Simple vs Complex

When the laughter died down in the back room of the focus-group facility, I was told that this proposal was DOA, for two reasons. First, the product manager would never meet her employer’s aggressive financial objectives selling shrink-wrapped software priced at $15 a copy. Second, everyone on the client team assured me that it would be impossible to receive a positive review of a dirt-simple $15 software product from someone like you. “Imagine the product comparison grid on the back of the box: our product has to have more check marks against more features than Quicken. Even if they never get used…”

(Pogue)

HT: 37signals

When you are designing your product, your message, and your site, it’s a good idea to continuously ask yourself, “What is the 1 crucial problem I am trying to solve?”

What is the specific problem (and solution) you want to claim? What can you do to make sure each time someone runs into that problem, they think of or get funneled to you?