Jack Dorsey has 200 million customers. At least, that’s how many use his product, Twitter, every day. He is also founder of Square, a new way for everyone to accept credit card payments that financiers are salivating over.
Two multi-million-dollar technology start-ups in a few years! How lucky can you be, eh? Unless it’s something other than luck. It is. Both start-ups have been based on the idea of simplicity. As this interview with Charlie Rose reveals, “Dorsey’s accomplishments have little to do with luck, and more with his focus on creating the purest products by throwing away any unnecessary flourishes.” Dorsey says, “My goal is to simplify complexity.” How about that as a motto to hang above every preacher’s desk! In fact, read the following quotes and imagine that Dorsey is talking about preaching rather than credit card payments.It turns out it’s really complex. It’s really complex to make something simple and especially when you started addressing the financial world.
We have a number of things — in order to accept credit cards you have to talk with a bank. Normally when you’re a small merchant or a business or individual you have to get a merchant account, which means you have a one to two year relationship with the bank, and then there’s always these fees and setup costs and monthly minimums. It’s a mess.
And it’s never really been designed in a beautiful way and that’s what we’re good at. That’s really hard to do.
When you’re using the iPad, the iPad disappears, it goes away. You’re reading a book. You’re viewing a website, you’re touching a web site. That’s amazing and that’s what SMS is for me. The technology goes away and with Twitter the technology goes away. And the same is true with Square. We want the technology to fade away so that you can focus on enjoying the cappuccino that you just purchased.
Is that not the aim of every preacher too? That they and their sermon would fade away, leaving the hearers to enjoy the Christ that was just preached!
The simpler the sermon, the more likely that is to happen. Related article: A plea for profound simplicity