Culture: We build tools here
I’ve been telling the story of Ideally a lot lately, and it’s had me particularly reflective on what we’ve accomplished so far and why I’m excited about the future. One of the central threads in those reflections is this concept that we build tools.
A lot of people tend to talk about products, while ignoring the tools — individual components — with which they are comprised and which enable the broader experience. I believe a team’s execution is a direct result of their ability to break products down into tools. It’s a different state of flow to think about tools and the holistic platform, rather than products. It’s not about seeing trees and the forest — it’s trees and the ecosystem.
There are two types of tools: external and internal. Both are vital.
The best post I’ve come across about the role of tools to external stakeholders (shoppers and brands/retailers in the case of Ideally’s two-sided marketplace) is Chris Dixon’s Come for the tool, stay for the platform. I re-read it once a month —while super concise, the post articulates the concept really well, laying out the connections to network value and defensibility.
“The idea is to initially attract users with a single-player tool and then, over time, get them to participate in a network. The tool helps get to initial critical mass. The network creates the long term value for users, and defensibility for the company.”
Different features within the platform are tools. For shoppers within the Ideally app these are:
- the Sale Assistant that compares prices across different retailers, tracks those prices and any promotions, and purchases on the consumer’s behalf when possible;
- the Idea List that serves a Save for Later function and shapes a personalized experience as the app adapts to the brands, price points, styles for each shopper;
- the ability to Buy Now from thousands of brands and retailers within one shopping app.
Our early shoppers use these tools individually or collectively. And each of those external tools is comprised of sub-tools — enabling basic (utilizing stored payment information) and complex (dynamic personalization) functions. Those sub-tools abstract away complexity and tend to be the difference between good and great.
Some shoppers just use the Idea List as a central repository of products across different brands and categories —entertainment that’s like a better, digital version of mall window-shopping.
Some shoppers are price/deal-conscious and only purchase when there’s a sale, so they use the Sale Assistant to make sure they don’t miss out on the next “limited-time only” sale.
Other shoppers only use Buy Now, preferring the instant gratification of know the purchase is coming on its way now without the headaches of managing multiple accounts with the same information across different brands and retailers.
As an open platform, we focus less on which of the use cases a given shopper prefers, rather empowering the shopper to utilize the app in a way that they find useful — mapping to their current way of shopping and unlocking new possibilities. Mobile will continue to transform consumer behavior and the retail landscape. The shift from offline to online will continue to transform consumer behavior and the retail landscape. The wave of change is real and growing in both scope and scale. Much of our work has been to build the tools for the future of retail. Now that future is increasingly becoming the present.
Learn more at www.ideally.com, grab the iOS app in the Apple App Store, or sign up for the Android waitlist.
