If it’s easy for you it will be hard for your customer.
Sometimes founders get in their own way. We build something that someone wants to use and then we progressively make it harder and harder for the actual customer to use. In some cases we make products too complicated by adding features that are not necessary. Most of the time it happens when we build convenience for us instead of the customer.
As a product builder, easy can never be the path taken to create something of tremendous value and need. EVERYONE else is taking the easy path. It is tempting. It is clear. You can explain it. There are examples in the world. It is, well, easy.
That’s why you need to avoid it at all costs.
When we started Trexity there were playbooks for what we were doing everywhere. First you rent a warehouse, then find some couriers, then fill the warehouse every morning and empty it every night. The business plan has been written for hundreds of years.
Too easy.
We took the other path and decided to build a company that had none of the same hallmarks as what was out there. We avoided rent and warehouses. We created a service that our customers could use at their convenience. We built an on-demand fleet of just in time couriers on stand-by to our customers.
It was not easy.
We put our focus on what would be the best outcome for our customers, not us:
THEY didn’t want so many hands touching their products.
THEY didn’t want it to take 3 days to get to someone’s house in the same city.
THEY didn’t want to have to package it for a 72 hour journey.
THEY didn’t want to pay for our infrastructure.
THEY wanted to offer transparent tracking to their customers.
The list of their requirements was endless and we simply listened and made it easy for them to do what they wanted. We built for them, not for us.
The playbooks that existed were low friction and low value. What happened to those that took the easy path? Those that built for themselves and not the customer? Gone. Too easily disrupted by the next company to follow the most recent playbook.
Stop making it easy for your team. When you are contemplating which path to take for your product, ALWAYS take the hard one. It will take longer. It will be more painful for you. You will question your decisions all the time but this is how you know you are building something for the right person.