Ten times better

Your app needs customers. To get customers, you need to convince non-customers to change—from a competitor’s product or from using nothing.

Electrons racing through a conductive material will change to the path of least resistance—the most efficient path. There are no decisions to be made. There are no emotional bonds to be broken. There is no effort required. This is instant, logical, perfect optimisation.

Humans are not rational nor perfect. Humans hate change. Change is risky. Change is scary. And it’s hard work.

On a daily basis I use apps like Gmail, Basecamp, Highrise, Campfire, Xero, Tumblr, WordPress… I see room for improvement everywhere. And it’s just too tempting to think, for example: “I could build the Gmail killer… I know what I’d fix.” And you might build that app that actually is better. “Better” as is in, you can prove it’s better: faster, easier to use, more enjoyable to use, facilitating more productivity. But it’ll still flop if it’s not ten times better than Gmail.

Gmail was ten times better than Hotmail, Yahoo, and webmail and POP / SMTP solutions. It had a fast web app, much more storage, threaded mails, amazing search, support for your own domain, the “archive” paradigm, and so on. It really was ten times better! Anything less wouldn’t have convinced people to take the pain in the ass that moving mail providers / clients entails. Because marginal improvements just won’t cut it.

Humans do not lead—nor do they want to lead—optimal lives. All of us are stumbling through our days happily making compromises at every decision: paying that little bit extra for our lunch that’s a little less healthier than if we got it in that sushi place, that when we do visit takes a little longer to get to, and so on. Humans are trade-off machines, and that’s what makes them beautiful and different and interesting. And so even if they know that your app is better, they’ll happily use a lesser product if it means they can avoid the hassle, risk and fear of changing—and get on with their fantastically imperfect lives.

I first heard this “ten times” idea from Seth Godin and I can’t recommend strongly enough that you take it seriously when embarking on a new business venture.