The art of adding features to any product or service is this:
Those who need or want the new features can find them easy.
Meanwhile those who don’t need or want the features don’t even notice them. They are invisible.
Sounds impossible to do, but I think the team at twitter are doing a pretty good job of it. The way I’d try and achieve this would be by making sure the visual structure doesn’t change, and the sequence of events to use it is not interrupted.
shhh – here comes the controversy.
It costs the soft drink Industry over $100 million a year for thefts committed involving vending machines.
*actual Coke vending robots!
Yet vending machines still exist for one simple reason. This is still a profitable business regardless of the theft.
So often in startup land we here people pointing out the gaps and potential issues in any business model we propose. The fact is no business model is perfect. Every business has gaps and potential issues which will impact profitability. There is always leakage, there is always some evaporation. What we need to focus on is the net result and understand if we can still make a profit regardless of the model imperfections.
I had this discussion yesterday. I walked past a hole in the wall cafe. (Tiny cafe which serves take away and stand up coffee in inner city area)
Friend: Wasn’t Joey going to open a business like that?
Me: Yeh, I remember him talking about it before I had even seen one of these in the city.
Friend: What happened to it?
Me: I don’t know, I guess he just didn’t get around to it in the end. Got distracted.
Friend: That’s a shame, looks like a good little business model. What’s he doing now?
Me: He’s in the same job.
Friend: Oh. Ok.
We keep walking …
Don’t be Joey. It at least try and fail. The old job will be waiting for you if you have to return.
Think back to grade 9 school. Specifically your science classes. In science we had a specific method of learning: 
Aim / Objective
Hypothesis
Method
Materials
Results
Conclusion
(back to start)
The thing that the science community do much better than the business world is that they know that the really powerful part of the system is the actual experiment. When scientists speak we hear them talking about the experiments, not aims and methods. The experiement is the focus – not the plans and paper work. This is something the business community must take heed from. It is beyond me why the business world obsess with the aim (forecasts) and the method (business plans). The truth is we’ll never know until the experiment is done.
As entrepreneurs it’s compounded again. We’ve got to experiment more than existing businesses with real revenue. We’ve got to do this because we have no results or conclusions which have formed a refined aim or hypothesis. So the more experiments we do, the more robust our hypothesis becomes. Until we experiment we wont really now what materials we need (which in the business world is referred to as resources). Constant planning refinement is as useless as constant refinement of an experiment method would be. Our focus instead must be repeated experimentation.
It’s only when we do this that our startup has a chance of graduating to become a bone fide business.
As entrepreneurs the natural temptation is on inventing new markets. Creating dramatic change and going for the trophy ideas. This stuff is incredibly difficult, which is why when we do it well the financial rewards can be significant. The interesting thing is that by being optimists with big ideas we really develop some amazing skills just trying. Regardless of our success or lack of.
Creating markets is much harder than getting a share of an existing market. There’s so much more to do to make it work. Things like building an entirely new supply chain, accessing unique raw materials, developing distributions channels and educating consumers of the benefits of this alternative.
Imagine for a moment that we focused our skills on something simple. Something for which there is already existing demand. A market with which there has been very little innovation for a long period of time. Imagine for example…. selling potatoes.
Selling potatoes would not be as difficult as inventing entirely new markets. Sure there would be incumbents in the game, maybe some very powerful players. But the one thing we can be sure of, is that people do business with people they like. Every industry has room for new players. Every business has some suppliers which they are not happy with. Imagine bringing some new world thinking into the potato trade. Integrating some Cluetrain ideas into this business, and really winning over some customers by doing things just a little differently. There is a new business waiting to happen in boring old market.
I often think that we ignore old areas because they are sexy enough, when all we need do is bring some new ideas in to sexy it up. And there is nothing more sexy than financial success in start up land. In addition our probability of success is certainly larger in an existing market than developing a new one, even if the financial gain is smaller. Maybe we can garner some success Selling potatoes first, before we try our trophy idea. It’s easy to be better than it is to be new.
Maybe your next business should be selling potatoes.
Yesterday I caught up with Fiona Boyd who is an incredibly successful internet entrepreneur who started and sold www.artshub.com.au
She gave me some great insights into entrepreneurship and here are some of the sound bites I was so compelled with I had to write them down.
“When asking for input into your business or startup, never ask for more that 2 pieces of advice. Ask them for advice which is both perceptual and low cost.”
‘Think about your business in terms of the sequence of events. This is more important than the model itself.”
“The right words, in a certain order, make people do stuff.”
“Free creates lose caboose behavior. Think of your business like a nightclub. Free entry makes us feel as though what’s inside isn’t as valuable as when there is a cover charge.”
‘What can you do to bring the money forward? It might be as easy as asking your customers.”
‘What are the steps to money? How can you reduce the number of steps?”
Absolute gold as far as startup blog is concerned. Fiona has also written a book called ‘Niche Content Millionaire’ which I’m guessing (I haven’t read it yet) is full of awesome ideas…. simply because she has the runs on the board and has done it.
I saw this little 1 minute video from Seth Godin (Who I used to worship, and now just ‘like’) and had to post it here. Be sure to read my comments below the video.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0h0LlCu8Ks]
Why the numbers are irrelevant to me….
In summary I’d say this. If it doesn’t make sense in the real world (physical life) then there’s a good chance it doesn’t make sense on line. In ‘real life’, that is our off line life we think of our friendships and even business contacts in terms of quality. We don’t go around trying to make 1000 friends and wear a t-shirt that says ‘I have 1000 friends’. Rather, we prefer to have strong meaningful relationships which are one on one. Where both parties benefit. We don’t have a list in spread sheet with the people we’ve met. Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?
Startups should be using social media to build relationships – not gathering numbers.
From now on I’ve changed my twitter link below on my blog posts. Can you see the change?