Gene Smith
April 9 11:30AM
Angel investors and venture capitalists use the term "lipstick on a pig" to
describe businesses that take something bad--typically a system or experience
that's broken or difficult--and make it better.
Two years ago we started a software project (and later turned it into its own
business) that was based on significantly improving a hugely popular enterprise
software platform. We took a toolset that was known for
• being difficult to use,
• requiring a lot of training and administration,
• creating all kinds of spin-off headaches once it was deployed
and we attempted to make it simple, elegant and intuitive. The feedback we
heard from customers (actual and potential) was that we had succeeded--they
loved the simplicity and saw how our thoughtful design could benefit them.
But the common refrain from potential investors, experienced software
entrepreneurs and advisors was "lipstick on a pig." In other words, they
didn't believe a successful business could be built by wrapping an exceptional
user experience around an already-successful-but-hard-to-use platform.
Why not?
This presentation will answer that question by sharing the lessons we've
learned building and selling this product. We'll specifically discuss the user
experience techniques we used in creating the product, and what we learned
about the value of user experience to
• potential investors when we pitched for funding,
• customers when we were doing sales, and
• advisors when we were looking for guidance on our product and business
model.
We'll also share what we learned about
• user experience as a differentiating feature in a software product
• marketing and selling a product with user experience as a core part of its
value proposition (and how that's different from selling user experience
services)
• how the shape of the market (incumbents, sales channels, business
practices, customer expectations, etc.) can influence the value of good design
in a software application.
And we’ll look briefly at other businesses that have successfully
differentiated themselves through great design (such as Mint and Flickr) and
compare their experiences to ours.
Attendees can expect a candid discussion of the challenges we faced and how we
addressed them, along with the tangible and practical lessons we’ve drawn
from these experiences.