The Simple Secrets of ING Direct and 37Signals.com
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My last post drew on innovation lessons learned from the two days I spent co-hosting BIF-3, the third annual summit of the Business Innovation Factory. The event was such a rich experience that I’d like to draw on it for one more post.
If there was one theme that tied together the diverse presentations at BIF-3, it was this: How hard (bordering on impossible) it is for companies to keep new products simple and to focus their innovations on simplifying existing products.
Indeed, one of the stars of the gathering was Jason Fried, founder of a red-hot Web outfit called 37signals. Fried’s company has distinguished itself by making products that are shockingly easy to use, and that have avoided the “bloatware” and “feature creep” that infects so much of the software industry. When my cohost, Wall Street Journal tech pundit Walt Mossberg, asked Jason how his company resists the seemingly irresistible lure of complexity, the young CEO had a simple answer “We are enemies of mediocrity. And if you try to make everyone happy with your products, you end up with mediocrity. Our company has opinions, and we build products based on those opinions. We need more opinionated companies.”
I’ve seen that same point of view expressed in so many of the game-changing companies I’ve gotten to know. If you’re going to do something original, something distinctive, something great, then almost by definition you’re not going to be right for everyone. The worst thing a CEO or the head of engineering can do is to overreact whenever a customer, even an important customer, demands a new feature or insists on a new service—especially if that new feature or service risks cluttering the simplicity of the offering.
Arkadi Kuhlmann, founder and CEO of ING Direct, has built the fastest-growing bank in the United States around that very attitude. Everything about the ING Direct experience is absurdly simple. The bank offers a few savings accounts, a handful of certificates of deposit, maybe ten different mutual funds. And that’s it. Credit cards? No way. Online brokerage? Perish the thought.
ING Direct even simplifies the kinds of customers with whom it does business. The bank has no deposit minimums. (You can literally open an account with one dollar.) But it has unofficial deposit maximums. You want to open an account with a million dollars? Please find another bank. “Rich Americans are used to platinum cards, special services,” Kuhlmann told me. “The last thing we want is to have rich people making special demands.”
That kind of attitude doesn’t always make you popular—but it’s the edgy attitude required to make you successful. “Your company has to have opinions that people care about,” Jason Fried told the audience at BIF-3. “Our company has those opinions. That means some people love us, and some people hate us. But very few people ignore us.”
What are you doing to make your company more simple—and more opinionated?
Read more of Bill Taylor's Game Changer blog
MORE ON INNOVATION:
Rapid Transformation: A 90-day Plan for Fast and Effective Change (Hardcover)
Slimming Innovation Pipelines to Fatten Their Returns (HMU Article)
ING DIRECT (Case)
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William C. Taylor is an agenda-setting writer, speaker, and entrepreneur. His new project, Practically Radical, chronicles the radical shifts transforming business and the practical steps that will determine who wins. His most recent book,Mavericks at Work, has been a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek bestseller. As cofounder of Fast Company, he launched a magazine that earned a passionate following around the world. He is an adjunct lecturer at Babson College and a former associate editor of Harvard Business Review.
Comments
Sir
I had a look at the www 37Signals.com this very moment local time Dubai 9.03 am on 5th November 2007 and it talks about the software with humor> sir. There is no price tag on this. Oh, I would love to laugh occasionally at the TFT when I am stressed. So why no price tag?
I thank you
Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania
East Africa
- Posted by Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD
November 5, 2007 12:21 AM
Just a few actual user comments on ING simplicity. They have checking accounts but no checks. If you want to send a check to the IRS you have to have ING cut one and mail it to you and they send it. Their simple answer to those who do not think this makes sense, "Have a separate checking account at another bank." Having multiple banks seems like one of the things the rich people they do not want would do. Normal people want one bank.
Want to send them a deposit? They have no deposit slips. You have to write them a letter listing your deposits, customer no., acct. no., address etc. It is a small hassle but still a hassle.
Like that nice interest rate. So far every deposit I have sent them has had a two day delay before being available. My old bank made all deposits up to $5,000 available on the day of deposit. ING costs me two days interest on every deposit. Also I have had six deposits returned in two months with the bank. When sent back to them every one was deposited. No explanation. Simple--Maybe. Good--Not for Me.
- Posted by Dennis Dunkerson
January 26, 2008 10:38 AM
INGDirect isn't worth the difficulty. I joined INGDirect after it absorbed my account from a bank that failed. I read over their information (apparently too quickly), liked what I saw and decided to stay. Unfortunately I didn't notice that their checking account had no paper checks.
Yes, checks are a pain, but even in the early part of the 21st century they are still necessary at times. I got screwed a couple times from this problem and like Dennis said, ING's solution to those situations is for the account holder to "Have a separate checking account at another bank". That's what I did, but now I have to weigh the value in having redundant checking accounts when my new Bank of America account gives me everything ING Direct's did and more. OK, so the interest isn't the same... but these are bank account! Interest is pathetic and a big chunk just gets eaten by taxes anyway. As long as it doesn't cost me anything I'm fine.
I'm probably going to cancel this ING Direct account once my Bank of America account is fully up-and-running (I'm waiting for my checks to arrive and I haven't started transfering my autodeposit yet)
- Posted by Steve
February 14, 2008 11:41 AM
The telecommuting trend is certainly going to change the way we work and live. Some ingredients of successful telecommuting have however not been emphasized enough in the current literature. A recent book ("Paperless Joy" by George Dimopoulos) is highlighting these transformational changes from a paperless perspective. See:
www.paperlessjoy.com
- Posted by George Dimopoulos
August 14, 2008 2:16 PM
The telecommuting trend is certainly going to change the way we work and live. Some ingredients of successful telecommuting have however not been emphasized enough in the current literature. A recent book ("Paperless Joy" by George Dimopoulos) is highlighting these transformational changes from a paperless perspective. See:
www.paperlessjoy.com
- Posted by George Dimopoulos
August 14, 2008 2:17 PM
ING is not worth the trouble!! After opening a joint account, I added a link to an external bank, which had only one of the joint account holders name on the external account. We are married and have both joint and individual accounts. ING accepted the link, verified the account, and accepted a deposit from that account to the ING account. Then they froze my access to the ING accounts; I could only transfer money into ING. After two days of trying to get the fraud department on the phone, they explained that the external account needed to be in both names or needed to be deleted. This made no sense, but I gave up and deleted the external account. Then they froze my account completely and put it through a sixty-day risk review. I had no access to my money and no recourse. Bank elsewhere!
- Posted by Dawn Mason
September 3, 2008 2:19 PM