Choice and Inaction

Endless choice causes inaction. We all want to have choices, but when those become too many we take no action. The difficulty is in finding the perfect balance. You need to offer just enough.

Barry Schwartz put this problem very well in his book The Paradox of Choice:

Autonomy and Freedom of choice are critical to our well being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don't seem to be benefiting from it psychologically.

—quoted from Ch.5, The Paradox of Choice, 2004

You have probably felt this psychological effect on a daily basis. A trip to the supermarket, a quick research on which to-do app you should use, which provider you should pick and you can start screaming with choice. The result is that you'll probably either postpone the choice for a later time or go for what you have always done.

When it's your turn to offer a product or service, make sure you don't end up making the same mistake. Focus on what you are doing and who it's for. Make it easy for people to choose you and offer more choices only when you really need to. 

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Nobody's Perfect

You may have noticed that nothing was posted for a few days during last week on this blog. Although we have made a commitment that we will be always posting on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, last week we messed it up.

The reason? Our side project, CPU Wars, had to be shipped to all our backers and that took an excessively longer time than we had planned. It was the first time we were doing a task like this, at this kind of scale, and as expected we underestimated the effort needed. At least we got everything shipped and our backers are very happy.

Of course I felt bad about not keeping my promise and started judging my decisions, it's very difficult to quiet the inner voice. What's important is that I acknowledged my failure, came to terms with it and focused on what I had to do in that moment. At the end of the day, nobody's perfect and I had to choose what was most important at that moment.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

The Chosen One

Starting up is a tough time. You are so eager to start working that you will work for anyone. The same happens when your business is in a slump. Whatever comes your way, you’ll probably say yes to it. After all, you need the money to pay the bills and live.

I’ve said it over and over that to build a strong brand you need to stand for something and you can’t please everyone. This has a direct effect on who you work with and more specifically who you DON’T work with. If you say yes to every business opportunity just to pay the bills, that’s the reputation you will build. You need to decide what you want to be known for and stand by it. If a new client approaches you and asks for something that you don’t feel happy doing, then politely decline the work. Better yet, find someone in your network that would like to do that job and get them working together. The latter is a win-win for you. Not only did you stand for something, you also helped someone.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that you’re forbidden to slip and work on a project you don’t love when times are tough. We’ve all done it. The important thing is to not turn that single occurrence into a habit and an easy way to pay the bills. Stick to your values and try to always work on what you love. It will eventually lead to your success.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Choose Your Battles

To be successful, you not only need to fail, you also need to know when to quit. Being able to choose the right battles is a key to your success.

A problem I have continuously observed is that people tend to get into a battle regardless of their chances. They just dive in even if they have very slight chances to succeed. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about taking chances and risking, but in order to be successful you need to have the clear vision to see if something is a failure from the beginning.

If you are in the situation that you have been fighting for very long, maybe it's time to retreat and try again in a different territory. This doesn't just apply to starting up a new venture. It's also valid with new markets, clients and arguments. If you see that you are not getting across you have two options:

1. Try a different tactic
2. Measure your losses and retreat

There is no point in fighting a battle that you can't win. If you do, you'll come out with diminished resources, low morale and a lot of losses. Measure your position, identify your position and decide if the battle is worth fighting for.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Variety and Simplicity

People usually think that variety and simplicity don't go together. They think that if you simplify something, then you end up reducing what is available. 

To explain this better I will take it from the beginning and explain what each term means. When we talk about variety, we want to have a lot of stuff to choose from, but this can in turn become overwhelming. So now we have the option of applying one of the two following ways of making choice easier:

• Minimalism. If we apply minimalism to the variety of things we have, then we are minimising the amount of stuff on offer. So if for example we had 56 different boxes of cereal, we would go down to 8.
• Simplicity. Simplicity is not about minimising what is available. Instead, it's about making it easier for people to find what they want. So if we want a big variety, we can then create segments of products based on a common characteristic. This can in turn help while searching for a product. Looking at the cereal box example, if we had 56 different boxes we would use simplicity to create 7 categories of 8 products each. Within that category we can go down a level and fragment it further for easier choice.

From the above two options we can see how different minimalism and simplicity are. Although minimalism is part of simplicity, simplicity is a lot more than just minimalism.

If we want to offer a variety of products and still make it easy for our customers to buy, then we need to simplify in order to create clear categories and segments to fit their needs. A great example of this has been done by JustShops, instead of creating a big pet store with all the different products, they have created different websites/shops/fragments that focus on a specific area, like JustCages, JustFishTanks, etc. 

Posted by Harry Mylonadis