Time for a Decision
For the past month J and I have debated a specific element of our business model. When we added the company that will be producing our product to the mix, things really began to stagnate.
Today, we had a breakthrough. What was the solution? It finally occurred to us….we were going against our own name. Leanliness LLC is less than a week old, but the problem we’ve been kicking around at mystery Inc has been ongoing for a month. We have been arguing about what we think our customers will do. What we should have been doing is figuring out a way to get their opinion and adjust our product to fit their behavior. THAT is lean philosophy.
A couple of things happened at the point we recognized our mistake. First, we cooled off. I didn’t have enough beauty sleep last night, so I wasn’t my bubbly self. Wait, I’m never my bubbly self. At one point J had to give me the “Look, we’re best friends, but I’m gonna tell you how I feel about it….”
The second thing that happened? Our dilemma turned into a feature with the potential to double our market. When we stopped trying to predict what customers were going to do, and decided to put something out there and LISTEN to what they had to say, we no longer had to choose between “this” or “that” feature. We turned the fork-in-the-road into a two-way street, which is much better when steaming ahead as we have been.
Tell us about a feature or solution that your customers provided for you? Was it difficult for you to put your pride and own ideas aside?
Chance
