How to build the business of your dreams:
- Start by handcrafting the product or service of your customer’s dreams.
- Then help them live that dream so they will tell you more.
- Grow customer by customer until it hurts.
- Then work out which parts you need to automate to get big AND keep the handcrafted feel.
This is my TL:DR of the first episode of Reid Hoffman’s ‘Masters of Scale’ podcast. “Do things that don’t scale”.
I love it because it focusses on the ‘handcrafted’ nature of extraordinary customer experience. It takes time to do this as a startup. It takes hard work. It takes getting your hands dirty. It hurts.
I also love it because of the way it talks about automation and scaling.
To scale, automate the bits that make delivering the customer experience hard. Automate the admin, not the experience. So, for example, Airbnb makes it easy for a host to be an extraordinary host, not by taking them out of the equation, but by making everything else in the equation disappear into the background.
It’s well worth a listen – or a read of the transcript if you’re in a hurry.
I’d love to know what you think of it.
Of course I would add: Share how to create the handcrafted part of the experience with your team through a Customer Experience Score – and make sure that’s a floor. With no ceiling. A springboard, not a ball and chain.
Discipline makes Daring possible
