The Division of Labour
“The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgement with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.” -Adam Smith
In the book Wealth of Nations written by Adam Smith in 1776 an example for the Division of Labour principle is given. Smith talks about a business that builds pins. If the business was made up of one person, who had to go through all the steps involved in producing a pin, he would only be able to produce a very small amount of pins in a days work. But if there are many workers, each doing and specializing in a specific step in the process, an exponentially greater amount of pins can be created in a days work.
Resultly has employed this principle to a great degree and its becoming harder to judge just how many people from how many companies are responsible for the business and product we’ve been able to build and continue to build. Here’s what I mean:
When we first launched the website into private beta. We needed a way to receive and digest all the feedback from users. We needed something more than a standard email or online form for feedback. It had to be better integrated with the site and and make feedback easier and more effective to give and receive. We implemented GetSatisfaction and within minutes had a clickable button and popup on each page of our site with a login to the GetSatisfaction site to allow us to manage all the feedback. We of course could have built something similar ourselves, but why? We specialize in real time interest notifications, not feedback management. What would have taken one of our guys quite awhile to build, we had in minutes via the division of labor.
As the feedback rolled in, there were a few requests for a guide or walkthrough for peoples first time visit to the site and adding their first interest. Again, something like this could take awhile to build, taking a lot of time away from what we do best, streaming results. No worries though, because a company called WalkMe specializes in just this. And within minutes we had a complete walkthrough on our site. All with easily customizable pop ups and analytic tracking.
The list goes on and on of course. From using Mailchimp to handle our whole emailing list to using SurePayroll to handle all our direct deposit and employee benefits.
We live in a time when startups have no limit to the amount of “pins” that can be produced in a days work; thanks to the Division of Labour.
