World-Changing Inventions Are Often Simple: How Can You Tell When Yours Is Too Complicated?

World-changing inventions are often extremely simple. Simple things are easy to understand, explain, and put to different uses. Even the inventor may not yet know how they will be used, but their simplicity and flexibility allow many applications to be layered on top and adapted. Complex things are much less flexible. Better to keep things simple than make them too complicated. The same applies to business models: the simpler the model and venture, and the tighter the focus, the better. Often it is a question of trade-offs. Do one thing well at a time. If you cannot explain your product, service, and business model quickly, I think you have made them too complicated. Start over if you can. Clarify your core advantage, focus on the problem most in need of solving, and narrow the battlefield wherever possible—rather than simultaneously launching on four fronts with eight product projects. #SubtractionCreatesGreatProductsMoreThanAddition #OneBenefitOfWorkingWithVCsIsConstantElimination #NarrowTenProjectsDownToOne #LimitedResourcesRequireFocus ---- Time for Robin: how do we judge simplicity versus complexity? 1. Cannot explain it on one A4 page → too complicated. 2. Cannot explain it in six minutes → too complicated. 3. The grandmother selling vegetables on the corner cannot understand it → too complicated. Reorganize and pare it down again to the most essential, easily understood explanation.