Why 'Too Simple' Solutions Lose (And How to Fix It)
Plus: AI Complexity Decoder
Jackson Pollock once created a painting in under five minutes.
The price? $300,000.
When critics balked, saying "anyone could do that," Pollock famously replied: "Yes, but you didn't."
What Pollock understood (and your last prospect didn't) is that simplicity on the other side of complexity is worth 1000x more than complexity itself.
Yet every day, brilliant, elegant solutions – the ones that took months to simplify – lose to competitors' overcomplicated messes. Their 47-slide decks beat clean three-pagers, and deals are lost.
Welcome to the Complexity Tax – the invisible fee we all pay when our brains mistake "difficult" for "valuable."
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Your Brain’s Fatal Account Error
Here's the glitch in your mental software:
When something feels difficult to create, your brain automatically assigns it higher value. And when something seems simple? Your brain slashes the price tag – even when the simpler option required more expertise to create.
Scientists call this the Effort Heuristic, which is just fancy talk for: "If it looks hard, it must be good" (PhD-speak for 'humans are weird').
It's why:
The good news? You can hack this mental glitch for your benefit – without actually making your solutions worse (or resorting to unnecessary jargon that nobody actually understands).
The Art of Strategic Complexity (Without Being Complicated)
1. Show Your Work (Even When It's Not Pretty)
When to use it: When your elegant solution looks suspiciously simple. People want to see the battle scars behind your breakthrough.
Instead of saying: "Our onboarding takes just three steps."
Say: "We burned through 12 prototypes and scrapped an entire codebase to eliminate 9 unnecessary steps from onboarding. Those three steps that remain? They're the only ones that actually matter."
→ Now your simplicity feels like the treasure at the end of a quest, not a shortcut.
2. Make Your Sweat Equity Visible
When to use it: When your best work happens behind the scenes. Nobody values what they can't see. Make the invisible visible.
Instead of saying: "Our support team resolves issues quickly."
Say: "Every support agent completes our 'Nightmare Scenario' simulator where they solve the 50 most brutal partner problems we've ever encountered (two agents cried. We sent flowers)."
→ Your support quality now feels earned, not accidental.
3. Turn Your Process into a Hero's Journey
When to use it: When explaining how you developed your solution. Every great solution needs an origin story with some suffering involved.
Instead of saying: "We built this dashboard based on partner needs."
Say: "Our first dashboard was so bad our lead designer threatened to quit. Three redesigns and 84 user interviews later, we built something partners actually check 3x more often than before. Worth every sleepless night."
→ Now your solution has a backstory worth paying for.
4. Create Progress Theater
When to use it: When partners need to see momentum. Break your smooth process into visible stages that feel like meaningful milestones.
Instead of: "You'll be onboarded soon."
Say: "You've unlocked Stage 1 of partner certification! Stage 2 opens next Tuesday. (Only 14% of partners make it to Stage 3 their first month.)"
→ Now your streamlined process feels like an achievement worth pursuing.
5. Sell Your Simplicity as Sophisticated
When to use it: When partners undervalue your streamlined approach. Make minimalism feel like the advanced move it actually is.
Instead of saying: "Our solution is very straightforward."
Say: "We spent 18 months stripping away everything that wasn't essential. Most competitors add features to justify their price. We ruthlessly eliminated 27 unnecessary steps to save you 40 hours a month. Complexity is easy. Simplicity is hard."
→ Your "basic" approach now feels like the premium option.
6. Quantify Your Invisible Labor
When to use it: When justifying your pricing. Put a number on everything that went into your solution.
Instead of saying: "Our enterprise plan costs $15K."
Say: "This solution represents 2,800 development hours and eliminates approximately 120 hours of monthly busywork for your team. At your average hourly rate, it pays for itself in about 27 days. (The fact that it prevents weekend emergency calls? Consider that a bonus.)"
→ Your price now feels like a bargain, not an expense.
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The AI Learning Lab: The Complexity Decoder
Most people are using AI to simplify work — which you should — but you should also use it to uncover your hidden value.
Feed your AI your most recent successful project documentation, then ask it to:
AI will surface the complexity you've forgotten you conquered—the exact ammunition you need when your elegant solution gets the dreaded "too simple" objection.
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Next time someone says "that looks too simple," don't apologize for your expertise. Show them the dragons you slayed so they wouldn't have to. Quantify the hours you invested so they could save theirs.
Because the most powerful thing you can say isn't "look how complex this is" – it's:
"It's simple now... but you should've seen versions 1 through 39" (and if that fails, there's always IKEA instructions).
Don’t just read this—run with it!