We are not our own customers
At Skyscanner we have a saying: if we can solve travel problems for ourselves then we can solve them for all travellers. Born from the entrepreneurial fire of Gareth Williams this saying has its roots in the founding motivation of many start-ups.
The burning desire to solve a problem or fix a frustrating scenario is something I strongly relate to. However, I believe there comes a point when that is not enough. A point at which we become too close to the product. A point where we need to look out rather than in.
That’s not to say we should ignore our travel problems. These can be good insights and can highlight opportunities. However, these should become one of many inputs that we use to decide the best way forward. Yes, we should eat our own dog food. Yes, we should be critical about our product. At the same time we need to understand the temptation to over-analyse it. We need to accept that we have become experts in our product. We are power users and risk designing for the fraction of our traffic who are also power users.
Are the problems we face shared with other travellers? Do people from other countries and cultures think about travel in the same way we do? More importantly, do we really understand the core, underlying issue? We need to uncover the jobs people are trying to achieve when planning a trip.
The classic example of this is described by Clayton Christensen. A fast food chain tried different flavours, textures and prices of milkshakes but couldn’t increase sales. A researcher discovered that 40% of milkshakes were bought in the morning by solo customers who drank it in their cars. They wanted something to make their commute less boring, to stave off hunger and something they could consume with one hand. By understanding the job the milkshake was used for the fast food chain created thicker milkshakes with tiny chunks of fruit (so they would last longer and be more interesting) and increased sales. They were also able to exploit new opportunities by creating self-checkout milkshake dispensers to speed up the process for commuters.
If we solve our own milkshake problems would we make them more chocolaty? Or create an Irn-Bru flavour?
Our own travel problems are a reasonable place to start as long as we investigate beyond them. I agree with the sentiment behind our saying. I would shift the emphasis away from ourselves and focus on the underlying job to be done. Something along the lines of: understand people’s travel planning problems and we can solve them for all travellers.
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