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Use simplicity to make something much cheaper both to make and to supply.
In making the product cheaper, simplify to eliminate what we call “expensive utility” — anything the customer can do without.
Increase utility where it can be provided at little or no extra cost.
Think about each of our three categories separately:
Greater ease of use. What could this mean in your market?
Greater practical usefulness of the product or service. How cou...
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Greater art — everything that makes a product or se...
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The primary objective is to use simplicity to make something a joy to use
then greater usefulness and/or art.
you may have to work through greater complexity in order to provide greater simplicity to your customers.
A secondary objective
to ensure that the extra utility far outweighs the extra cost.
For the price-simplifier,
The central objective is always to reach a very low price — which the customer will value enormously — by trading off attributes that your customers think are less important.
it’s usually not enough to slash prices without providing some other benefits, too.
Cunning price-simplifiers always substitute cheap benefits for the expensive ones they eliminate.
Cheap as in low cost, not lower value or quality
for proposition-simplifiers.
their more affluent customers,
persuaded to pay a little more for something that they beli...
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if you are very lucky or very creative, you may be able to trade off something bad against something that is good.
the speed provided the protection.
the two went together, creating a virtuous circle.
Values that are correlated rather than anti correlated disrupt traditional trade-off. Requires an insight, creative design to break a traditional trade-off
Lane avoided the traditional trade-off between price and quality by redefining quality in terms of the contents of the book, not the cover’s material.
A price that is a fraction of the previous price for a desirable item will always create a vast new market.
Therein lies the marvelous opportunity for price-simplifiers.
Conventional thinking will never lead you to a virtuous trade-off.
In your market, can you find a way to increase an important consumer benefit while also increasing your own supplier benefit?
Price-simplifiers substitute cheap customer utility for expensive customer utility.
Proposition-simplifiers work through the complexity of a sophisticated product or service until it becomes really easy to use.
The ideal is to transcend normal trade-offs by discovering “virtuous trade-offs” — where you have two good attributes rather than one good and one bad attribute.
Once you have chosen your strategy, flesh it out in detail and work out how to execute it brilliantly.
You need to think profoundly about the economics of your market and of your existing and prospective competitors.
what will be required to sustain simpli...
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What is your simplifying flywheel?
you will need to learn how to simplify for y...
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Yes
Making it simpler so that you could cut prices by a large amount
Over 25%
Yes
No
Return on cash invested
1–5 years
Vital
Egalitarian — for example, similar office space and facilities for everyone, emphasis on teamwork, no reserved parking spot
To make products/services cheaper
Yes
Yes
Yes
Being the leader in the market overall
