The Origin Story
You might have asked yourself this question, why is a blog on eCommerce called Learn By Trying? How is that even relevant to the eCommerce industry or the content shared?
A little over three years ago, my wife and I decided to move our family to francophone West Africa. The move was on-brand with my choleric nature, which's constantly looking for a new challenge. I immediately signed up for French classes at the Alliance Française, taking the intensive route, combined with daily exercises on Duolingo. I hoped to learn French in 12 months. Up until that point, this method of learning had worked well for me. It also seemed to work in the classroom setting; I aced my exams and participated well in class. After 8 months of classes, we moved to Abidjan. The controlled vocabulary and predictable interactions were replaced with a real-life stream of conversations that featured words in multiple tenses, varied accents and colloquial words and sayings. I was lost and tongue-tied most of the time. It was a humbling experience.
I see many similarities between my own assumptions on learning a language and the common approach to selling online or building a tech business. People ask me for my advice on what they must do to succeed in eCommerce or a business venture. In most cases, they are looking for a checklist they can use to guarantee success or minimize failure. This is the case across the globe. There is no shortage of startup stories, especially in the tech world. These stories dominate the business category in books and podcasts as founders and entrepreneurs alike look for tried and tested formulas to success. This formulaic tendency leads to the popularisation of clichés such as:
"Amazon succeeded because they focused on books."
The assumption here is that success will come if you do a specific thing just like another successful company did.
Yes, it is true that Amazon only sold books, so were several other eCommerce businesses. They succeeded because they did many other things behind the scenes that are not as well highlighted. For example, they perfected their recommendation engine, which increased sales and enhanced the customer experience. Their success could also have been due to the talent and capital they were able to attract.
"Build it, and they will come."
The message here is interpreted largely that success is inevitable if you keep at it. The truth in most cases is that most success comes via several changes in the original idea, largely shaped by interactions with customers. These customers also don't miraculously bring themselves; you have to seek them out intentionally.
"Customers are not buying because we don't have X feature or product." & "We just need to improve our UI (design), then we will start selling."
While it might be true that your sales would improve by adding products and or features, lack of sales is a red flag 🚩 that must not be ignored. Dig deeper. Customers use terrible looking products that solve their problems all the time. Yours is not an exception. If they aren't using it, they probably don't see value in it.
Build. Test. Learn. Repeat
In the past two years, I have taken a different approach to learning French. The emphasis now is not on rushing through content but on applying the content in real life. Though I am still not fluent in long conversations, I have definitely come a long way. I have learned by trying to speak and then noticing where my vocabulary and grammatical gaps are, then working on them.
Similarly, to those who come to me for business advice, I ask, "What have you tried? And what have you learned so far?". Having discussions about handling real situations or addressing specific weaknesses is more productive and beneficial to all.
The other dimension to the origin of the name Learn By Trying is a self-reflective one. My expertise in the eCommerce domain is largely made up of past experiences that might no longer hold. Therefore, I am exposing my thoughts and ideas to new data and an audience to learn. Concurrently, I am also trying and learning about community management and content marketing while running small micro experiments on the website. Have you noticed any changes since your last visit? 😉
As always, thanks for reading.