How To Not Get Attached To The Product You're Building?
Hi Indie Hackers!
I'm an indie hacker working on building a social networking app to connect people in Black Greek Organizations (ie. Fraternities and Sororities). I'm in the process of releasing a beta version within the next week at a major Greek convention in Atlanta next week where 25,000+ people in my target audience would be in attendance.
I feel like this is a great opportunity for me to get the app out there, get some feedback, and iterate from there. But as founders, we know that things don't always go as planned, people may think your product is garbage, etc.
So my question(s) to the community are
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How do you not get too attached to the product you're building although you're putting in all of this hard work?
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Any advice on rolling out a product to users that provides enough features for a beta version but isn't "feature complete"? Will that give the users a bad impression and think the app is basic...or should I just be focusing on getting feedback to add in future iterations?
"Love the problem you're solving, not your solution." I tell this to people all the time. If you fall in love with your solution (aka product), you have a hard time dealing with things that just aren't working. If you are passionate about the specific problem(s) you're solving, you'll keep iterating until you come up with the right solution.
You should launch with the minimum number of features needed to deliver the value/solve the problem you're targeting. Can you, in one quick sentence, explain the big problem? How painful is it to people? How are they solving it now?
That's a great perspective to look at it from! My one sentence synopsis of the big problem is: "There is no easy way to find Black Greeks near you other than through word of mouth".
The problem isn't super painful nor something that's quote on quote life changing. However it would provide an added convenience to those that just moved to a new city that would like to connect with their brothers and sisters. Additionally, many people gain so many opportunities through these relationships.
The current way of solving this problem is through word of mouth or Greek chats on groupme.
I would ask this question after the event, when you've determined whether or not the product resonates with your prospective audience. What I would do is go to the event with a clear picture of what success will look like. If you capture the interest of 1% of the attendees, you will have had 250 signups. What is success for those 250 people? How many interactions between them will suggest to you that your product is sticky? When that cohort of signups whittle down to their resting state, how many are left? Are interactions decreasing (not finding value in your product), staying the same (finding some value), or growing (your product might have some traction)? Social apps are hard. You may build a great technical product, but with social apps, the network is the only product that matters. Make sure users have a reason to invest in and build the network.
Facebook didn't start with a vision of "connecting the world", and it certainly didn't have the feature set to do so. What it did have was a clear vision of connecting the few people at a single university. Scope your networks, so they can be successful on their own. You may have the grand vision of connecting all black Greek students across America, but first make sure that the black students at UGA, or Georgia Tech are deriving value from your product. Can they find value with what you've built? Does it help them build their org through on-campus recruitment? Does it help executive boards execute their org's goals? Or does it simply "connect"? Because simple connection probably won't land you on the other side of success.
Thanks so much for your feedback. I hadn't even thought too much of the strategy so I will definitely hash that out before the event. Those key metrics for engagement are also something I will take note of so thank you for that suggestion
Independent networks are important and challenging for sure. My plan is to leverage my greek network of friends which is relatively big and get their feedback. Also very ironic you say UGA and Georgia Tech because I went to Georgia Tech lol.
Thanks for all of your feedback though, I'll be implementing these strategies. Looking forward to growth!