Eventually, even if everything in my closet and garage is neatly arranged and in a place where I can find it – I’ll spring clean. I’ll get rid of things that get in the way that I don’t really use. It’s amazing how much stuff can pile over time up that I don’t use or wear. It’s also amazing at how many things come and go that I hardly used. As I get older – like many of you – I now try really hard to refrain from buying things that I truly don’t need. Except of course for yet another fly rod…..

The good news is it’s easy to spring clean and remove things that I don’t need. And when I’m done – I LOVE it! It feels fresh and organized and back to the basics of what is really important. Less is more! With software, however, it’s very difficult to remove things and spring clean. Removing things, even if they are poorly designed or rarely used, are difficult to take away – because someone out there (likely more than you think) has gotten used to the way it works and would be upset if it were removed. There are a few things in Schedulefly I’d like to remove that have been there for a long and are not widely used – but I won’t and I am thankful there are just a few.

Imagine if we had been adding stuff each quarter to Schedulefly over the years. Actually, that’s  what I did at bigger companies because the sales people needed to up sell existing customers in order to hit their quotas and the management team focused on the people buying the software – not the people who used it. So over time the software became like my closet. At first glance when people looked at it they thought – WOW! Look at all this stuff!  It’s got everything I need! Management loved all the options and bells and whistles and value! But of course after some time, most of it was not used and most of it was not needed and it only made the good stuff harder to find and use. It became harder for new people to learn how to use and it became frustrating for the existing people using it.

If  you compete with others at whatever business your in, adding more stuff to differentiate yourself is a natural strategy. More stuff means more value….until it’s too much. And then what?

Wes