« Bipolarization of Internet Acquisitions in 2005 | Main | VCs and Bipolarization: What Hasn’t Happened - Yet »
November 22, 2005
Friction is Multiplicative
We’ve been meeting with (and investing in) a number of online and mobile consumer-facing services startups recently. A lot of our due diligence questions when exploring these potential investments surrounds customer usage – after all, you can’t have a successful consumer-facing startup without the consumers.
A key component (and risk-area) in most of these businesses is in generating a critical mass of users utilizing the service. One of the lessons that I’ve learned through my own experience with web-based consumer-facing services is the importance in reducing friction between and before desired actions. Any element of a service that would cause a user to either hesitate or initiate an extra step in the process before a desired action should have a solid reason why it’s incorporated. Of course, this rule manifests itself a product strategy level – is there a download to initiate, registration to complete, or new behavior to learn in order to use a service? But this guide also governs granular tactical decisions – how many inputs fields should be included or how is a page laid out?
While I was managing the marketing of our e-mail newsletters at About.com, it always surprised me how minor changes in UI could significantly affect our conversation rates. Taking it one step further, considerable changes in a user workflow had dramatic changes in adoption and usage. In this experience, I learned the lesson that friction is multiplicative. Barriers towards a desired consumer action aren’t additive; they’re compounding on top of each other. Conversation rates in a several step process multiply across the entire sequence as a whole.
Obviously, this message has tactical execution implications. But it also has strategic ones which we consider as investors. Friction points inherent in the service’s usage should be overcome with a compelling value-proposition. So I always ask, “Is it worth it?” And the failure to reduce obvious tactical friction-points in a service signals a lack of in-house expertise (and culture of understanding) about the subtleties of marketing to the consumer.
The goal, however, isn’t to eliminate all the friction. Just the unnecessary portion. Then we ask if what’s left can be overwhelmed with the value proposition to induce adoption.
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.genuinevc.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/141
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Friction is Multiplicative:
» Google Begins Testing Click-to-Call Advertising from IP Democracy
Within days of announcing a feature that allows users to check local stores’ prices, inventory and location, Google has begun testing a click-to-call feature that allows users to get connected by phone to AdWords advertisers. Greg Yardley provide... [Read More]
Tracked on November 23, 2005 2:12 PM
» Friction is Multiplicative from Startup Fever
David Beisel writes how friction is multiplicative:
While I was managing the marketing of our e-mail newsletters at About.com, it always surprised me how minor changes in UI could significantly affect our conversation rates. Taking it one step furthe... [Read More]
Tracked on December 7, 2005 7:17 PM
» One Year of Blogging from Genuine VC
As of a few days ago, I hit the one year mark with this blog, Genuine VC. 181 posts later, I am extremely happy with all of the time and effort that I’ve put into it over the past twelve months - it’s been very rewarding on both a personal and prof... [Read More]
Tracked on March 26, 2006 5:02 PM
» america grand casino from america grand casino
america grand casino [Read More]
Tracked on October 6, 2006 11:46 PM
Comments (5)
Very well put.
Posted by Greg Gibson | November 22, 2005 10:07 PM
Posted on November 22, 2005 22:07
Lot of thanks David for this advice.
I will use it very soon for a new consumer-oriented website I plan to launch.
Posted by Xavier Quilliet | November 23, 2005 7:02 AM
Posted on November 23, 2005 07:02
came across you from fred wilson.
another way to articulate it - lower the barriers to entry. a poor UI is definitely a barrier to entry. heavyweight registration form is another. if you want to build an architecture of participation you need to lower the barriers to entry.
http://www.redmonk.com/sogrady/archives/000954.html
Posted by James Governor | November 23, 2005 8:58 AM
Posted on November 23, 2005 08:58
David,
Interesting e-commerce perspective. Your discussion about the impact of friction on a business process remined me of many of our own coporate training in connection with Six Sigma. We have utilized several statistical methods to measure & analyze business processes in order to reduce "waste" or, in your example, "friction." Also the conversion rate you discuss is similar to what we describe as Rolled Throughput Yield (RTY) where the the yield of individual process steps are multiplied together to identify challenges and create opportunities across each step.
Posted by Scott Nathan | November 23, 2005 11:31 AM
Posted on November 23, 2005 11:31
ahh, good to see another post from someone who gets it. I definitely agree with you. When designing Ugather's UI, we decided that the actions/features were defined clearly and boldly. From that point, one rule we stuck with: everything needs to be one click away at all times (posting, browsing, messages regarding posts,etc.). People have tons of choices when using sites, and if you can't let them see why yours is "the one" right away, then the game is lost. Something else, that I don't know is another post topic, or a part of this, but users must truly feel like the site is alive and constantly being used. A site that looks and feels like a ghosttown with no content, will stay that way. That all comes down to UI, layout, and some other initial things. Anyway, good read, and let me know when the next Boston meetup is. Just got back from mountain view last week... very exciting stuff happening. Have a good thanksgiving weekend.
-Jason L. Baptiste
Posted by Jason Baptiste | November 26, 2005 12:11 AM
Posted on November 26, 2005 00:11