THE DREAM IN ACTION

So, I’ve been focusing on both mastering and minimizing mistakes. Mistakes lead to a less “dreamy” lifestyle, the opposite of what we’re trying to achieve here. If you’ve been reading, you know that I recently closed my first startup, so I am excited to get back into a project. Before I sink dollars and time into ‘the next big thing’ I’ve created 4 simple rules for myself on what I will do before diving all the way in. Pay attention.

No, I’m not just going to ask my friends if they think it’s a good idea, I’m not just going to poll my twitter followers (although I do love you guys!), and I’m not just going to do one Google search (or Bing!) to find the obvious competition. I’m going to force myself to be analytical towards, and skeptical of, the opportunity in order to protect the downside and make sure the option has a runway.

Let me first explain why further precaution is necessary. When you ask a friend “would you buy this product?”, 80% of the time they’re going to say yes. They don’t want to disappoint you and people hate the word, No. Instead of asking ‘would’ you buy, ask them ‘to buy‘, right on the spot. You’ll have a much more accurate understanding of whether or not you have something of value. This is called dry testing and I’m going to try and become religious in using this & similar methods in the future when testing ideas. Here are the 4 must execute steps to how I’ll dry test:
lanjut →

During a SOHObiztube board meeting today the discussion got me thinking about the idea of a ‘beta’ release. Then I started thinking about Gmail’s perpetual beta phase and why they might keep Gmail in beta for 4+ years but want to get Chrome out of beta after only a few months. Without sharing to many details of the SOHObiztube board meeting I wanted to share some thoughts & experiences with beta testing.

First, if a product is going to be sold, it will be tough to sell in beta. So, startups should not always take the lead from Google and keep products in beta. It will affect your sales. People understand especially when buying software as a service products that it is an iterative process and the product will (and should) continue to improve even after the initial purchase.

Second, if a product will not be sold, people’s expectation of performance is significantly lower. If Tweetdeck fails me for a night or even for good, what can I do? Nothing. I’ve paid $0 for Tweetdeck and should expect exactly that in return. However, if Basecamp goes down for longer than a few hours it could affect my project timelines (this could be serious) and I have a right to be upset. The difference… I pay for Basecamp, I don’t pay for Tweetdeck.

Third, Gmail is free and needs to stay in beta because people probably count on their Gmail served email just as much as they may rely on almost any other product. I received the above error message this evening and that is exactly why Gmail is still in beta. Without Google charging us for our email, keeping the product in beta is an insurance policy for them.

No $$$, no guarantees.

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