Automate Or Augment?
Lots of companies assume that the consumer doesn’t want to do the thing and so create products that do it for them. Another set of companies assume that the consumer REALLY wants to do the thing and will create products to aid them in that endeavour.
The truth is that some people want to do the thing and and other people don’t want to do the thing. The ratio of these two populations depends largely on what said thing actually is.
Dress myself? Me please.
Brush my teeth? Me please.
Schedule my tourist stuff when I’m vacationing? Me please.
These are all things for which it would be GREAT if we could do them ourselves. We don’t feel comfortable with someone performing that service or action on our behalf for any number of reasons:
- I’m a god damn adult
- It’s icky if you do that for me
- I feel a sense of discovery or accomplishment in doing it for myself
- There is some other innate joy in doing it myself
There are of course some things that we don’t want to do for ourselves but inevitably must. For me, some of those things might be:
Operating a dangerous moving vehicle? No thanks.
Hunting and growing my own food? No thanks.
Sucking all the dirt out from between the carpeting? No thanks.
I feel comfortable with someone or something doing these things for me because:
- I fundamentally lack some basic skills
- It’s icky if I do it myself
- I don’t have the time to do it right now
- It’s boring! I’m bored!
This is why we have products like cabs, restaurants, grocery deliveries and accountants. (Yes accountants. You are a product.) We lack either the strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom or charisma to do these things ourselves. For whatever reason, others value their labour in performing that service for us at a lower price point than the maximum amount of money we’re willing to pay for it.
This is the fundamental difference that sits between two different categories of products. Those that automate a process and allow the user to take their mind off it, or those that augment the user’s capacity to do it themselves. Good product-market fit means targeting the right product to sit in the space that I like to call The Agency Spectrum (see below).
It’s easy to think of these things in a binary sense, and certainly that’s what I have been doing up until this point. The truth is a lot fuzzier.
There are certain tasks that nearly everybody does for themselves, like the brushing of teeth. Products targeted at these types of tasks almost exclusively aid the individual rather than doing it for them. Think of electric toothbrushes or disclosing tablets.
There are those that the lazy, time-strapped or unable have done for them, but that the rest of us do ourselves, like walking the dog or vacuuming. This is when automation and augmentation first start to mix. For the Do It Yourselfers there are fancy long leashes, light-up collars for night walking or the very latest in vacuum technology. For the Do-It-For-Me there’s dog walkers, roombas and even the occasional canine treadmill.
Some things are a completely mixed bag. All city dwellers probably have a friend that exclusively eats out, or that only rides in a cab instead of driving themselves. Others of us find joy in preparing our own food, or in the roar of the engine. There are products and services to suit all needs here.
Further down the spectrum we find the space where only enthusiasts do the task themselves. I have fond memories of painting interior walls with my family as a child, and of all the paint and paraphernalia that came with that. I know, however, that many have no intention of ever doing that. For them, there are any number of painters and decorators ready to do the task. Likewise with growing food, only the truly green-fingered purchase the trowels and buckets for back-garden agriculture. The vast majority of us just go to the supermarket or grocer to buy the food someone has grown for us instead.
Finally, there’s the space where almost everybody has the task done on their behalf. While there may be a few cases in which the defendant represents themselves at court, this is almost exclusively those that are trained experts. For shoemaking, even the experts sometimes leave it to someone else, or to the machines.
Given all of this, consider the entrepreneur that is designing a venture. They recognise that there’s a thing that needs to be done. They analyse it. They view it from all angles. They believe that far too much work is going into people doing this thing and it’s up to them the entrepreneur to solve it.
Question for the entrepreneur: Should you make a business that performs the task on behalf of the consumer, or should you make a business that helps the consumer to perform a particular task themselves?
Answer: There is no answer. Go and talk to your customers.
Sorry, it’s that simple. There are some circumstances in which people want to put the work in themselves. There are some in where there’s no way in hell they’re going anywhere near that task.
You may have an assumption in your head about where your particular targeted task sits on this scale. That’s great. If you’re right, you’ve probably just saved yourself a good amount of money in doing the aforementioned research. If you’re wrong, you may just be ignoring a large amount of people who would really rather you didn’t brush their cat for them, thanks. Mittens likes it a particular way and your CatBrush3000 just isn’t going to cut the mustard.
This is bad. Those people have money. Money you want.
If the cost of making the adjustments to your business to allow it to address the other side of the market is less than the expected lifetime earning from doing so you have just left money on the table.
You like money, right?
In conclusion, for some things almost everyone wants to put the work in themselves. I know I certainly don’t want anyone brushing my teeth for me if I can help it. For other things, nearly everyone wants it done for them. Nobody wants to bring back the washing board. For a third class of things, there’s a real mix between the two.
If you’re serving to the mix, respect the mix. There’s no way to please both sides with one product. Choose to augment, or choose to automate. The important thing is you acknowledge that you’ve chosen.
“The return from your work must be the satisfaction which that work brings you and the world’s need of that work. With this, life is heaven, or as near heaven as you can get. Without this — with work which you despise, which bores you, and which the world does not need — this life is hell.” — W.E.B DuBois
Contact me on Twitter at @SpeakMouthWords if you want to fight over the diagram. If you have something to say about how this applies to financial services or insurance, even better.
