Thought:
Tech is only useful if it solves a specific pain point or clearly increases value. Tech for tech's sake can be a costly mistake.
Why? How?
Nearly two decades after the dot-com bubble crash, technology has proven its value. Today, companies eagerly adopt new tech products, convinced by their track records of time saved, revenue generated, or costs reduced.
Shiny new technology has emerged, like AI or the blockchain, creating powerful backbones for new application.
But adopting tech for tech’s sake can be a costly mistake.
Technology products should solve a specific (and painful) need. They should integrate as seamlessly as possible with existing business processes. And the value add should be obvious.
Why adopt tech products in the first place?
Say you’re a small business and want to increase your bottom line. You can either focus on increasing revenue or decreasing costs. Let’s assume you think sending cold emails manually is a waste of time.
Investing into an automated email outreach software could:
- Free your time by handling the repeated task automatically once you’ve set it up
- Scale your outreach by processing more volume in a much shorter time period
- Solve a specific and painful need, thereby freeing up some mental space
In this case, the software provides added value fairly quickly. It requires little time to set up and is fairly intuitive if you are used to sending emails.
If the software is unintuitive, takes a lot of time to maintain, or is bloated with features you’ll never use, it can create overhead, both in terms of time and costs.
Before using tech for your business, consider asking yourself:
- What am I trying to achieve? Or what is my specific pain point?
- How do I solve this problem today?
- How do I wish I could solve this problem?
- What would the solution need to do for me to be satisfied?
- Does this solution exist today?
Technology is powerful. It can automate tasks at a scale that humans would have a hard time matching. It also enables you to reach many more customers, some that you’ll never even interact with.
But before you decide to use the blockchain for your next application, consider what you are really trying to achieve. Make sure you aren’t using tech for tech’s sake, but really leveraging its power for YOUR sake.
Best of luck! And let me know how I can help.
Cheers,
Léa
