Found|Read on GigaOM published a great post on Sunday titled How to Avoid the Curse of Vision Overload. The core of the post is that your venture suffers “when you put your vision ahead of your users“.
I agree with the writer, Andrew Mason, that simplicity is almost always the best philosophy to follow but many of us entrepreneurs get too caught up in our vision and forget about our users and what they actually want.
We have gone through a few iterations of Realvibez’s front page and the most complex one was in the first 2 years of launch – we eventually tossed it and focused on what had proven to be popular for our users.
I always talk about wanting to keep my life simple (it even determined my marriage plans) and Robert and I evaluate all strategic partnerships and internal projects based on how simple it will be to execute properly and profitably.
We take the Nike approach – Focus on the needs of the athlete and build the right shoe for the sport.
Andrew provides 4 simple rules for deciding what to keep and what to toss at launch:
- If you don’t mention it in your 2-minute product demo, you don’t need it.
- Don’t build a race car for foot runners.
- Let users problem-solve with the basics first. Then offer the glitz.
- Proselytize your vision in your blog, not your product set.
Read Andrew’s explanation of each of the rules here.