Tickets for Restaurants
For one thing, it's pretty amazing to see Nick Kokonas writing about Alinea and Next as if they were "Lean Startups".But another thing that sticks out to me: look how pretty and refined these ticketing apps aren't, even though they drive hundreds of thousands of dollars per month of revenue. And after you notice that, read how Kokonas talks about how easy and simple the system is for them to use? There's a lesson in there somewhere about the kinds of UX that matter to customers versus the kind of UX people believe should matter for customers.As a restaurant customer, I think the ticketing system is great; I've gone through the process of getting an Alinea reso (if you want a real fun time in Chicago, try getting one for Schwa) and it was an opaque nightmare. The alternative to tickets for these places isn't a fair reservation system; it is basically "you don't get to eat there ever".