Some people get excited about building something new that the world has never seen.

Others get excited about making something more beautiful than it was before.

Others like making things faster.

And some others get off on making something less expensive.

To differing degrees, these are all personal driving factors of mine as well. But the one that stands out above all the others is the drive to make things easier. I like to make things easier for people. I love competing on easy.

I find easy to be the most personally rewarding, too. It has such direct impact. When something is easier, you feel it. You’ve done it the hard way before, so when you experience the easy way you immediately know the difference.

Easy feels like a cold Coke on a hot day. It’s just so satisfying. The harder it’s been – the thirstier you are – the better it tastes, too.

Another thing about easy – it’s personal. “Thank you” is often a response you hear when you make something easier for someone. Easier is appreciated.

Easy could mean faster. Easier could mean more obvious. Easy could mean a lot of things. But the part of easy I like is when you take an existing problem, study it until it becomes clear, toss out everything that makes it blurry, and carefully polish what’s left over.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately because we’re finishing up a brand new product. In some ways it’s entirely new territory for us, but in other ways it’s familiar.

This new product eliminates the hassle of one thing in particular. After that it’s about the same as anything else it competes with. In some ways, it does significantly less than the competition.

Plus, the other products are totally free. Ours won’t be.

We’re charging – betting, even – on easy. I like our chances.