What’s the surprise killer app for small business?
Think about it. What’s a tool that the average business owner in North America and Europe uses to leap their productivity ahead each day.
Hint 1: It’s a button.
Hint 2: It’s a button on a BlackBerry and/or iPhone.
Answer: The delete button!
Why? Because (i) almost everyone understands and uses mobile email and (ii) the delete button is the most important button when managing the inbox.
If you’re selling to small and medium businesses SMBs like we are, it’s important to know that the tool they use and value most is still email, not RSS feeds or iPhone apps. Nothing cool, just something every ultra-busy person understands. Everyone uses email and with so many emails being sent and received every day, the email inbox becomes most small business owners’ “to do” list and dashboard.
So the delete key becomes important because it’s what helps manage this default dashboard. When the delete key is hit, a task is completed, or that email has been forwarded/delegated to someone else on the business owner’s team.
This is what we’ve learned through growing ClearFit from a handfull of SMB customers to over 1,200 in the past few months. Business owners don’t want to learn anything new; they want to leverage their existing habits (whether they are good or bad, I might add). Our customers don’t want to come to our site to use our product(s), they want to use our product(s) from their existing interface: their mobile email inbox. When they see something they like, it’s as easy as forwarding that candidate to someone to interview … and when get an email about a candidate who is a weak fit for their job, they want to delete it. Sometimes it’s as simple as that!
So what’s the point of this blog post? It’s to emphasize how important it is to understand your market, especially if it’s the small business market. Look to the habits of your end user and make a product that works with their existing behavior, rather than creating new behavior. Sometimes it’s surprising.
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