Building A Better Customer

Upgrade your user, not your product. Value is less about the stuff and more about the stuff the stuff enables. Don’t build better cameras – build better photographers.

Kathy Sierra

For the past several months, Rivik Media has been building a new website. It was a slow, very slow, process. Not because of the technical difficulty, but because of the research, psychology, and thought, that went into the site.

It was way more than a website refresh, it was a new identity for the company. A more mature identity. It got us thinking a lot about branding, clients, and where things will go in the future. It sent us down a wide variety of rabbit holes.

Building a better customer was a driving idea behind it. How can we do more for our clients beyond getting them a website? How can we help them navigate being a small business online?

It also led to starting a newsletter (and a few other projects to look out for). A way to share the information we’ve gained from years of owning a small business, and working with great small business owners.

Here are a couple links that were helpful during this process.

Who Do You Love - This article was recently shared with us. It provides some great things to think about when you are starting a company. Beyond “will this make money.”

1000 True Fans - We have shared this article a few times in the past. It should be required reading for anyone looking to start a company, business, or side project to make money.

A question to other business owners out there. What do you do to education your customers? Is that something you focus on? Do you think it’s relevant to your business?