The benefits of beta
To think that I almost didn't announce the app in last week's newsletter!
An hour or so before the email was due to go out, it was still consistently being glitchy on my phone.
"There's no way I can put this out there like this," I thought.
But then Rob reminded me of the value of being in beta: we are the very definition of test mode. People don't expect everything to be functioning perfectly.
And why spend time improving something if nobody wants it anyway?
On top of that, the way Rob and I were using the app was unnatural — we were actively trying to break it. Perhaps a normal user wouldn't even come across any problems with the frequency that we did!
Spot my new favourite app! 😍
The response to the "first draft" of this "not real" app was so overwhelmingly positive, with complaints and questions few and far in between, and the whole experience served as reminder that we are still in beta, tens of thousands of users or not!
We will always be a company that is customer-research led, but I've got to remember not to slip out of that "release early and learn fast" mindset! 💪🏾
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