Test counterintuitive things, because no one else ever does.
But what entrepreneurs know is that logic gets you to exactly the same place as your competitors.
All you need to do is to tinker with human psychology so that it feels as valuable as gold, at which point, who cares that it isn’t actually gold? If you think that’s impossible, look at the paper money in your wallet; the value is exclusively psychological.
Kamprad’s insight about adding consumer effort to increase the estimation of value is called the Ikea effect -- though perhaps it should really be called the Betty Crocker effect. Back in the 1950s, General Mills launched a line of cake mixes under the Betty Crocker brand. All you needed to do was add water; what could go wrong? However, this miracle product did not sell well. General Mills brought in a team of psychologists to find out why, and they pointed to guilt: The product was so damned easy to make, people felt they were cheating. The “cook” felt awkward about getting more credit than he or she had earned. In response, General Mills revised the mix to require both water and an egg. When they relaunched with the slogan “Just add an egg,” sales shot up.
Alongside the inarguably valuable products of science and logic, there are also hundreds of seemingly irrational solutions to human problems just waiting to be discovered, if only we dare to abandon conventional logic in the search for answers.
Our mantra is “Test counterintuitive things, because no one else ever does.” Imagine proposing the following ideas to a group of skeptical investors: → “What people want is an expensive vacuum cleaner that looks really cool.” (Dyson) → “The best part of all this is that people will write the entire thing for free!” (Wikipedia) → “I confidently predict that the great enduring fashion of the next century will be a coarse, uncomfortable fabric that fades, takes ages to dry, and to date, has been largely popular with indigent laborers.” (blue jeans) → “Just watch as perfectly sane people pay $5 for a drink they can make at home for a few pennies.” (Starbucks) → “And, best of all, the drink has a taste consumers say they hate.” (Red Bull)
The lesson: It is harder to like something when you haven’t chosen it. People want to have a sense of control.
We don’t value things; we value their meaning. What they are is determined by the laws of physics, but what they mean is determined by the laws of psychology.