Keep it Simple
HKUST EMBA alumnus Victor RUIZ revolutionizes shoppers' experiences with smart mirrors for fitness, retail, smart living, and other verticals. His company actiMirror evolved from a Hong Kong startup to the world’s leading company in its segment. He advises against designing a product to do everything.
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Tech entrepreneurs often have ambitious personalities and big imaginations. They want to develop products with many functionalities to serve different customer segments.
But according to seasoned entrepreneur Victor Ruiz - Co-founder and CEO of actiMirror, and an alumnus of the Kellogg-HKUST Executive MBA (EMBA) Program - it’s better to “keep it simple”. Although it’s tempting to design a product which solves multiple problems, successful products are usually highly focused, he says.
Ruiz speaks from experience. At the beginning, Ruiz and his co-founder Fulvio RIVA had the idea of developing smart mirrors to offer real-time personalized consumer experiences and data analytics insights. They obtained financing, and formed an advisory board and a team. But there were many different uses for smart mirrors, and their initial business model featured too many functionalities. “It was too complicated”, he recalls.
“Always aim for simplicity,” Ruiz says. “Make sure you can explain what you do either to your grandmother or to your five-year-old child using, if possible, simple words.”
Get the MVP right
