Solving Society’s Little Problems
Where I live, there are three big supermarkets all within walking distance. The bread is good, inexpensive and there is a good variety to choose from but all three supermarkets don’t open until 8am. There is also a recent arrival in the neighbourhood, a new independent baker’s shop that opens at 5am. The bread is a bit more expensive and his range is obviously a bit smaller but the business does really well especially between 5am and 8am in the morning. I get up early and always had a problem finding fresh bread for breakfast.
Solving a little problem like where to get our early morning bread can lead to a successful business opportunity. There are lots of motivations for starting a new business. Some of us want to follow our passion, some of us just want to be our own boss and some of us just want to make a little money. Find a solution to a little problem and you have the beginnings of a business opportunity. The world of smartphone Apps has opened up lots more business opportunities because there are now lots more small problems that can be solved due to the millions and millions of people that have these same problems no matter how small they are.
The most successful Apps on our smartphones all seem to solve little problems but on a massive global scale. Google Maps helps me know which route I want to take and Uber helps me get there. WhatsApp lets me instant message groups without paying $50 in texting fees at the end of the month and Shazam helps me track down great songs. These are my four favourite Apps and they all solve little problems for me. They also solve a little problem for millions of other people all over the world.
Our Haystack App also solves the little problem of having to carry around and exchange paper business cards in an otherwise digital world. Haystack business cards are digital so no trees need to be chopped down and no printing is required. Unlike paper business cards, the contact data on them is always current no matter how many contact details have changed. Surely one day very soon, our global society will embrace Haystack as the smarter, cooler and more environmentally friendly way to stay in touch. How can we possibly fail?
Well the reality is that WhatsApp required little behavioural change to be successful. People were accustomed to texting and emailing digital images and so the transition to WhatsApp was pretty easy. Shazam was definitely a product that filled an immediate human need with a touch of a single button, relatively, a moderate behavioural change required there. I am still trying to track down that French song I heard every day for a week on that holiday in Paris a few years ago and I’ve tried to hum it into Shazam but no luck. I’m waiting on a new App called “Hum” for that one.
Unlike Shazam and WhatsApp, Uber did require a more substantial behavioural change. Although a few taxi companies had introduced Apps before Uber, they did little more than send a text message asking for a cab. Uber changed all that but when it launched in San Francisco, even the tech savvy bay kids had to get used to setting up a user account and pre-loading their credit card data before making that first Uber trip.
Nir Eyal, a Stanford University Professor, says that to create a habit – focus on the reward. In Uber’s case, the reward was a more enjoyable, and cheaper ride. Using Haystack, the reward for trading-in the ritual to exchanging paper business cards with sharing a paperless card is the ability to create a beautiful, professional looking Haystack card in 30 seconds (no need to design, proof, and print – all done with a few taps).
This habit may take some time to change. I therefore spend a lot of time thinking about the reasons why people still use paper business cards in a world where they are otherwise entirely digitally connected. The first hint that the paper business card was on the way out was when I first started hearing people say; “connect to me on LinkedIn” at the end of meetings. This roughly translates as “I can’t be bothered carrying around business cards any more so I will leave it to you to do some detective work and then send me through a LinkedIn invitation”. This was one of my Aha moments in a long list of Aha moments over the years although I admit that some of my Aha moments are much better than others.
Unfortunately (or fortunately for Haystack), trying to contact someone through LinkedIn can be clunky. In one aspect though, LinkedIn is like Haystack in that it solved a little problem. The little problem LinkedIn solved was how to give visibility of a person’s cv/career/capabilities to everyone in their business network. The global scale and business model that LinkedIn has developed on the back of solving this one little problem is truly impressive. The little problem Haystack solves is that it keeps the contact details of your business network current and in digital format. No matter how many times Honest John, your favourite real estate agent changes agency or cell phone number, his details will always be current in your Haystack.
Can carrying paper business cards possibly be a small problem faced by a large number of people every day across the globe? Is Haystack the answer? If so, will it take us 6-8 years to know haystack is the answer like it took LinkedIn? Or just 2 to 3 years like it took Uber? One thing for sure is that if we are going to solve a small problem on a global scale we will have to actually be global. After being live for four months in the comfort of our home market in Australia, it is time to set our sights on the country with more small problems than anywhere else – the USA.
And so with a simultaneous March assault on the USA, UK and Canada, we begin our quest to be a small-problem-solving App in a big big world. USA/Canada and UK – here we come.