for which a cottage industry has sprouted could put your industry out of business.