In our case, we spent nine months developing extra features to accommodate
our grand vision instead of focusing on what our users would really need. This
cost us precious time, delaying our launch, originally planned for June 2007, to
November of that year. Even after launch, the costs lingered — maintaining the
extraneous features was a time-consuming distraction from improving the parts of
The Point that people were actually using.
Thankfully, we caught on to what I call the curse of “vision overload” — when
you put your vision ahead of your users — and quickly reversed course.
This month we’re delivering a major upgrade to The Point, our first release
in months, and we’ve actually cut more features than we’ve added. While arguably
less grand, it adheres to the critical success maxim of KISS, or “Keep it Simple, Stupid!”
All founders face an inherent conflict between their most ambitious visions and
the practicalities of execution. Below I explain how The Point addressed this
uncomfortable compromise, and how you can learn to KISS, too.
Why didn’t we adhere to simplicity the first time around? We were certainly
aware of the KISS principle — in fact, it was uttered frequently around our
office — but we didn’t know how to measure simplicity. Obviously a site needs
some core features, but where do you draw the line on value added? Our vision
was to build a 21st century framework for collective action. This was novel, so
how do you determine what is core vs. an enhancement?
The complexity occurred when we allowed vision to drive our feature set. Six
months on, we’ve developed a few rules for determining what to leave in and what
to leave out at launch.
1. If you don’t mention it in your 2-minute product demo, you don’t
need it.
Whether demoing to colleagues or potential investors, we found ourselves
glossing over certain features to keep from overwhelming our audience. In the
end, the features we skipped over were the same features that went unused. If
you can’t fit it into a presentation to a captive audience, then it’s almost
guaranteed not to be a factor in the seven seconds the average web user takes to
decide whether they’re interested in what you’re doing.
2. Don’t build a race car for foot runners.
Campaigns on The Point don’t go “live” until engagement reaches a critical
mass (e.g. 100 participants), so everyone can be assured the campaign will have
an impact. So to help organizers determine the tipping point for a boycott, we
built a database of 150,000 companies that maps the financial vulnerabilities of
boycott candidates like The Gap or Exxon Mobil. Users,
however, were efficiently identifying potential targets through simple
discussion forums. They didn’t need the fancy tools we had created.
3. Let users problem-solve with the basics first. Then offer the
glitz.
We assumed that some campaign creators would want multiple administrators so
they could share the responsibilities of management and promotion. Our vision
for The Point included group governance, so we spent weeks building a system for
proposing and voting on campaign developments. As soon as we launched, we
realized that campaign creators managed this task just fine by sharing access to
single accounts. The lesson? Sometimes it’s better to let users actually have a
problem before you try and fix it; their solution is often simpler.
4. Proselytize your vision in your blog, not your product
set.
There are better ways to promote your vision than etching it into your
product with features that are unlikely to be used. Write about it on your blog!
Speak with community groups on the purpose and potential of the site. Or make a video of yourself in the
future talking about how your site changed the world.
Users care about whether you are meeting their needs, not your vision for the
company. Save your vision for your investors. Had we focused on the factors that
affect whether someone will become a user, we would have had a product out the
door months earlier.
Andrew Mason is a blogger and
founder of The Point. It is his first
startup.
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