What Start-Ups Can Learn From Archimedes

As it turns out, Archimedes can teach us a lot.  He was Smart with a capital S. 

“Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth” Archimedes

Or – in other words, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."

 

“A lever (/ˈlɛvər/ or UK /ˈliːvər/) is a machine consisting of a beam or rigid rod pivoted at a fixed hinge, or fulcrum. It is one of the six simple machines identified by Renaissance scientists. The word comes from the French lever, "to raise", cf. a levant. A lever amplifies an input force to provide a greater output force, which is said to provide leverage. The ratio of the output force to the input force is the ideal mechanical advantage of the lever”. - Wikipedia

How does this relate to start-ups?  Start-ups are small Davids who are out to conquer giant Goliaths.  In the bible, David defeated Goliath with a lever.  A catapult with a stone is a weapon which turns a near useless stone into a giant killing weapon.

In the business world, there are plenty of levers to use.  Identifying them and using them to your advantage is an essential part of building a small business that can take on Giants.

An example. Microsoft came to dominate PC operating systems through a smart distribution deal with IBM.  IBM at the time were a massive PC manufacturer, Microsoft were tiny.  Bill Gates managed to get his DOS operating system into all IBM machines yet retain the rights to use them elsewhere.  By leveraging the massive scale of IBM, MS DOS became the main PC operating system of its time.

These days, a small online trader can leverage the marketplaces of eBay and Amazon to gain access to consumers.  A gaming company can leverage the user base of Facebook, a SaaS business can give away free products in app stores to acquire customers that they can up sell to paying subscribers.  A travel insurance provider can partner with an online travel agent to gain access to relevant consumers.  
 

Thinking of the world in terms of how to leverage the strengths of others to your advantage is a very useful perspective when you have very little in the way of money or resources.   

Got any other examples?  Please do share your thoughts…

How not to ask for a phone number

A real life lesson in simple usability improvements that can improve conversion rates.

My wife and I love the movies, so to celebrate Valentine's Day this weekend we'll be going to our local cinema to see "The Kings Speech".  I've heard it's very good.

I booked online with at the cineworld.co.uk site (@cineworld) and only just managed to book thanks to a rather horrible usability hurdle.  Here follows what I wrote to them using the contact pages after the experience.

Dear Cineworld

"...I wanted to share with you a usability problem I had with the payment pages.  If my experience is anything to go by it will be seriously hampering your conversion rates and if you fix it should improve your bottom line immediately...


It's to do with the validation of the mobile phone number.


I initially put in my number as follows;
077XXXXXXXX


The error message told me to add the country code. So I did;
+4477XXXXXXXX


The error message told me to only use digits.  So I did;
004477XXXXXXXX


Then the was another error message.  Can't remember exactly what it said.  To get through the validation process I needed to actually type;
4477XXXXXXXX


4 attempts!
From someone who works building websites for a living and has done so for the last 11 years!


It's quite possibly the worst validation experience I've ever  had.


Suggestions;
1. If you want to capture the data in that format tell them so in the form up front 
2. Alternatively have a drop down of country codes to select from with UK as default.  Then ask people to enter their number as normal in the field and get your programmers to remove the first zero and any spaces.


In essence - you're making it way too complicated.


Hope you find this useful..."

What's happened here?

I've seen this happen many times.

The developer says, "In order to send SMS confirmation messages, my system needs clean and correct numbers.  I need the country code, then the mobile number in the following format; [XXYYYYYYYYYY] (where X is the country code, no zeroes, no symbols and Y is the number, no spaces, no zero up front)".

The developer does not say, "How do people usually type in their mobile numbers?  How can I help them enter it in a way that is obvious for them and still helps me get the data in the format I need"

Don't blame the developer though.  The producer / product manager should be on top of this during the design process and the interaction designer should instruct the developer.

Cineworld, to be fair have built a pretty intuitive website and it's very easy to find and select a movie to book.

Funnily enough, Cineworld did populate the form with a suggestion format in the field.  I didn't see it, the light grey was so light it didn't register.  Then, when I got it wrong, I didn't have obvious instructions on what the format should have been.

The only way top really test this is to watch real people using it.  People with nothing to do with the design process. Learn from idiots like me, tweak the form, then measure the results.  How many more visitors converted into bookings did I make as a result of that change? Sounds obvious.

Be your own customer.