I have an interview earlier today (21st January/2015) with Adriano Ferrari, the guy behind the Gingko App.
Why Him?
I met Adriano in a meetup in earlier days of Gingko(he was then a PhD student in Physics). After a quick chat, he handed me a business card. I must admit that I became a regular visitor of his blog from the fist time I visited It. I return to read his writings sometimes(new blog or re-read old ones :-) for inspiration and to learn new things. I admire a lot the way he perceives not only good software, but also various facets of life. So many times his writings influenced my decisions, for instance un-plugging from social media, decluttering my mind while working, and much more enough to convince me that he was the right guy to turn to for ideas and advices to shape the toddler hoo.gy into a mature product.
Following is the (non-exhaustive) list of topics we discussed via Skype:
- Users — how to onboard new members/users
“Mouth-To-Ear”. This approach is so old, yet it is far more effective than any other model I can think of till today. I find it hard to sell, and turn your customer into your seller in one shot. You either have to be really good at selling, or having a product that kick ass really hard. Takeout on this is: maximize on customer happiness, learn, and repeat.
2. Pivoting — what he thinks about it
For a product development driven by users’ input, the product designer/owner only realizes that the product s/he is actually selling doesn’t match the initial draft. Takeout: The pivot just happens, the owner doesn’t necessarily have to initiate it, as users(the real owners) decide which direction the product should head to.
3. Funding versus Bootstrapping
“Bootstrapping”. There is a frenzy in tech industry of success measured based on the amount of money X company raised in Series W round(W stands for whatever), instead of sales, happiness and experience product owner get from making something happy users are willing to pay for. Takeout: my bosses are my customers, not VCs — bootstrapping looked like a viable option as long as I can buy hosting service and pay for a developer(me).
4. Selling — how to sell fast
“I am not a good seller, so I am not a good resource for that question(laughing)” — Take out: It will just happen, steady steps, one step(customer) at a time.
5. Incorporation — when to incorporate
It depends, some people like to start everything in order, some others give it a time for the product to mature a bit, and incorporate either when they are ready or there is a need to register(corporation, llc, etc), for example: when people start paying(for tax and customer protection purposes). Takeout: Do it when you are ready, and before It is too late!
6. Legal — Privacy policy, Terms of use and Service etc.
It depends on case, especially when there is a need to do so, aka “the right time”. You cannot have a Privacy Policy before the product actually works!
7. Media Coverage and impact on his business
He used “no big media coverage, just mouth-to-ear strategy works”-ed fine. The pattern was simple: a happy customer brings in another customer, or tells friends(potential customers). This may not be applicable to products that needs more traffic to work though. Customers who tend to stick around are those who come from other sources than those drove in by traffic surge after posting a blog post(on Huffington), or featuring in a magazine(TechCrunch, etc …). Appearing in news can be also be good as you may add the link to your website to increase credibility or confidence of users to sign up! Takeout: I can’t say more than that, focus on what matters the most(your product) to keep customers happy.
Fine.
The conversation took more than an hour, and covered more topics than (key points) stated above. I made this writeup as a reference to that discussion, and to share what I learned that day. The discussion was not recorded, so I edited so many things(99%) as far as I can remember. Among other things, I answered about motivation behind hoo.gy, I got a suggestion to consider things like gift cards(sound like a good idea), gamification as a way to increase user confidence and motivation to reduce debt and consumerism. So many other good things, like this link about “Product strategy in a growing company” — the list goes on.
You can always visit his blog, try out the app(organize your ideas in a tree — 3 columns or more), Facebook fan-page, or twitter.
Legal side, please seek a professional assistance rather than referring to this blog post: I am NOT a lawyer, neither my friend is. Check if you confirm to laws and regulations of your state or province in your endeavours.
Pascal — Founder at hoo.gy
