Amazon Whisperer

Describe the revenue drivers you currently include in your business concept for this class. Revenue drivers are the different ways you make money. 

The primary revenue driver for my business would be the application iDrive itself.  As a task based application with goal tracking abilities the application would sell on the Apple App store and eventually for android devices. 

Describe what kind of product offering you believe should be next. What's the next thing your customers want?

Next would be the book; essentially taking what our idea is and opening up the hood for all to see what we’ve done and how it is beneficial beyond just the application itself.  How these simple steps can take you from 0 to 100 in no time flat on any project that you set your mind to. 

Describe how this "next" thing will enhance your existing product/service offering. Does it improve the user experience, does it increase customer switching costs, does it foster customer loyalty, etc.?

I think primarily it will enhance the user experience as well as foster customer loyalty.  It’s an element of trust and understand to say “here’s our secret recipe and I want you to use it again and again and again to make yourself more successful.”

Go to Amazon and try to find a product that is similar to the one you want to offer next. Describe the product. Include a picture of the product.

I went to the app store and picked up one application that I know will be of primary competition; called “Streaks”

There idea is simple; take a few things that you want to start doing daily and add them to your daily reminder count and the application will keep track of how many you complete.

What are the customer reviews for the product? What, exactly, do customers not like about the product? What do they like about it?

They are mostly 5 stars all around on reviews; but for the purpose of building a competitive edge I’ve filtered by “most critical” reviews to find out what is missing.  One MAJOR flaw in the design is that it truly will only let you track 6 tasks that you want to perform daily.  Another that was brought up several times is that you can’t “undo” or go back to the previous day and submit a completion.  If your day ends at 2am and you completed anything between 12 and 2 then it will have to count for “tomorrow.”

Describe what design/usability changes you'd make to the product. 

The streaks themselves are a huge motivator; but is eating a healthy meal every day (as the phot suggests) your goal?  Or is your goal to lose weight.  I think the task streak is amazing and needs to be a part of design for our application but there have to be overarching goals attached as well so that the user can see; as a result of your 14 day streak you’ve lost 5 pounds (for example). 

Describe why you think this product would make a good addition to your current product/service offering.

This is a good keep it simple stupid addition; like a junior version; or even a sub application for what our business plan is.  Something that would tie to your fitbit or iWatch to drive you to see today through to the very end.  iDrive will pick up on the weeks and months that follow!