A recent article written about 37Signals and working on a new CRM application which "promises to be as simple and effective as everything else these guys put out," made me revisit the simplicity factor in my mind again.
John Jantsch writes that "It doesn't matter how cool a technology is for the power user, it's the huddled masses, the ones that won't use 75% of the functionality, that are crying for help. We shall see if that's what Sunrise can bring."
I completely agree with that statement. Now if your target market is the power users, go for it. But for those that want to build a business that will have traction for years, going the simplicity route brings much higher possibility for success.
Here's a secret about simplicity: it's one of the hardest things to do right. That's the truth. Adding the the gadgets and "cool" stuff is easy. Just add on and on. But to know how to limit and build something that will meet the requirements of the average user and small business owner, now that's hard to do.
Just look around and see. Take CRM, most people don't have the slightest idea of what the endless add-on stuff will do for them. All they want is several things that they can do easy and well. What's hard is backtracking out of what you would want with something, then look at it from the end-user's perspective and build them that.
It may not win awards or be spread around as the next cool thing, but it will bring you tons of customers who are more than happy to pay for simplicity.
I wish I could stress enough how important this is. Just look at the simple blog platforms, video upload sites and other things like that, which are easy and simple to use. Learn to click a few buttons and you're on your way.
Build that into anything in your online marketing efforts, and you'll be a hero to those that matter: your customers.
The other odd thing about this is that surprisingly, you don't get that much competition. People either aren't interested in building something simple, or just don't understand the needs of the vast majority of those that want to use it.
People are in business to sell and make money, not to try to figure complicated and complex systems that only the hard core users would ever need or want to use. Give them simple, they'll love you for it.
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