Mistake #6: Forcing humans to change
Today will be my last blog post on the mistakes I made at Arlo. I plan to continue writing but will have new lessons learned to share from Elderella and other startups I mentor. Arlo provided a lot of lessons learned (many the hard way) and in that sense I owe it a big thank you. At the same time, it has been two months since I last worked on Arlo and I don't want to risk too much hindsight in the analysis.
The last mistake builds on many of the others... forcing humans to change. As founders we naturally see a world that is different from the current one. We are more likely to be early adopters. We are more likely to seek out and push change within our organizations. That said, generally humans don't like change.
When you are selling a product to customers the degree that you need them to change to adopt your solution will have a direct impact on adoption. The more seamlessly that your solution fits into their existing workflow, the easier the initial deployment. As I referenced in Mistake #5, the lack of integrations forced customers to completely rebuild their existing workflows from scratch to include Arlo. I had one CEO tell me point blank (as part of telling me no) that they had honed their processes and workflows for the past 14 years. The workflows were "battle tested" and he considered them a competitive advantage. To give up the certainty of how things worked to adopt AI in this form was simply too risky.
Looking back, I fell into a trap of knowing the product inside out and losing perspective on how much of a learning curve there was to the product. This was compounded by Mistake #2 where we built out a LOT of features which increased the complexity of the product. I underestimated the psychological weight of asking people to abandon proven systems. Their existing workflows were improved over time from lessons learned AND they were well understood within the company. Asking someone to throw that away was risky professionally for them even if the pay off from the product could be high.
If I could do it over, I would have started by augmenting existing workflows rather than replacing them. Build the integrations first, even if it meant a less ambitious initial product. Prove the value in ways that require minimal disruption, then earn the right to ask for bigger changes once you've built trust. Meet customers where they are, not where you wish they were.
At Elderella, I'm applying this lesson by focusing obsessively on integrating into where caregivers already live today. The value that we can offer will feel more like magic because the caregiver isn't being asked to change (a lot).
The best products don't ask customers to change. Instead, they find customers who are already looking to change. I didn't understand that with Arlo, but I'm determined to get it right with Elderella. Thanks for following along on this journey looking back on Arlo. Now I shift to looking forward.