How to develop Good Taste – The Most Important Ability of the Web Entrepreneur

When Bill Gates was asked in the D5 conference what made Steve Jobs such a successful and influential entrepreneur, Gates said “Steve gave a speech once, which is one of my favorites, where he talked about, in a certain sense, we build the products that we want to use ourselves. And so he’s really pursued that with incredible taste and elegance that has had a huge impact on the industry.”

To succeed with your web venture you must produce quality results on all fronts. Apart from having a good idea for a product that delivers real benefits to your users, you need to produce easy to use software that’s also easy on the eye. If your website design isn’t good enough to build trust then visitors to your website will never even try your product. Your sales copy has to be compelling, otherwise visitors will get bored and your visitor to customer conversion rate will plummet.

These are just a small fraction of the things you must do well in order to succeed. Since no one (including you) is an expert on all things, you will need to cooperate with others to produce all the different aspects of your start-up.

And here is the best advice I can give you as a web entrepreneur. While you can’t be an expert in every field, you must learn to recognise quality in all these fields. In short – Have good taste. This simple ability will help you define your goals, hire the right employees and freelancers and reject shabby work.

So how can I develop a good taste?, you ask. The answer is – learn and don’t be afraid to be critical. For instance, to develop a good taste in graphic design, you need to start reading design blogs. When you find a well designed site, study it. Examine logos, colours, fonts. Compare your site with others. what makes your site less compelling? less elegant?. If you develop a real interest in web design and an opinion about what constitutes good design, then your website and application will have quality design.

This technique works in every field, from programming to design, from copywriting to SEO. So don’t wait, go and develop a good taste, who knows you might eventually create the iPod of web apps.

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Posted on June 26, 2007 by Yoav Ezer 
Filed Under Methodology, Web 2.0

Comments

6 Responses to “How to develop Good Taste – The Most Important Ability of the Web Entrepreneur”

  1. Liz Strauss on June 26th, 2007 1:54 pm

    Yoav,
    What I like best about this article is that you say to be a student before becoming a critic. Thank you for that most of all. :)

  2. Yoav Ezer on June 26th, 2007 2:25 pm

    Thanks Liz

  3. thp on July 11th, 2007 1:25 pm

    I can only agree to what you tell everyone.

    Look at other people’s work! This also helps you to develop your webdevelopment skills. If you like to see how something works, just look at the code and get an impression of how to create a website like this.

    thp

  4. Yoav Ezer on July 11th, 2007 1:48 pm

    Hi thp,

    I fully agree with you, as long as you learn and not copy.

  5. C on October 30th, 2008 5:24 pm

    I came across this as I was searching the web for solutions / hints for my web designer who has horribly tacky and immature artist ability. How do you explain what “tacky” looks like?
    Anyway, this gave me some food for thought.

  6. Sequinn on November 13th, 2009 1:48 pm

    What do you do when a customer insists on tacky and you can’t afford to turn down the work?

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