Tag Archives: software

How not to be a Waitlist-ware

A few days back upon submitting my email for an interesting looking upcoming product’s waitlist, I had a feeling of deja-vu. I felt I have done this at least 5-7 times over the last few months but if I were to try I can’t recall even a single name out of all those products I signed up to be in the waitlist for.

One of the most recent products I signed up to try for.

Herein lies the problem and that’s what bugged me.

What’s the point of signing up for a waitlist if it’d take you forever to release your product or approve my request?

What’s worse, you’ll have to keep guessing what happened to your invite or the product you signed up for.

Did the startup shut up before releasing or were they just collecting email ids?

I guess we’ve all been there. Now, let’s try to think what’s an ideal way to approach this.

What would the user be interested in?

As a user, my main concerns in this context (with varying priority as time goes on) would be

  1. What is happening with my invite?
  2. What is happening with the product while I wait for my invite?
  3. Why should I still bother about your product ?

How could these concerns be handled?

Let’s divide this into two parts:

Invites are being released to users in waitlist – If uses on the waitlist have started getting invites for the product, you can share the details on invites being sent out (how many per day/week/month) and basis my waitlist rank, when should I expect to get an invite and if there’s something I can do to expedite this process.

Just to keep up the excitement, you could also add some reviews by users who’ve gotten access or any great PR/product reviews you are getting.

Invites haven’t started going out to users in the waitlist – This means, the product is not ready to be released to the waitlist yet, which means either you didn’t plan this properly or ran into unexpected delays.

Either ways, the odds of users losing interest on your product at this stage are really high (unless of course if you are building hey.com, or will launch a stellar product that people will be more than happy to get to use the product and nothing else would matter.

The first thing in this case that needs to happen is trying to get a handle on expected date on which you can release the invites. Depending on how far into the future, this date is, you can plan a cadence of communication. Communication plan for 1 month will be very different from one for 6 months.

Few things you can keep in mind while designing a communication plan for users in waitlist for delayed product release.

  1. Product Release Date and Communication Cadence – How often will you send the communication.
  2. Product Progress – Updates on how the product is shaping up. Details on this process (technical challenges or product decisions etc can resonate with users with appreciation for these things).
  3. User Involvement – If you are up for it, you can actually have deeper engagement with the waitlist by having them part of user research interviews or beta testing programs


Closing Thoughts:

  1. Start accepting waitlist when product is nearing the launch date.
  2. Whether you are rolling out the invites or not, keep updating users on waitlist regularly (waitlist updates or product progress).
  3. Give option to users to change the frequency of your updates or unsubscribe.
  4. If possible, engage with users and build deeper relationships with them.


Techie Starts Dial-a-Book

Despite being wanting to blog for a long time all I am able to find time for is to share the links/stories of Dial-a-Book. But I sincerely hope to change this, in the mean while here’s another story on a site for techies

Here’s an excerpt

Mayank Dhingra studied to be an electronics engineer and started his career as a software developer. In 2009, he quit the security of a full time job to start Dial-a-Book that lets you order all types of Books over the phone. They accept Cash on Delivery in 27 cities including NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkatta, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Hyd. TG caught up with Mayank


Techgoss (TG): Tell us about your educational and IT Work Background?
Mayank Dhingra (MD): I am an electronics engineer by education and started working as a software developer and eventually turned into a Social Media Consultant. My first job was with Fidelity in which I worked on building and enhancing software (on Microsoft technologies) for their internal use. In my second job at Slideshare I worked on their Slidecast feature, did some work on the back end/server side and some front-end coding for a few features.

TG: How was Dial-a Book business idea born?
MD: I’ve always wanted to start a business around books and after …..

You can read the complete article here

 

Getting Real: A smaller, faster, better way to build software.

Here’s a goodie for all software developers(especially web). The mavericks at 37signals have compiled their thoughts on software development in form of a book aptly titled “Getting Real“.

What is getting real ?

  • Getting Real is about skipping all the stuff that represents real (charts, graphs, boxes, arrows, schematics, wireframes, etc.) and actually building the real thing.
  • Getting real is less. Less mass, less software, less features, less paperwork, less of everything that’s not essential (and most of what you think is essential actually isn’t).
  • Getting Real is staying small and being agile.
  • Getting Real starts with the interface, the real screens that people are going to use. It begins with what the customer actually experiences and builds backwards from there. This lets you get the interface right before you get the software wrong.

http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch01_What_is_Getting_Real.php

Another amazing thing about this book is that its FREE in web version(HTML) and if you want it in pdf or paperback you can buy it too . I recommend you to check the book out. Click here to get started

What game are you playing ?

I remember reading some time back about it and for the past few days the realization and understanding of this has got stronger.By game here I mean the business you are into or upto.

While there’s nothing abstract or profound about the thought but still I personally feel most people including me(till a while back) don’t tend to think on these lines. The point being simple, what’s the size of the game you are playing ? …Every business can be done/run in various sizes or scales, with or without the involved people realizing the current size and to what size can it extend to in the existing setup.

Consider these sample cases for a bunch of guys working together

Case 1: Game = small
Building products/softwares for small clients. ex: college students working part time to get some extra cash.

Case 2: Game = Medium
Building products/softwares for medium sized organizations

Case 3: Game = BIG
Building products/softwares for the some really big organizations or better for the web in general.

The point that I am trying to make here is that when you start a business you more often than not stay in the same scale and it’s your positioning in that particular scale what changes. So the switch from one scale(or game) to another is some thing that requires a lot of hard work, mind work, motivation, resources, time and more. Another crucial ingredient is what people fancifully call “moving in the right circles”, yes you have to be in the right place with right people at right time to make this transition.
The reason why most businesses that start in a scale tend to stay within their territories is because either they fail to realize this or they fail to achieve it.

Saying all this I feel that if someone consciously and repeatedly, rather religiously tries to make this transition of scales, the game can change unbelievably. Changing with it everything that’s involved including the mindset/thought process of the people involved and suddenly the concerned people find themselves amidst something which otherwise could have taken a lot of time if at all possible in their lives.

What’s even more exciting is the fun and excitement that comes during this whole process of changing the game.It magnifies the whole set up, everything scales up and the situation without you realizing changes you and the way you approach business and maybe life in general. It’s like a wave that comes and takes everyone whose ready, to an all together new and exciting place, giving those orgasmic “aha moments” for free.