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Frictionless: Why the Future of Everything Will Be Fast, Fluid, and Made Just for You—A Visionary Guide to Entrepreneurship in the Era of Frictionless Commerce
Serial entrepreneur Christiane Lemieux describes the new rules of entrepreneurship and business, arguing that visionary startups leverage the concept of “frictionless” to beat their competitors. Based on interviews with dozens of startup founders, experts and scholars on entrepreneurship, Frictionless provides readers with a wide-ranging education in starting companies that thrive in the world of frictionless commerce—made possible by new technologies, a new mindset, and new demands from Millennial consumers. Working with bestselling author and journalist Duff McDonald, Lemieux also shares her own story—lessons learned, failures absorbed—at the helm of DwellStudio (which was acquired by Wayfair) and her latest venture, The Inside.
Some founders profiled in the book are reducing friction in their own business models, others reduce friction through improved customer experiences, and still others are revolutionizing their operations to create frictionless organizations. Readers will glean lessons from the founders of well-known companies such as Instant Pot, Bonobos, Hims, and Halo Top—as well as upstarts Billie, Dame Products, and Convene.
Frictionless outlines the groundwork necessary for getting a company up-and-running and explains how companies make and market products and services while meeting the demands of their customers and employees today. Frictionless is the essential handbook for creating tomorrow’s mind set and competitive advantage.
Some founders profiled in the book are reducing friction in their own business models, others reduce friction through improved customer experiences, and still others are revolutionizing their operations to create frictionless organizations. Readers will glean lessons from the founders of well-known companies such as Instant Pot, Bonobos, Hims, and Halo Top—as well as upstarts Billie, Dame Products, and Convene.
Frictionless outlines the groundwork necessary for getting a company up-and-running and explains how companies make and market products and services while meeting the demands of their customers and employees today. Frictionless is the essential handbook for creating tomorrow’s mind set and competitive advantage.
293 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 23, 2020
About the author
Christiane Lemieux
8 books8 followersChristiane Lemieux is an interior and household goods designer. She is a founder of The Inside, a direct-to-consumer home furnishings company.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 2, 2021
If you've come to realize Collins' Good to Great was a bunch of selective hindsight bias BS, then you'll quickly realize this book is somehow even less competent at masking its lack of substance. The author picks out a random concept "frictionless" and just makes up selective reasons why the big Silicon Valley startups are successful because they apply this mindset somehow. There's a wide breadth of interviews lacking in depth and you soon realize:
1) the quotes from founders rarely have anything to do with the book's "thesis"
2) the author's narrative barely has anything to do with the book's "thesis"
3) the author constantly steers the discussion back to her latest company The Inside
This book is that annoying narcissist that engages strangers only to bring every conversation back to themselves. You could mad lib replace the word "Friction" with any other Silicon Valley term "disruption", "synergy", "scale", "just in time", etc without enhancing or detracting from the book's intellectual contribution.
Read it if you want to some quick PR blurbs from some interesting companies, but do your due diligence and:
1) research if any of these companies are actually successful
2) skip any fluff writing that's not a quote
1) the quotes from founders rarely have anything to do with the book's "thesis"
2) the author's narrative barely has anything to do with the book's "thesis"
3) the author constantly steers the discussion back to her latest company The Inside
This book is that annoying narcissist that engages strangers only to bring every conversation back to themselves. You could mad lib replace the word "Friction" with any other Silicon Valley term "disruption", "synergy", "scale", "just in time", etc without enhancing or detracting from the book's intellectual contribution.
Read it if you want to some quick PR blurbs from some interesting companies, but do your due diligence and:
1) research if any of these companies are actually successful
2) skip any fluff writing that's not a quote
July 29, 2020
This book is a series of interviews with various successful business people who are examples of building a frictionless business... including the author herself. It is quite inspirational, but I caution you that it is not a one-size-fits-all business plan. It is promoting general business principles in this new online business world. I think she does an excellent job of it, but nothing guaranteed.
Note on the definition of "Frictionless", the author means making the items being sold as easy as possible to select, purchase and deliver to the customer as quickly as possible. This means more than having an online presence for your business, but also making decisions easy for the customer by already understanding what your customer is looking for, and once they click on the "Buy Me Now" button to include shipping in the price. It also involves streamlining the manufacturing process so that the customer gets your product in their hands as quickly as possible. You don't hold inventory. You have the manufacturer deliver the product direct, and so forth.
Any problems with this book? I'm not sure if the author understands why it is true that businesses today must keep track of how the business will affect the environment, and the customer's community sensitivities. She simply says that it is true which is good enough to go on with from my point of view.
She also criticizes Milton Friedman's idea that a business's responsibility is to the business (or shareholders) which she interprets as not considering the business's global responsibilities. In fact, in order for a business to survive today it must consider it's global responsibilities. Thus, Milton Friedman was correct, but WHY was he correct?
In today's cultural environment, people will not do business with a business that does NOT consider its global/community responsibilities. What has changed since Friedman's time is that this extends beyond one's local responsibility to sponsor the PTA luncheon or buy ads in the local church newsletter. A business must shoulder its responsibilities sincerely and be able to prove that the business owners/leadership have felt this way from birth... or drop dead. It is that serious... like it or not.
In other words, in Friedman's time you had to actually like kid sports, really support education and actually believe in the religion you were supporting. Otherwise, your customers would shun you for being a hypocrite and a detriment to the community. Nowadays, that community has expanded to a global framework. The things you must sincerely care about has changed and expanded, but it is the same old shuffle. People want to feel that you care about them... whether you do or not.
FYI, from a religious standpoint (that is, Jewish) the Talmud says that when we stand before G-d in judgement the first question G-d will ask is "How did you treat people in business?" That means, "Did you care about the people who were not close to you? Did you treat them fairly and respectfully?"
Any modesty issues in this book? Yes. The F-word was used. The author was quoting someone else, but that someone had started a business selling sex toys for women. They mentioned advertising on porn sites and they were upset that the local transit authority refused ads for women's sex toys while accepting ads for men's erectile dysfunction medicine. Personally, I wish they would accept neither, but fair is fair. If you accept one, you must accept the other. Luckily, this was only a small part of the entire book.
Note that I was listening to the audiobook version. The narrator, Jean Ann Douglass, was a good fit.
I will probably listen to this book again.
Note on the definition of "Frictionless", the author means making the items being sold as easy as possible to select, purchase and deliver to the customer as quickly as possible. This means more than having an online presence for your business, but also making decisions easy for the customer by already understanding what your customer is looking for, and once they click on the "Buy Me Now" button to include shipping in the price. It also involves streamlining the manufacturing process so that the customer gets your product in their hands as quickly as possible. You don't hold inventory. You have the manufacturer deliver the product direct, and so forth.
Any problems with this book? I'm not sure if the author understands why it is true that businesses today must keep track of how the business will affect the environment, and the customer's community sensitivities. She simply says that it is true which is good enough to go on with from my point of view.
She also criticizes Milton Friedman's idea that a business's responsibility is to the business (or shareholders) which she interprets as not considering the business's global responsibilities. In fact, in order for a business to survive today it must consider it's global responsibilities. Thus, Milton Friedman was correct, but WHY was he correct?
In today's cultural environment, people will not do business with a business that does NOT consider its global/community responsibilities. What has changed since Friedman's time is that this extends beyond one's local responsibility to sponsor the PTA luncheon or buy ads in the local church newsletter. A business must shoulder its responsibilities sincerely and be able to prove that the business owners/leadership have felt this way from birth... or drop dead. It is that serious... like it or not.
In other words, in Friedman's time you had to actually like kid sports, really support education and actually believe in the religion you were supporting. Otherwise, your customers would shun you for being a hypocrite and a detriment to the community. Nowadays, that community has expanded to a global framework. The things you must sincerely care about has changed and expanded, but it is the same old shuffle. People want to feel that you care about them... whether you do or not.
FYI, from a religious standpoint (that is, Jewish) the Talmud says that when we stand before G-d in judgement the first question G-d will ask is "How did you treat people in business?" That means, "Did you care about the people who were not close to you? Did you treat them fairly and respectfully?"
Any modesty issues in this book? Yes. The F-word was used. The author was quoting someone else, but that someone had started a business selling sex toys for women. They mentioned advertising on porn sites and they were upset that the local transit authority refused ads for women's sex toys while accepting ads for men's erectile dysfunction medicine. Personally, I wish they would accept neither, but fair is fair. If you accept one, you must accept the other. Luckily, this was only a small part of the entire book.
Note that I was listening to the audiobook version. The narrator, Jean Ann Douglass, was a good fit.
I will probably listen to this book again.
April 3, 2023
Enjoyable for the founder's story but redundant to comprehensively answer the title/background problems.
The book is solid three stars in my review.
What Makes It 1 Star:*
- The answer to the frictionless concept is only in chapter 1
The book tries to show the frictionless world that we are currently in and will be living in with the background question: “Why the future of everything will be fast and fluid and made just for you?" However, what the book tries to answer is already in chapter 1 and lacks collaboration in the following chapters.
- Lack of context
Some of the stories from the founders in this book don't relate to the frictionless concept. Hardly, only about their personal experience with building a business and trying to solve the challenge. However, the challenge they attempted to solve lacked the context of the frictionless concept.
- A collection of stories to fill in the pages
The book is more like a collection of stories instead of trying to answer the underlying background. After chapter 2 is only the stories of founders from various companies. In each chapter, the authors explain the frictionless concept from the systems, experience, etc. However, it mostly appears to show only the summary of each founder's stories, with a few explaining the frictionless concept related to that founder.
What Makes It An Additional 2 Stars:**
- Positive messages
There are explicit and implicit positive messages for aspiring entrepreneurs or business career pursuits.
- Neat words structures and deliveries
I like how the authors structure the words and how some feel like a conversation between the readers and the authors.
- Enjoyable to read the founders’ stories from diverse backgrounds
Although the book is redundant in contents, the stories of the founders are the key that makes the book enjoyable. Especially the founders are from various backgrounds and challenges. These opened my horizon about things like sustainable farming, etc. Despite it only covering the surface.
The book is solid three stars in my review.
What Makes It 1 Star:*
- The answer to the frictionless concept is only in chapter 1
The book tries to show the frictionless world that we are currently in and will be living in with the background question: “Why the future of everything will be fast and fluid and made just for you?" However, what the book tries to answer is already in chapter 1 and lacks collaboration in the following chapters.
- Lack of context
Some of the stories from the founders in this book don't relate to the frictionless concept. Hardly, only about their personal experience with building a business and trying to solve the challenge. However, the challenge they attempted to solve lacked the context of the frictionless concept.
- A collection of stories to fill in the pages
The book is more like a collection of stories instead of trying to answer the underlying background. After chapter 2 is only the stories of founders from various companies. In each chapter, the authors explain the frictionless concept from the systems, experience, etc. However, it mostly appears to show only the summary of each founder's stories, with a few explaining the frictionless concept related to that founder.
What Makes It An Additional 2 Stars:**
- Positive messages
There are explicit and implicit positive messages for aspiring entrepreneurs or business career pursuits.
- Neat words structures and deliveries
I like how the authors structure the words and how some feel like a conversation between the readers and the authors.
- Enjoyable to read the founders’ stories from diverse backgrounds
Although the book is redundant in contents, the stories of the founders are the key that makes the book enjoyable. Especially the founders are from various backgrounds and challenges. These opened my horizon about things like sustainable farming, etc. Despite it only covering the surface.
May 20, 2021
First thing to understand is that "frictionless" is a framework for understanding business, but is only one of many lenses you can use to analyze a business idea.
This book looks at many different startups and new businesses using the framework of friction and reducing friction. In some cases, it was a great analysis. In others, it seems like they found a good business story and then had to figure out a way to make it fit the "frictionless" concept.
Then there was the end of the book, which felt like a philosophy of why businesses need to have some sort of social cause, which really didn't seem to relate to the concept of friction at all.
Then the book is peppered with the author referencing how she's applying the concept of reducing friction in her startup. That's fine, but it did feel a lot more like her elevator pitch (and justification of her elevator pitch) than I typically like in a book that's not specifically about a company.
Overall, I'll use the concept of "reducing friction" to analyze my own business progress, and I do enjoy the business stories as individual cases, so the book was worth the read, but like most business books, the main concept could be stated in 10 pages or less, including application examples, without any degradation.
This book looks at many different startups and new businesses using the framework of friction and reducing friction. In some cases, it was a great analysis. In others, it seems like they found a good business story and then had to figure out a way to make it fit the "frictionless" concept.
Then there was the end of the book, which felt like a philosophy of why businesses need to have some sort of social cause, which really didn't seem to relate to the concept of friction at all.
Then the book is peppered with the author referencing how she's applying the concept of reducing friction in her startup. That's fine, but it did feel a lot more like her elevator pitch (and justification of her elevator pitch) than I typically like in a book that's not specifically about a company.
Overall, I'll use the concept of "reducing friction" to analyze my own business progress, and I do enjoy the business stories as individual cases, so the book was worth the read, but like most business books, the main concept could be stated in 10 pages or less, including application examples, without any degradation.
January 10, 2022
Frictionless is a concept which is easy to describe. I felt that the book took too long to get to the point and circled around the topic. I also didn’t like the promoting of THE INSIDE in this book. It felt as if the first few chapters where just based on the company and felt like a long painful advertisement. One thing good were the stories and analysis on the topic and it’s impact on society. Would only recommend to people who are really into the topic of frictionless businesses, and people patient enough to read the first few chapters.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews