My wife bought me an espresso maker for Father’s Day, and I LOVE it. (She knows a morning espresso helps me be an even better father – and husband!)

I love that it’s simple and easy to use. I learned to use it in 30 seconds.

I love that it doesn’t have tons of bells and whistles. I don’t need it to tell me the time or have a hidden can opener. I just want a good cup of espresso. And that leads me too…

I love that it makes really good cups of espresso. That’s all I need it to do, so it is really important that it does the one thing it is supposed to do very well, and nothing else really matters.

Too many products these days try to do too many things, and wind up becoming complicated, frustrating, easily broken, and ultimately don’t meet the customer’s core need. I believe companies that are smart enough to focus intensely and perpetually on perfecting the ability to meet their customers’ core needs, and don’t try to convince people to buy based on lots of “extra” features, or slick marketing, or high pressure sales people, or other factors are the ones that will gradually build audiences of loyal fans vs. creating large numbers of unhappy (and many soon to be ex-) customers.

Wil