Here are a few things I’ve learnt so far:
1. Accept mistakes as part of the process
There is no point getting frustrated and losing sleep when things don’t work. Building a new product is a process and we don’t know how long it will take to get things right. But…
2. Encourage the team to work fast
This is tough because great people want to be proud of their work. In hindsight, I should have encouraged Nathan to prepare basic versions of the splash screens, rather than design beautiful pages that were discarded as soon as we saw the first users try to interact with them.
We have an awesome team of engineers who like to test everything thoroughly (as they should) but in our case it’s more important to get the feedback loop spinning fast so we can learn and iterate than it is to produce perfect code with no bugs. Although we’ve got no idea how long it will take to get the product right, we do have a limited amount of money and time, so moving fast is imperative.
3. Focus on things that move the needle
Everyone wants to fix the things that annoy them the most. However, these may not be the items that make the biggest impact on users.
One of our engineers really wanted to be able to move things about on his street, which I agree would be fun. But is this the thing that’s going to make the biggest difference to Posse succeeding or failing? I argued that it wasn’t and we agreed to leave it until later.
With time pressure and limited resource it’s vital that every team member is focused on the things that make the biggest impact to improving the product.
Right now, Alex is building an amazing social search engine (the core product); Aaron is fixing on-boarding; Mike is implementing automated emails to users that’ll encourage them to come back to the site; Nik is making new store dialogue pages (our current ones don’t work very well); Hamish is building the retailer’s dashboard that eventually will earn us revenue; Glen is building the infrastructure that will enable people to add people’s streets to their town who aren’t their Facebook friends (key to engagement and growth); and Nathan is designing the next version of our street and towns, which will be personalised and animated.
Above: Aaron fixing on-boarding.
Jen is outsourcing our store listing process so we can get new retailers interacting and designed stores on the site quickly; Clarissa is running the user tests and is responsible for signing up new users; and I’m working on our next round of fundraising to ensure we can stay alive.
I’m confident everyone is working to capacity and working on the right thing. But it’s still difficult when we know there are so many other things we just can’t get to yet.
4. Test and measure everything
I’ve mentioned before that I’m obsessed with talking to users, watching user tests and checking the analytics of our product.
This is something we didn’t do well when we were a music site, and looking back knowing what I do now it was like we designed that product in the dark. Equally, if not more important than testing and measuring a product, is talking to users and asking them open ended questions about themselves, the product and how it fits into their lives.
I try to do two sessions per week with users and spend the first hour just asking general questions before we even look at the product. They won’t tell you what they want, but an insight comes from every session that helps shape the future of the product.
5. Meditate
I find it easy to run on adrenaline, in fact I enjoy it. When we first launched this new platform in June, I went straight overseas, worked day and night, and then continued the regime when I came home. I got a lot done in this time, but after a while I noticed that I wasn’t totally on my game.
Ideas weren’t flowing like they normally did. I became impatient and frustrated easily when things didn’t work as I hoped, and was always tired because I wasn’t sleeping properly.
I learnt to meditate several years ago and I started practising again twice per day. I went back to yoga. At first, all the problems with our site streamed through my head like a freight train. Remarkably, it only took a few days to return to normal. Everyone has their own methods of stress relief, yoga and meditation are mine and they’re always the first things to go when I feel under pressure.
These are my current methods. If anyone has any other suggestions, please write to me and let me know!
I’ve enjoyed the process of writing this week because it’s helped me to focus on what I need to do to cope with the immense stress and pressure associated with building and launching this product.
I still find it all very hard and look forward to the day when I can re-read these blog posts and reminisce about how much I learned, and how it all worked out in the end!
