Ideas
Things in business worth noticing.
Good ideas don't always arrive as new technology or a big strategy. Sometimes it's a small change in how something is sold, organised, explained or done. This is where I collect the ones I find interesting.
Showing ideas in How businesses work. All ideas
The Most Expensive Word in Business Is Probably 'More'
When something isn't working, our instinct is to add more. More people. More software. More rules. But a fascinating Lego experiment revealed something rather embarrassing about the way we solve problems. What if the smartest improvement isn't adding something new — but finally removing something we never needed?
Process · Technology · How businesses work
The Shop That Made People Stay Up Until Midnight
In 2004, an online shop decided to sell just one product a day. No endless catalogue. No browsing. At midnight, everything changed. Somehow, discounted gadgets and mystery boxes became a nightly event people didn't want to miss. The secret wasn't really the price — it was giving customers a reason to come back.
Marketing · Customer experience · How businesses work
The Customers Weren't Lazy. The Business Was Making Them Work.
A fruit and veg delivery company thought giving customers more choice was a good thing. Customers disagreed — and started leaving. The answer wasn't a smarter website or another marketing campaign. It was something much simpler: stop making people do work they never wanted to do.
Customer experience · Process · How businesses work
The Business That Makes Millions — Then Vanishes
Every autumn, Spirit Halloween takes over empty shops across North America, sells costumes for a few frantic weeks, then disappears. It's a wonderfully strange retail success story — and a reminder that sometimes the smartest way to grow a business is to stop trying to be everywhere, all the time.
How businesses work · Process · Marketing