David Cummings on Startups

Startups Should Provide Maximum Value with Minimum Customer Effort

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David Cummings

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There’s a natural tendency with startup founders to offer solutions that are very customizable in an effort to meet everyone’s desires. This is a dangerous approach. Startups should provide maximum product value with minimum customer effort and customization.

Think about it: do you want to turn on a product and have it just work or do you want to spend three hours configuring things to see results? Of course, seeing results without customization isn’t always possible but it should be tried. In a similar fashion to progressive disclosure where advanced features are hidden by default, product value should be shown by default and then customization over time to get more value.

The next time a feature is proposed with nobs and dials to tweak it, ask the team how this feature could add value with little/no customization and what would that look like. Push hard to provide maximum value with minimum customer effort.

What else? What are some other thoughts around startups providing maximum value with minimum customer effort?

Comments

2 responses to “Startups Should Provide Maximum Value with Minimum Customer Effort”

  1. Mike Schinkel (@mikeschinkel) Avatar
    Mike Schinkel (@mikeschinkel)

    I assume you don’t mean customizability is bad, only that it should not be required but the end users. IOW, if they get a great “out of the box” experience with very little effort that’s great, even if it is possible for them to later realize they can do much more?

    I ask to validate my thinking; we are build a very elaborate toolset for professional WordPress site builders because our larger clients are requiring us to provide the advanced functionality, so we can’t not implement it. But what we can do is make it so that it is super easy for someone new to get value out of it with little or no effort.

    Does that sounds like a valid approach to you?

    Reply
    1. Mike Schinkel (@mikeschinkel) Avatar
      Mike Schinkel (@mikeschinkel)

      You know, I just read your post in full, and I think that’s already what you said. I guess I fell prey to this[1] when I commented.

      [1] http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html

      Reply

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