Aj Kulatunga of Dream Build Inspire Lead asked me via twitter the following question:
So I thought it was worth sharing the answer here because the answer had to be delivered in less than 140 characters.
If you live in a western urban environs you’ve seen lots of bicycles of the ilk displayed below:
The single speed, fixed gear, mono color racer with white wall tires. Very hip, very now. But why?
It’s classic one downsmanship. In a world where people strive to have more, where increasing wealth has given many of us everything, the trend of tomorrow is diametrically opposed. The more of tomorrow, isn’t stuff, or consumption, rather experience, artistry and simplicity – the luxury of a stripped back existence. We often see these trends early in what may be considered the trivial, like bicycles. The trend will run much deeper than this.
Leading edge urbanites riding such bicycles (they are too cool for me) are showing the world they are more, but publicly displaying they can live with less. It’s a classic display of confidence. By wanting less, they are showing the world that they are more. Conspicuous consumption has been a preferred method for people displaying self worth for most of the Post world war 2 era. But I really think that this is another example we’ve turned the corner.
The question for entrepreneurs is this: What category or business is waiting to be striped back by you?
Today I got thinking about how humans spend a great deal of their life in boxes.
We live in boxes (houses)
We sleep in box (bedroom)
We drive to work in a box (car)
We work in boxes (office)
We shop in big boxes (retailers)
It just seems like we live our life inside boxes. I wonder if it impacts our creativity?
Humans are compelled to count. We count everything. Days, weeks, months, years, birthdays, money in the bank, salary levels, years of experience. It’s part of the human condition, maybe it helped us evolve to a civilised existence .
As startup entrepreneurs we need to let our people count something. Whether it’s the savings they made or they friends they have, there needs to be a way for them to keep track. So our people know they have made progress. Commerce is an anthropological game of football. So we must keep score. But it must go beyond the corporate scoreboard of profit, share price, turnover, number of employees… it has to be an audience focused score. Like followers on twitter. It has to be about them, not us, it’s how humans roll.
Our websites are no different to perishable goods at a supermarket. It’s not surprising given how well trained we are to check everything is up to date. From milk to computer hardware we want the latest version available.
So when someone finds your website via Google and the last blog entry is from last year, or the Copyright legal date is 2008, it’s a bit like the milk which got lost at the back of the fridge. We won’t touch it, there’s no limit of options and it is safer to elsewhere.
The good news for web entrepreneurs is this: It’s easy to keep things current. A simple blog entry once a week. A twitter feed in your side bar. Anything which shows your people you’re still in the game. That you have a pulse.
You’re probably bored of your packaging, website, logo or product already. You’ve been designing it, working on it and looking at it for so long… it’s a natural reaction.
Problem is, your customers haven’t. They’re not bored. They’re probably still intrigued. Chances are, they’re not even familiar yet. They’ve only seen it a few times.
There’s a strong temptation to change because we’re too familiar. Which turns our to be a really bad reason to change stuff. In fact, it probably disenfranchises our people just when they are getting used to it.
