Functions, is less more?

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Good evening!
In several of the lectures so far we have talked about removing/replacing functions in existing products to create new products and from that create businesses (e.g. the example with the very simple phone). The key here is to identify something redundant in a product and identifying a group of people that can be your costumers when removing/replacing this. And also remember what Serdar says “you can’t make everyone happy” when knowing who is your costumer.
Also have in mind what was talked about in the latest lecture with MVP (minimum viable product) and to figure out what is the lest amount of function you need in your product to attract costumers.
Well here is an idea/product that, in some way, does the opposite:)
http://www.projectara.com

The idea is to let the costumers customize the phone by selecting which functions you want to have. For example if you want better battery but no camera you just replace the camera function with a larger battery, and so on. They also market the product as the costumer group is every single person in the world (well almost), with the phrase “designed exclusively for 6 billion people”.
ara
So here is my question/point. Is this smart or dumb?
You can say that they are removing functions with the possibility to choose to make a super simple phone with nothing but a screen and a huge battery. But then again there are several options which gives the costumers many functions to choose between.
Also is the costumer group really 6 billion people? Hardly since the phone still requires som level of technical knowledge, and also I assume that the product won’t be cheap.
Overall I think the product is cool and I won’t ba surprised if I sometime will own a phone like this and I like the concept of “choosing the functions I want”, maybe this is somewhere in the middle of “to many functions” and “to simple”?
However, in cars we seam to want as many functions as possible at the lowest possible price? So is less more?

Stutterheim – Swedish melancholy at its driest

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Stutterheim is a Swedish non-tech start-up that I have been following for the last couple of years. For around 5 years ago Alexander Stutterheim started the company were the idea was to make high quality raincoats with inspiration from his grandfathers’ old raincoat that he had found in the attic. I have been fascinated with the product since the beginning and I actually have a coat my own.

https://stutterheim.com/se/

This is no billion-dollar company but it has had an amazing growth and has become recognized all over the world for its product design and high quality products. Alexander Stutterheim started out selling from his own apartment investing everything he owned and even pawning his apartment to get his dream started. And now, in 2015, Stutterheim has an expected total turnover of 55 M$.

If you are interested to read more about this Swedish fashion brand you can read an article about the company and their branding strategy in the link below:

http://www.fastcocreate.com/3045685/behind-the-brand/how-a-swedish-rainwear-brand-turned-melancholy-into-a-marketing-masterstrok

Timing – The single biggest reason why startups succeed

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I would really recommend you all to take a look at this TED-talk. After going through some TED-talks regarding entrepreneurship this is the one I want to highlight because it is relevant in an early phase of a start up when a business model is crafted.

Bill Gross states his first hypothesis that five specific parameters affect the success of startups more than others. He therefore decided to look into them by studying data from hundreds of companies. The parameters he studied was

  • Ideas
  • Team
  • Business model
  • Funding
  • Timing

The result of his study shows that timing was the number one most important factor for success.

The number one thing was timing. Timing accounted for 42 percent of the difference between success and failure. Team and execution came in second, and the idea, the differentiability of the idea, the uniqueness of the idea, that actually came in third.

Gross means that if this can increase the ratio of success for new companies, it can make the world a better place. I wouldn’t take it that far, but hopefully this can affect the way we treat market timing when marketing our ideas.

What came to my mind was how to find the perfect market timing if that really mathers. After spending time thinking about this and doing some research, I can break down my first thoughts on what aspects to investigate further

  1. How to prioritize timing? If timing is vital, maybe a market entry is preferable even if the business model isn’t finished or the funding isn’t in place.
  2. When to entry? The final decision on when the timing is right. What factors do you look at to know when to entry? Is it a specific time of the year, level of inflation, good offers on delivery or supply etc.
  3.  Investigation of timing options? Observe the market in real time to know when the market is ready.

 

I’ll be glad to hear your thoughts on the subject!

See related links below.

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Input from BIG entrepreneurs

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We have talked a lot about small and medium sized entrepreneurs. Here is a very interesting article about the big ones. The article depicts the story of Jack Ma, Elon Musk amongst others on their road to success.

https://agenda.weforum.org/2015/09/how-do-leading-entrepreneurs-spot-opportunities/?utm_content=bufferf48d0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

It is interesting to see their path as it is quite a bit longer than smaller and medium sized entrepreneurs.