SensorFu Teaser I — How a Stick Figure in a Web Page is Keeping Us Honest

Mikko-the-CEO filled in SensorFu’s web pages with the classical startup-information: team, contacts and what the company is about.

“Mmm”, frowned Marko, sinking further back into a bright green beanbag chair. “This bores me. How about we try something different this time?”

Jani finally saw his opportunity to shine. “I got this!” he exclaimed triumphantly and downloaded an animation from YouTube to cover all their web messaging needs.

Figure 1: SensorFu web page spiced up. Expensive messaging professionals behind this are proud.

So what’s the deal with having a stick-figure animation on SensorFu’s web page? We are spicing up our productization skills. “With a stick-figure?” you might ask. A fair question. In the beginning, it is not so much about what is there. It is all about what is not there. And why.

The Bliss and the Curse: Living in the Future

Living in the future is a bliss, wouldn’t you agree? Hoverboards, flying cars, and unlimited clean energy! Everything is peachy, minus the occasional holodeck malfunctions and Romulan spies causing a headache. I assert that being stuck in the future is mandatory for any hip product builder. (By “product builder” I mean “anyone working to get a new product out”.) Patent-pending paradigm-shifting disruptor products don’t build themselves — it is hard work. The dream fuels the work.

But when the same minds work on the productization, we may run into issues. The product builder needs to turn his flying car 180 degrees and go back in time to the present (reality). In our distorted view, this is the past. All the awesome capabilities planned months ago, and not yet used by any customer, are already old news. It is tempting to just get the product out and quickly continue running after the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (Figure2).

Figure 2: Product builder resisting the need to turn his flying car back towards the reality. Future on the right.

Rerouting Power to Current… I Mean Present

Current… power… ha-ha!

SensorFu is going to keep the future-distorted product builder reality right next to the reality (Figure 3). They believe that by imposing focus on the present, they can make better products. The idea is simple: by avoiding a premature feeling of accomplishment, they will be more excited about actual accomplishments. Getting the kicks out from giving all the ❤ to the current product should yield more finalised product. Easy to buy, ridiculously easy to deploy, enjoyable to use.

Figure 3: Keep the dream, but make better products by moving product builder’s reality closer to the reality.

Round One

The web page acts as a mirror reminding us where the product really is. The team, plans, early customers — all are capital for future success and would be worthy of mentioning in a normal web page. But we stripped all that away, to put the brutal reality of the productization on display. Now we know where we are. We have a stick-figure in a web page referring to a concept of escape, that’s where. Now that we are crystal clear where we are, we will probably get our kicks when we properly figure out those “mundane things”, like pricing, target audience, mention worthy features/benefits, deployment stories and so on. We don’t need the flying car. The rainbow begins from here.

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