I've been creating stuff for the last 5 years and if I had to tell you just one lesson from all of it, is this. I have seen in the last year how all my ideas from 3 or 4 years ago are becoming the big successes of the current web scene.
I'm not talking about an idea I had that resembled a current service. No, I'm talking about the same exact actual products and services. I'm in a perpetual WTF? state at how identical my ideas are.
Difference? Execution.
This also has made adopt a posture about the complexity of the idea itself. IMHO strip you idea of unnecessary complexity (advanced functionalities, etc, etc) in order to be able to execute it as good as you can as fast as you can. Simplicity allows better execution.
This seems obvious but is damn hard to accomplish.
> IMHO strip you idea of unnecessary complexity (advanced functionalities, etc, etc) in order to be able to execute it as good as you can as fast as you can. Simplicity allows better execution.
I think this is one of the important facets that determine how successful your execution will be. Put in too little functionality and it could fail. Put in too much and it could fail as well. All other things equal (design, marketing, etc) it's almost as if you need just enough to introduce the core functionality while still being useful, then iterating on that to bring in additional functionality once your customers grok the initial set.
I wonder if it would help to think about what job the user wants done (instead of how good the app is).
Christensen suggests the user is hiring your app, as an employee, to get something done for them (it might be a work task, or it might be fun, to pass time, start conversation, break ice etc). So: what's the minimum the app has to do, to achieve that, for some user?
I'm not talking about an idea I had that resembled a current service. No, I'm talking about the same exact actual products and services. I'm in a perpetual WTF? state at how identical my ideas are.
Difference? Execution.
This also has made adopt a posture about the complexity of the idea itself. IMHO strip you idea of unnecessary complexity (advanced functionalities, etc, etc) in order to be able to execute it as good as you can as fast as you can. Simplicity allows better execution.
This seems obvious but is damn hard to accomplish.