Pushing Past the Obvious

Here’s a lovely story about thinking differently …

VanMoof is a Dutch company that makes bicycles. They’re expensive, beautifully designed and they don’t look quite like any other bike on the road.

When the company began shipping to the US they hit a problem: their bikes kept being damaged in transit. This was annoying for customers and expensive for VanMoof.

First they tried using different shipping companies. Next they made sturdier boxes. Neither worked. But then, Ties Carlier, the cofounder of VanMoof, had a brainwave.

There’s one product that shipping companies do take care of: televisions.

So Ties had a large television printed on every box. And because the packaging for widescreen TV’s and bikes is about the same size, the couriers thought they were transporting a TV.

VanMoof’s shipping breakage rates dropped by 70 – 80% overnight.

It was only once Ties had got the obvious solutions out of the way – stronger packaging, different shipping companies – that he hit on this ingenious answer to his problem.

TL;DR Push past the obvious.

H/T to Adam Alter. I first read about this story in 'Anatomy of a Breakthrough'.