Task management evolved

A few days ago, I described in this article how we had the idea for a new task management approach and we announced the creation of Sbloko, an iOS app that implements that idea. In short, Sbloko shows your tasks in a way that highlights importance and urgency and sets important tasks apart from the heap of irrelevant or less important ones.

In this article I’ll focus on the new ideas we’re going to test with respect to app distribution and growth and how we want Sbloko to evolve.

Product development the way it should be

There are many approaches to product development. Some people advocate the development of a minimum viable product to test hypothesis as fast as possible (check Eric Ries’ “The Lean Startup”). Others do an almost religious preparation for product release, after thousands or millions of man hours of work aiming for perfection on launch day (someone said Apple?).

As freelancers we cannot afford a big failure, nor we have deep pockets to support the development and marketing of a huge project. That’s why the common advice for any small company or solo developer is to be as lean as possible, and that’s what we’re trying to do with Sbloko too. We’re developing a simple first version that:

• Aims at collecting as much feedback as possible in a short time. We want to be sure that users care about the experience with the new approach, and that we got it right. If there is some major pitfall we want to get rid of it as soon as possible.
• Maximizes the value provided. We want to provide value to people. We developed Sbloko first for ourselves, but we really think we can help you achieve more, work on the most important things, be more organised and avoid the pain of losing time re-arranging your work too often.
• Is driven by the users. The worst nightmare of a product developer is to develop something nobody actually cares about, can’t sleep thinking about it! Nightmarish… And the best way I know to avoid that is to involve users as much as possible.

Our vision for Sbloko

The way I see it, in order to create a lovable product you need to give value to the users. And in order to give value to the users you need to know which needs they have. That’s why Sbloko will have a built-in voting system for upcoming features, which will allow every user to express his own preferences and opinions.

We’re proposing from the beginning a few advanced features, but users can propose ideas on their own too: we’ll be happy to add them to the list! Since we’re very small we won’t be able to work on all the features immediately, that’s why we’ll prioritise them according to user’s preferences.

Money won’t create success, the freedom to make it will. 
Nelson Mandela

The best way to validate a product usefulness, and the only way to sustain a product on the long run, is to generate some money with it. Sorry guys, just being realistic. We’ve been putting a lot of work creating Sbloko and of course we want it to be used by a lot of people, even without getting a cent. That said, being able to produce some income would motivate us and may even help us dedicate more than only our spare time to it, resulting in a better app and better value for the users.

Since we’re releasing a basic version of Sbloko, not yet with all the features we envision for it, we will charge nothing. The app will be freely available in the App Store for you to download and you’ll have no limitation whatsoever. Future versions of Sbloko, on the other hand, will be paid, we’re considering a subscription model for it.

To our early users, we’ll be offering early bird deals granting lifelong benefits, which include:

• Free, for life subscription to Sbloko. Early birds will not pay the subscription. Never.
• Productivity features like the integrated pomodoro timer (you know the pomodoro technique, isn’t it? It works!), calendar integration and reminders, Siri integration, multiple projects and more. All for free.
• Collaboration tools that will allow you to collaborate with your team.
• Reporting functions, especially useful for time reporting and billing. The dream of any freelancer.

We cannot tell how long those early bird offers will stay available. We hope to have a new big release by September, including the most voted features and improving the overall user experience. That would probably be the time when we’ll remove the early bird donations.

I’ve had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware. 
Joan Rivers

Sorry for that last quote, could not resist!

That’s it for now, this is the way we’re trying to launch Sbloko, I’ll keep you posted on the results. Make sure to download it on launch day, first week of August, in the iOS App Store. Will publish the official date very soon, along with a fully descriptive article on the Sbloko experience and another one digging on the proposed features for this first iteration.

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to comment or contact me at caterinapitti1@gmail.com.