Week Five
Week five has been really exciting, and here is a little recap of it as part of my series of documenting the early stages of my new startup. The purpose is to document our progress, our maturity, and what we learn and experience every week.
It's been a pretty exciting week. Along with our great beta testers, being part of the target audience really helps as we can visualize and understand the app with first hand experience. I couldn't imagine building something without having any interest in using it when it was done. Building something that you will eagerly use is as exciting as it is motivating.
Week five was awesome, everything we did had a substantiated direction. Instead of waiting around and trying to justify what we've built, we've proven a few theories, and totally eliminated others. All the polishing we did made the app better, and what makes the app better? By improving that core feature / functionality that everyone understands and uses. We didn't spend time working on a page that only 2% of our users saw, and nobody really cared for. We didn't spend any time adding in features that had nothing to do with our core functionality. Everything we did helped people do what they naturally came to the app to do.
One big question we talk a lot about is, what's the pitch? One thing to realize is that if your product doesn't dictate a clear enough pitch, it's definitely not focused or clear enough itself. If we were making a machine that materializes a hamburger, and that's all it did, our pitch would be quite clear: "Our product makes hamburgers out of thin air." I wish that's what we were making, but the reality is, few things are that simple to start out with. It could have started with an idea to make food from air, an entire meal, multiple meals, for an arbitrary amount of people, possibly creating liquids to drink too, and with kosher and vegetarian modes, and what have you. All of that is what a lot of different people want, but why promise so much when you could simplify to start with just making a hamburger and doing that really well to prove what you're capable of.
Once everyone knows exactly that one core feature that's where the excitement starts. You no longer have as many lingering questions, nor too many tasks to tackle. You don't have to hire tons of people to take care of each category of what your product has, but instead the core team that you like a lot working on the same core elements. Simplifying will also help you release early and often, without ever needing to explain exactly what all the new things will help you do. You'll know that you're going to get a better hamburger, and because of that you're excited right away. You don't need to read into the bulleted list of features to know that.
Simplifying is the best decision to make, but it can also be the hardest one because you're letting go of all these features you were really excited about. The best way to think about it is that nobody else is thinking as much into it as you, you're down a path way further in maturity than your product is, and that each of these features probably has a place and time in your product, but that time is later. Wait until the audience understands and loves your core features, and then be the good guy who gives these people all the little features that they start to need. The demand is what wil l keep your product alive after launch, the demand is what is going to help investors decide to invest, and the demand will show you the possibilities of generating revenue. Launch with something that is awesome, just one thing. You'll be surprised!
Anyway, the photo at the top is a picture of one of the natural bridges near Davenport, California. I went down there a few times that day, trying to find the perfect lighting and weather. It was raining pretty bad, and I was hoping for some breaking fluffy clouds, but settled for a dark semi-long exposure to capture a minimal look on these cool structures. More on my Flickr stream: http://flic.kr/photos/kinetic
