Your own little business
To most, an entrepreneur is simply someone who owns their own business. I mean, they're not wrong, but we know there is a lot more to it than that. I am not sure about you, but I have to take a couple of deep breaths and actively try not to roll my eyes when someone says, “Aw so cute that you have your own little business”.
The life of an entrepreneur is chaotic, a wild roller coaster that can make you scream for joy and make you want to hurl all at the same time. One moment, you are riding the high of a big sale and the next minute you remember you forgot to send out invoices and wave goodbye to five possible sales. It’s just not always easy.
stub gets it
But why am I telling you all this? It’s not to scare those who have ambitions of starting a business, I promise. It’s to let all you hustlers out there know that we get it! And when I say we, I mean our wonderful team at stub. We get the challenges, obstacles and hurdles you have to face daily. We get that being successful in your business doesn’t always mean that you’re going to feel like you’re on top of the world. But most importantly, we get how important it is to give you one less thing to worry about. We want you to know that despite the worry and downheartedness that you can sometimes feel with all the challenges of running your own business, there’s also greatness behind what you’re doing.
A personal mission
I, myself, own two small businesses. While I am so grateful for everything they have done for my life and all they have taught me, I can testify to the fact that it is hard to do it all on your own. You are a salesman, manager, accountant, marketer, driver and the list goes on and on. So you could say that when I joined the stub family to take on a design role, adding a third job to my already hectic life schedule, it became a personal mission to design things that would make the life of a small business owner easier. A selfish act really.
Designing experiences for entrepreneurs
One thing I have learnt throughout my years of designing experiences is that it’s a lot more than just making things easy and delightful. It's about shaping the way people feel when they interact with your designs, and about making a positive impact in their lives. When it comes to designing these experiences I have but one ethos if you will, “Solve real problems, for real people!” And when it comes to entrepreneurs, we know that they have no shortage of problems. Why the bold use of real Chanelle? Good question. What may appear to be the most obvious problem may not be the “real”, underlying, core pain a person is experiencing. What shows up on the surface may not be the messy root of the problem below.
Let me give you a ‘for instance’. A common phrase we hear from entrepreneurs in the biz is… “I don’t have enough time to do my accounts.” Cool, that sounds like a problem, with an obvious solution, or so you would think. If we just make it quicker for entrepreneurs to do their accounts they will have more time. Problem solved, sign the papers, done. But no, no, no, no.
Understanding the root problem
A super important question we often forget to ask is why? Why is it a problem? Why do they not have enough time to do their accounts? Is it taking too long for them to do? Do they not understand it, so it takes them longer? Do they have other things taking up all of their time? Which parts of accounting are they not able to find time for? Do they just not have the confidence to try and do their accounting? Or do they maybe just not want to do it at all and not having the time sounds like a great excuse? All of these questions will have very different answers, which in turn will lead to very different problems with very different solutions.
If entrepreneurs don’t have time to do their accounts because they don’t understand it, then that's something we need to look at solving. What don’t they understand? What seems hard? Have they tried? Have they been burned before? Again we need to unpack the problem further because without truly understanding the entrepreneur and the real pain, we won't be able to design a solution that will make positive and proactive changes. No matter how small a problem is for an entrepreneur, we believe it is a problem that deserves to be solved.
The aha moment
I could go into the nitty-gritty of design, but I believe that this is the most important lesson I have learned over the years and especially now while designing for entrepreneurs, as an entrepreneur. Understanding the true user pain is the only way to start solving the design challenge ahead. And trust me when I say, watching an entrepreneur light up because something they used to find difficult and daunting to do, they now take on with confidence and joy, is one of the most rewarding things for an experienced designer to see.