Living Entrepreneurship Blog / Babson Entrepreneurs

Too Many Options, Not Enough Answers

In life, there are too many options and never enough answers. Then you think, what do you do? The paradox of choice kicks in, where you have so many options, and are frozen because you don’t know what you should do.

The answer isn’t clear either.

We’ve considered this when building out our men’s dress shirts business. Should we offer ten styles of dress shirt collars or four? Should we offer five styles of dress shirt cuffs or three? What about contrast stitching? Dress shirt back cuts? Options for the dress shirt’s base? Dress shirt tailoring?

We ended up taking a minimalist approach to crafting out custom dress shirt venture. Instead of offering them unlimited customization, we offered perceived unlimited customization. That way, they aren’t overwhelmed with being able to do absolutely everything, and can easily design a dress shirt they want.

When there are too many options, limit them. Too many options just mean a ton of unnecessary friction.

Limit the options, and the answers become a bit clearer.

Now, slim fit dress shirt or athletic fit dress shirt? Co-creation or traditional retail?