A "small bet" in real life
After reading so much about "small bets", you may wonder what exactly a small bet looks like. Today we'll explore a recent, concrete example I worked on.
Background: My client runs a service business that takes design requests and quickly creates high-fidelity mock-ups to help salespeople close deals. Recently, he noticed that he was spending significant time vetting incoming requests, creating a billing link through Stripe, doing the actual valuable work (designing the mock-ups), and finally sending the design back to his client.
Problem: The majority of his value comes from the design. However, getting the incoming request from a salesperson and manually constructing a Stripe link took a significant time. Time saved on this part of his business would result in the ability to delight more clients.
Small bet: We built a tiny automated system on Zapier and Trello that turns incoming email requests into Trello cards. After reviewing the design request, he drags the card from the “Inbox” column to "Awaiting Payment" which automatically responds to the request with a Stripe link to pay for the design. After the payment is received, the ticket is automatically moved to the "Payment Confirmed" column so he can begin working.
✨ Result: My client saves, on average, 15 minutes per request. He can now focus on his core deliverable: high-fidelity mock-ups. This expands his capacity to delight customers and increases the number of clients he can simultaneously serve. As an added bonus, we’ve laid a foundation upon which we can easily add more automation as he encounters new growing pains.
🔑 Key Takeaways
Find the shortest path between your problem and an automated solution—even if, nay, especially if, it's a hack.
There are existing solutions that can be strung together to create powerful time-savings for a business owner. Many modern business problems do not require a full-stack custom software solution.