“No one gets unanimous praise. The best the timid can hope for is to be unnoticed”.

– Seth Godin

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, Insights, Inspiration on 7 June 2011

““Every act of creation is first an act of destruction”.

– Pablo Picasso

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, Quotes on 17 March 2011

You’ve probably come across a urinal like the one in the picture. I’ve seen them in airports, hotel lobbies and restaurants. They have a little fly etched into the ceramic.

I always thought they were there for aesthetic reasons. Something to look at whilst taking a leak. Turns out they’re not. They have a purely practical purpose, leverage simple psychology to achieve it and can teach us lessons when it comes to UI design. Can you guess what it is?

The role of the fly is to subconsciously give you a target to aim at. Whether you realise or not – you shoot for the fly, and in the process don’t end up peeing all over the place.

It’s a win-win situation. You have a little fun whilst taking a leak and the restroom stays cleaner.

The psychology behind it interests me. They put a target before us and we naturally try and hit it. It’s an effortless interaction on our part but in the process we help them achieve their goals. They are telling us what to do and we do it.

How can we use this hack when it comes to UI and UX? How can we better design registration buttons, pay now graphics and upgrade options to leverage this simple and powerful phenomenon?

Can we be more forceful with language to achieve automatic compliance – Sign Up, Buy Now, Click Here?

Can we layout pages creating quasi-target zones where people would more naturally click?

Can we create flows where human nature takes control and pushes users down a conversion funnel?

What lessons do you think we can learn from peeing on a fly?

Posted in: General on 9 March 2011

“Your ‘best’! Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen”.

– John Mason (aka Sean Connery) The Rock

Posted in: General, Insights, Inspiration on 4 March 2011

I spent the weekend at my in-laws and attended synagogue with them on Saturday morning.

At times during the service a velvet rope is put up across the entrance stopping anyone from entering or leaving. The Synagogue basically goes into lock-down for a few minutes (an example being during the Rabbi’s sermon). Whoever’s inside must stay in and whoever’s outside must stay out. Invariably there are those outside who want to enter and those inside who want to leave. Watching how they instinctively deal with a rope blocking their path is indicative of their entrepreneurial zeal.

1. Compliers

Compliers come across the rope and see a 12ft concrete wall. ‘The man’ has told them they can’t enter or leave and they comply without a fuss. Their immediate instinct is subservient, the rope serves as an unquestionable and insurmountable barrier. Compliers would never consider breaking the rules,  the mere thought of contravening the sacred rule of the rope is unfathomable. They are more than happy waiting it out. Some even relishing their automated obedience.

Entrepreneurial potential = Low

2. Negotiators

Negotiators see the rope but aren’t automatically subjugated by it. They realise the rope is an artificial barrier blocking their path and try to find a way past it. This usually takes the form of speaking to the person policing the rope and requesting special dispensation. They explain their mitigating circumstances calmly, “I only left for a minute/my seat is really close/I won’t disturb anyone” and ask permission to pass. Their protestations fall on deaf ears. They don’t understand the entire raisin-de-etre of the person policing the rope is to uphold it’s rules. They will never let you pass. Trying to negotiate is an exercise in futility. The Negotiators good intentions were let down by bad strategy. You can find Negotiators standing behind the rope looking frustrated.

Entrepreneurial potential = Medium

3. Bulldozers

Bulldozers lay eyes on the rope and immediately recognise it for what it is – an arbitrary irrelevant barrier in their way. They instinctively realise there is nothing sacred about the rope and without hesitation decide to completely ignore it. They step over it, walk round it or take it down. They are brazen in their decisiveness and bold in their action. They understand there is no point asking for permission as it won’t be granted but know if they forge ahead as if it wasn’t even there no-one is going to stop them. The rope is wholly insignificant. It’s discarded the moment it’s seen. Bulldozers aren’t in the habit of slowing down or stopping for obstacles -especially not ones of the velvet variety.

Entrepreneurial potential = High

Should the Bulldozer look back as he continues relentlessly on his path, he would see Compliers looking condescendingly and Negotiators staring with envy – both firmly confined behind the sacred velvet rope.

Next time you come up against a velvet rope, real or proverbial – how will you respond?

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, General, Insights on 27 February 2011

This graph reminds me of Stuart Kauffman’s concept of the ‘Adjacent Possible‘ – which I recently read about the first time in Steven Johnson’s latest book “Where good ideas come from”

For introverts like me, keeping this in mind makes networking events more bearable.

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, General on 27 February 2011

There’s an interesting thread on Quora about books which will change the way you market products (full list). I’ve read about a quarter of them. They’re not all marketing books but are well worth reading.

I’ll probably zip through a handful more in the next few months. I love reading physical books but the immediacy and efficiency of Kindle on the iPad has transformed my reading habits. Viva la revolucion!

The ones I enjoyed the most are:

Purple Cow (Seth Godin)
Predictably Irrational (Dan Ariely)
Made to Stick (Chip and Dan Heath)
The Tipping Point (Malcolm Gladwell)
Crossing the Chasm (Geoffrey Moore)
The Idea Virus (Seth Godin)
Blue Ocean Strategy (Kim and Mauborgne)
Cluetrain Manifesto (Levine, Locke, Seares, Weinberger)
What Would Google Do? (Jeff Jarvis)
The Psychology of Influence (Robert Cialdini)
4 Steps to the Epiphany (Steve Blank)
Yes!: 50 Proven Ways to Be Persuasive (Noah Goldstein)

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, General, Product Development on 26 February 2011

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life”.

– Winston Churchill

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, General, Quotes on 25 February 2011

A couple years ago I read Blue Ocean Strategy, a fabulous business book about discovering uncontested market space and creating unique and abundant value propositions.

I recently made use of their strategy canvas tool to plot out the difference between Shoply and various competitors. A strategy canvas is a great and simple way of visually highlighting the value areas your concentrating on and how you differ from others.

This is the one I made for Shoply vis-a-vis a specific niche marketplace. It’s easy to see how different the offerings are and how our value proposition stacks up against theirs.

This one is from the book itself. It depicts Cirque du Soleil’s revolutionary offering against traditional circuses. It’s clear to see they offered an entirely new experience, and as a result opened up much searched for uncontested market space.

Posted in: Entrepreneurship on 24 February 2011

Harvard Business School Professor Tom Eisenmann recently compiled a suggested reading list of books, blog posts and white papers for tech entrepreneurs. It’s a treasure trove of insight and ideas.

A lot of the usual suspects are on there, Steve Blank, Eric Reis, Marc Andreessen, Fred Wilson, Mark Suster, Randy Komisar etc – but there are also quite a few you may not have come across yet, my favourites being Brant Cooper, Ash Maruya and Joshua Porter.

I’ve read the majority of books and blogs on the list and will make a point of taking a look at the things I haven’t seen yet. You should too. Remember, knowledge is power.

Posted in: Entrepreneurship, General, Insights on 24 February 2011