Changes
Switching gears lately. And I’m happy again!
Sometimes we get so into what we do that we don’t realize we can do other things as well.
I started helping my friend promote his clinic on FB, and I’m in charge of handling the media buys, social media love, etc. I’ve never done this before but it’s been fun and challenging. Building apps for facebook is interesting. The audience is much larger, but there is a certain level of “production value” that needs to go into it.
I decided to go about my minimalistic ways and make something that is “ghetto” but works to test some conversion ratios. I set up only the weekend to work on it and I got it done. I didn’t think about it too much, I just had a general idea and executed.
Was it easy? Nah. Was it fun? Absolutely. I also discovered that promoting my product via facebook has garnered me a lot of “testers” so I’m happy about that.
I definitely know I’m in the right market. And I definitely feel confident that I’m going to be able to double my friends leads with handling the social interaction for him. I believe in social media, regardless of whether it converts as well as other mediums now or not. The level of caring vibes well with me and I like that it can scale, if you want it to.
Anyways, take care everybody.
Only one way to find out.
Get it out there and test it!
Especially if your product is centered around others.
If you’re building software and there is a shortage of testers, find where your audience is and engage them. It’s the only way you’ll know. You’ve gotta listen to data. Data speaks volumes about what you’re doing. Until there is usage and feedback there is no data. You can only assume and build so much for your customers before you have to let them just get in there and start using it.
Self-discovery
As minimalists, we are constantly taunted with customers who identify with uselessness instead of usefulness. Just a show of hands. How many of you have had customer requests about certain features that you currently don’t support, and then find out they never used those features? Hm? Exactly.
People sort-of know what they want and yet they don’t know what to look for. Great example here: project management software. Just a show of hands. How many of you use simple to-do lists and small milestones to organize? You’re not alone. And that’s what’s great about what we build - usefulness. If products require huge specs to design, and the problem isn’t sorted out within fewer approaches, it doesn’t belong in minimalistic design. It’s too complicated to be a minimalist product.
Something that you should know about me. When I started this blog last year, I was on fire with minimalistic principles. I loved this notion that you don’t develop just because. That your product stands out based on usefulness and what it already accomplishes. That, regardless of what others think, you stay true to that principle. And above all else, you don’t build what you can’t support!
Well, over the past few months I became a fraud of that sort of thinking. I did the opposite, and guess what? It shows in my product design. I negated the requests of customers over “building cool stuff” and I didn’t think about my core product and audience. I started checking out my competition and what they were doing, and I started to pit it against my own offerings. I started to build features I didn’t even believe in. I was a fraud at this point.
But it’s never too late to come back from that. And it’s never too late to put the pencil down, stop sketching out the new features, and focus on what you already have and making that shine.
I want to be open and honest and this is my way of doing that. Feel free to leave a comment. Have you lost focus of the minimalist picture? What did you do?
Happy with what it’s not
I’ve been building out my products site and it’s actually caused me to glance at a few competitor sites for some clarity on how to build the web presence. And I realize I’m really happy with what my product is not.
Competitor products have so much bloat. I know I’ve talked about this in the past but what you spend your development time on shows. When you just build something for the sake of building it, it shows. We went thru several iterations to guest access and finally found one we were happy with. We didn’t just ‘settle’ because we ‘needed it in the system’. And we listened to feedback. Customers expressed pain points and we executed based on that.
I’d like to hear the sort of discussions these bigger companies have about not adding features. Or redoing something. Or just not building it at all. I doubt there is much of that.
Birthday & Stuff
A great project never has a shortage of ideas. A great developer never implements half of them :)
Welp, today is my birthday and though I’m a year older and wiser (so they say) I’m excited to see what the future holds.
Simple Dental - A Year Later
As I was renewing my domain, I stumbled upon a very important date - the 25th of April. Why is this significant? Because it’s the date I launched the pilot version of Simple Dental.
The idea was to get feedback as fast as possible. It worked. What followed was only a few more features developed and a whole lot of attention to what was already there. It was the project I dreamed of working on and developing for.
After about 6 months of heavy use I started inviting more people. The feedback wasn’t as well received and most of the people who did want to try it out didn’t really give it a shot, or even ask for a guide or walk thru. Inevitably I felt a little lost, concerned and burned out at that point.
I let a few months go by. I kept in contact with the clinics still using it and one of the main features it was missing was charting. I set out to do that and had a working version within 2 weeks. I was back, err so I thought.
Fast-forward yet again to now. I see that date as a huge revamp to make things even simpler. We are talking about gutting what is barely used and replacing it with, well, nothing. A few requests have come down the pipe like guest access (we have it but it needs love). A better print system that allows you to print an entire patient file and not just treatment plans. And then my favorite… redo Treatment Planning to make it easier to assign procedures to certain doctors so it’s easier for clinics to pay outside specialists that help on particular cases.
My goal is to tackle one of these by the 25th. I’d ideally love to tackle them all, and probably could. I know that it’s going to be a busy couple of weeks but I’m excited to jump back in. At the same time, simplifying things even more, working my pricing model a bit and FINALLY launching the site should start grabbing the interest of some.
That’s my plan for April.
But it looks good in the sketches!
With the recent launch of my new project, I’ve found myself definitely pining after a certain interface design that engages users into setting up battles (product vs product). In my sketches and UI prototyping (with Fireworks), it all looks good. But when it’s brought out into HTML there are just voids that were easily filled in the UI but don’t fit right in html.
I guess this is a normal process of elimination. Am I so attached to this one particular interface that I can’t part with it? No. Because if that were the case then I wouldn’t be here talking about it. Maybe I was going after a wizard-like design that steps them thru the process. As simple as it is right now, will people find it useful? Of course the answer to that is launch it and find out.
I guess I’ll just have to do that.
Playing nice with others…
Lately I’ve been trying to have my own ground when it comes to what I believe in. When you are a single person on your own project it’s easy to make decisions that only you need to support. Well, that and your customers. But it’s another world when someone else is also invested in what you are doing together. It’s a big change for me and suffice to say it hasn’t been an easy road thus far.
Part of me like to hold onto what “I believe” and part of me let other pieces be decided by someone else. My main issue is I like working on new and exciting things while my partner likes to work on strategies and things that “have worked in the past”. I see we are two very different people when it comes to priorities and I’ve tried very hard to have a place for his ideas/thoughts. I’ve even spent a majority of the dev time working on tools to help him.
But when should I start standing up for what I believe in again? When can people start seeing that it’s not just about what they want, but what’s better for the project as a whole? I’m guilty of building things that don’t offer immediate value to the project just because I felt like building them. But that doesn’t mean it was a waste of time or resources. You have to keep things fun. You have to enjoy what you’re doing. Scratch that. You have to love what you do.
Launch sequence…
Well, my new project I co-developed is live. Before I ramble on too much I’ll toss the link out to those that are interested. http://www.tabletwars.com
The interesting part of this launch is how it’s made me feel an hour or so after being live. The first feeling I have is: was this rushed? I don’t think 3 months is considered a rush by my standards but a lot of the dev was also out of my control, being that I had a partner on this journey.
One thing is for certain: from the beginning we used version control and some sort of project managing. We questioned features before we built them and we started with simple ideas.
However, now is the time that I look over what we have and take an axe/chainsaw to features/ideas. I think this project was stuck “baking” for too long and as such has left a bitter taste in certain areas. Last minute I’ll admit was a sprint and rush. Details that were lingering were just executed instead of cut.
In the days leading up to this we’ll see what this is made of. Feel free to drop me a line with feedback on here or via email jacob (at) sadsoft (dot) com
Take care.
Source: tabletwars.com
What tells your products story
What tells your products story is not what is in it, but rather what is not.
Recently 37 signals decided to redo their basecamp software and they cut a lot of features last minute, some features that were actually developed and working. What’s interesting to me was the decision wasn’t to cut it months earlier but rather last minute
You should be willing to accept cutting anything at any stage.
