Why didn't anyone tell me my baby was ugly?
We completely stopped traffic generation activities back there to OvaFlow. This post explains why…
Everybody STOP!
When you have been slaving away, pouring your heart and soul into a software product and everything on the periphery, then it does become your own little baby — there to be nurtured and go on to do great things, hopefully!
The product and concept, we cannot deny, is a winning recipe but it is very easy to get caught up in it and being so close to something means that ultimately you may become blinkered. This being no more apparent when we received some fairly harsh critique (the ugly claim) on our pre-launch site that would have ended up being the framework for our main site once we went fully live. Thank god, that person did that!
Give back and share the love…
I wanted to put this little post together to try and ensure that anyone else going through a start-up or bringing a product to market ensures you get the right feedback. It is important to take the invariable kick in the shin and nipple tweak to keep you on the straight and narrow. To fail at some points during the journey hurts personally, but you have to embrace it. It will make you stronger. There is a default answer that you give if anyone ever asks about the product, it’s a reflex that kind of says “couldn’t be going any better, thanks for asking”. When actually what you mean to say is “could be going a whole lot f***ing better, any ideas?”! It’s the game face answer. I’m gradually getting my head around the fact that its cool to be transparent. You will learn from failure and teach others. Nothing more beautiful than that.
Mental Aunties…
As you go through this journey you will realise that people are genuinely excited about your developments to bring a product to market even if they don’t have a clue what it is that you do. More often than not the initial people that will comment on your concept will be a friend or family member. They will blow massive smoke up your arse for taking the plunge and will wish you good luck. They do this because they love you, they want you to succeed. It’s like a best man speech. No one wants that guy upfront to fail. The best man speech is a tough gig I bear no bones about it, there, but you will never get a better audience as they want you to be the best, best man.
Getting your Facebook page out and getting family members to like it, is all game in my eyes for driving a little flurry of traffic to the site. Makes me feel good as the little real-time Google Analytics page starts totting up. Obviously, completely this is just for vanity. My auntie is never in a million years going to be interested in big data shaping for Enterprise business. Actually, she might be. She’s mental enough. She probably thinks it will fix her home printer. I will continue to let her think this.
Ball Kicking…
So the pre-launch site went out, which we were very excited about. We actually thought it looked amazing. With glory in our eyes we asked our user interface guy for his input in the look and feel of the site. He was not responsible for the website build just the product front-end UI. I thought in my head this was a non-backfire question. He would tell me only good things, right? I leant back in the chair smiling, popped my hands behind my head closed my eyes and awaited for some gentle verbal ego ball tickling. Ahhh….
Yeah that didn’t happen.
He actually turned around and said… “is it alright if I’m completely honest?”
We were a little taken back but expected him to give it the old “I don’t like it….I love it!” gag. Cue rapturous laughter, high fives all round. Pub!
It didn’t go like that…
He basically ripped it to shreds. It would have been more comfortable if he had kicked me in the balls. The verbal ball tickling was now somewhere in Kansas. It was harsh. I was pretty raged about this. We all looked in disbelief how he could say such hurtful things. We dressed our baby in what we thought was the most wonderful outfit. Customers and investors alike would surely coo as they navigated our site? It was the end of his day and after his cutting remarks he left. I thought he was wrong. We all thought he was wrong. As soon as he left I gave it the old right handed gesture (really slowly) as he walked out the door.
I’ve worked in this industry for years how dare he question my integrity. I’ve been a data consultant for some of the world’s biggest companies.
As we continued through some traffic spikes and early adopters, things went a little quiet. We started to look at the web stats and really it started to show that the site did not work hard enough.
With the continued meet up with friends of various industries giving the old “hey I liked your Facebook page, good luck!” followed by the “sorry, but what the f*ck does it do?” comment it was slowly dawning on us that the UI guy was bang on the money. The site needed to tell a story — a journey if you will… be less… err… black!
A friend of mine and his design agency took a good look at the site. We kind of bullied them first time around saying we want this, that and this colour. Problem is that we are not designers. You need to let awesome people be awesome!
Technical Barometer…
I want even the most technically challenged to kind of understand what I do. That barometer being firmly set by my mum and dad. Whenever, someone asks my mum what I do she says “he works in IT but don’t ask me exactly what he does” Standard. I’m holding out for one day she will be able to tell her friends that we developed a product that analyzes and visualizes data. The website should allow for this but it didn’t.
Obviously, I will sugarcoat it to mum that I analyse data like tank from the Matrix to get some kudos in there. She doesn’t need to know. Shhh.
So guys I bring to you V2.0 of the website which will once released be our full site. Colours are a lot better, layout a lot cleaner and it has a journey.
Before:
After:
In Summary…
I've learnt a few things here. Be really honest with friends if they are venturing into business with a new idea or concept. You would want the same back.
Also I know that my kids are not ugly. They are ensuring we are on the straight and narrow. Here they are putting some features into V1.1. Yep that is the dinosaur release. X
So anyway. I could sit here and go we’ve done everything absolutely bang on so far but I want this journey to be really transparent. I want to help others learn from the mistakes. It’s good to fail. We’ve burnt some cash here but if it was that easy then everyone would be doing it. Failing is great. The troughs make the peaks awesome. Our UI guy is still on board delivering the product front end and making it look and feel awesome!
Thanks for your patience y’all. Nearing product launch…
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