We received this email last week from a customer…

“I just wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know how pleased we are with Schedule Fly. As advertised, it is very easy to use and set up. We have two locations and Schedulefly has helped bring the staff closer together! It is fun and easy to use so the staff picks up and drops shifts between locations much more so than they ever did in the past. Please keep Schedulefly Fun & Easy to use, and don’t try to do too much.”

It reminded me that if you just keep your application (or product, or menu, or whatever you sell) simple and easy and “don’t try to do too much,” you are well on your way to creating a successful business.

The problem is it can be very hard to keep things simple and easy and not try to do too much. Businesses almost always want to add things to their products. They want to make them bigger. Or better. Or both. But in attempting to do so they often make their products more complicated. Or more frustrating. Or both.

Recently I posted some items for sale on Craigslist. I had been to their site in a couple of years, and I was so relieved that it looked no different than I had remembered it. It hasn’t changed much because the people at Craigslist know better than to try to do too much! (By the way, I admire the heck out of Craigslist as a business – they are very profitable and don’t need many people to run the business, which I posted about here two years ago.)

So we promise to our users that we will keep Schedulefly fun and easy to use. That we won’t try to do too much. In fact, over time we’ll probably take more things away (by creating less clicks) than we add.

In other words, in a world of ever more complicated devices and applications and products, we’re focused heavily on being breath of fresh air for all of the members of the Schedulefly community…

Wil