OR, How to turn $10,000 into millions…
First, start by reading this most excellent post* from Seth Godin: https://seths.blog/2018/07/cheap-shower-curtains/.
Seriously. Go read it. It’s a 30-second read, and without it, the rest of this post will not make sense to you.
I’ll wait right here.
Great, you’re back!
As a digital solution specialist who helps businesses create their own digital products, I see examples of metaphorical cheap shower curtains all the time. Potential customers approach me with a pain point, a business problem they need to solve or want to solve for others.
Sometimes they’re trying to solve the issue with their own spreadsheet, or maybe a checklist created in Word. They tell me if they could just get a handle on this problem, they could save (or make) thousands. Or more.
But when investment time comes, some customers opt for the cheap shower curtain.
“We’ll stick with our spreadsheet / clunky email approach / paper and pen / (fill in the blank) approach (even though it’s not really working for us and may be limiting our success).”
While this does save money up front, going cheap, trying clumsily solve a problem when the power of a digital solution could help you do things faster, easier, more efficiently with a much better ROI may cost you more in the long run.
We’re currently working on a 2nd generation digital product that tracks work time and activity of a client’s service providers, who are spread all across the country. When we first met with them back in 2009 to write the first version of this software, this client was using spreadsheets and email to track time and billing.
This approach had worked fine while they were very small, but as the business grew, their spreadsheet method became more cumbersome and less manageable. Essentially, their “shower curtain” was capping the growth of their business.
That’s where we stepped in, and helped them create a digital product to solve their problems. Their initial investment? $10,000.
At the time, that seems like a lot. They could have opted to stay with spreadsheets and email.
Was it worth it?
As we met to discuss creating a second generation of this digital product, I asked if they felt their return was worth the investment. One of the management team let out a laugh and said, “Quite simply, without this software, we wouldn’t even exist.”
Currently, the annual revenue managed by this product has increased over 1500% from initial implementation.
Having the foresight to pull the trigger on that initial investment, to get a decent metaphorical shower curtain, empowered them to leverage the power of computing to solve their own business problems and realize significant growth.
What business problem do you face every day that could be solved with the right digital product? Think that over, and decide what kind of shower curtain will work best for you…
*Am I the only one that finds it hard to say “excellent” without adding “most” in front of it?
