My First Beta Flopped, Here’s What I’ve Learned

It ain’t as easy it as it seems

Julio Rivera
Jul 10, 2017 · 7 min read
via unsplash

After a great career as an Engineer and Product Manager with Prolific Interactive, it was the first day of ‘fun-employement.’ Having seen the impact of meditation on my own personal life, I left because I wanted to pursue a new found passion and purpose. I want to help millennials live happier lives by allowing them to build their own meditation practice through technology and community.

I had a vision of a product in mind and on that first day, I started hacking away at it immediately. I woke up, meditated, programmed for 10 hours straight, took a few calls with potential customers, and went to sleep. This became the routine day in and day out as I worked to finish my Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

Everyday I was oozing with enthusiasm and optimism because inevitable success was approaching by each hour. Once I released this bad boy, I’d start making an immediate impact to a group of initial customers and I could start fundraising.

It was two weeks in. I was exhausted, but excited because I had finally finished the MVP version of the product I envisioned. I submitted the iOS app to Apple’s TestFlight for my the first users to access. I celebrated my efforts by cracking open a Presidenté and visualizing success.

I spent the next couple of days catching up with friends and family since I kept limited contact in my cave. Being around my loved ones and support system gave me the replenished energy that I needed. It gets lonely being a single founder and coding away day by day. Additionally it was a good time to let the product marinate, so I could come back and observe the data, that would undoubtably show me that I was on the right track.

After the fourth day of reconnecting with society, I logged on to Firebase Analytics to see the data on how people were using the app. I saw a big fat 0% around conversion.…. People were opening the app, but were not engaging with it. At all. F*ck.

I panicked and started to get down on myself. “You’re not as product-oriented as you thought you were. You let your ego get in the way. You’re not fit for this.” I slammed the laptop cover. Surprised by my instinctive reaction, I told myself to chill out and meditated for an hour.

What became clear after stepping away from the situation, was that my big bet for the beta was one big assumption. I had not done proper research around my customers. I had not been disciplined in the process of experimentation and iteration. I had failed.

I was a more reckless version of Rambo, fingers blazing, and programming faster than I could think. Even with being a senior engineer and a product manager at an agency where we were AGILE AF, I still made some silly mistakes. I’ve reflected on three major takeaways from the beta and hope this post helps you avoid those same mistakes!

Be Thoughtful

When I left my job and had no structure to my days, I had this urge to immediately start working. I filled my calendar with building the product before talking to customers. Upon reflection, this stemmed from financial and social stress. At the top of mind, I had my dwindling savings and the desire to prove myself to my peers who thought I was crazy for leaving my stable and well-paying job. I wanted to work.

What I’ve learned is that it’s important to give myself time to ruminate over the concept and to journal these thoughts. Providing that mental space allows me to be realistic with my goals and to clarify the journey and ultimate destination. You and I have to be able to identify the biggest risks at the moment and how to test them. I have to be able to look at information (e.g what customers are saying) with an unbiased perspective. I have to be able to clearly articulate the problem I am trying to solve to to keep myself focused on the North Star.

You cannot make strategic decisions when external pressures are behind your actions. You have to start with your why — why are you putting yourself through this emotional rollercoaster?

Where I failed was making too many assumptions about the customer. I’ve learned from this and picked up a recommended book, called “Value Proposition Design,” by Alexander Osterwalder. This book gave me a great framework for organizing and collecting customer research. By going back to the drawing board with a better understanding of the customer, I was able to see the loopholes in my thought process.

Be Lean

In addition to being completely infatuated with my idea, I became infatuated with how the app would look in my mind. The engineer in me wanted to hack away immediately to make this product come to life and I did just that. I spent about a week and a half building the actual app and another week sourcing the content I would need. That’s almost two and a half weeks of building something that I haven’t shown to the customer. For a larger company this may be fine, but for me at this stage, this was BIG mistake.

Looking back at some of the takeaways from “The Lean Startup,” by Eric Reis, I looked at what I could do better next time. I could be nimble. I could put out a functional, yet embarrassing product. I could test an assumption within a day and leverage existing services and platforms with the key outcome of learning.

Reflecting on this, I would’ve asked myself “What I am trying to test?” Are there existing technologies I could take advantage of such as Facebook Groups or Facebook Live, Youtube, Twilio/SMS to help me learn whether to move forward or pivot? In the three weeks that I spent launching my first beta, I could’ve potentially learned so much more if I had launched within a week, or even a day

This approach has been successful for so many startups. For example, the founders of Zappos simply put together a site with a list of shoes with their picture and price. Between taking the pictures of the shoes and building the initial page, I bet it didn’t take them more than a day and now look at them. They are part of Amazon’s conglomerate from the acquisition in 2009 for $850 million.

Be Positive

After the results of the beta, I got really down on myself. Thoughts such as “Why did I even do this? Why did I leave my job? I am not fit for building businesses” started to pop up in my head. I let self-criticism and negative thoughts and emotions consume me.

Right around when this happened, I was reading Carol Dweck’s “Mindset”. In it, she explains two different perspectives we can have about ourselves. We can view our basic abilities, intelligence, and talents as fixed traits or as assets that can be grown over time through persistent hard and smart work. She calls this latter mentality the growth mindset.

She provides examples of students, athletes, such as Michael Jordan, and entrepreneurs who had a growth-mindset who practiced every single day. They got to see the fruits of their labor because their focus was on the effort, the journey, and the process. They did not let the results define them, but let their daily habits and effort define them.

My perspective of the beta changed. Instead of looking at it as a failure, I looked at it is as a learning opportunity to be a wiser entrepreneur. Instead of looking at it as a crater right in the middle of my master plan, it is a building block. If there is a single takeaway that I value the most. It is this one. Your mindset determines your outcome.


I’ve realized a lot through this initial beta and I am all smiles about it.

I can learn a lot about myself through suffering. I can analyze my behavioral patterns when in difficult situations and improve. I can look at failed attempts as learning opportunities to become the person I want to be. I can show up everyday and enjoy the journey. I can be grateful that I am alive today and able to pursue my passion and purpose once more.

Fellow risk-takers, keep fighting the good fight!

I would love to hear if you shared similar experiences! Leave a comment below or shoot me an email @ julio@zencompass.co.


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Thanks to Jose Ramos and Mission

Julio Rivera

Written by

Founder & CEO, Zen Compass. http://zencompass.co

Mission.org

A network of business & tech podcasts designed to accelerate learning. Selected as “Best of 2018” by Apple. Mission.org

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