If You Haven't Watched People Use It - Then It's Broken

I was advising a founder last week, who told me he finished his SaaS MVP and asked how to launch it to the World. Exciting stuff!

"Have you watched anybody using it?" I asked. "Nope." he answered. "Then it's broken, and you don't know where it's broken yet."

I've launched dozens of products, and there's one thing all my successful launches had in common. I talked people into using the product, while I was in the room with them, and watched what happened.

I had to resist the temptation to explain or to give a guided tour. Tomorrow's users out in the field won't get that. And the product isn't ready, until you've watched a new user onboard themselves and get value out of the product... without your help.

Until you get there, any launch campaign is bound to fail. Because every time you build something truly new, there's something confusing buried in there. Some step that's not intuitive. Often, several things.

And you have to watch people use it, and ruthlessly take out the friction and confusion, until it "just works". Then you can launch to a wider, public audience.

I'm not against the automated tools to "watch" people use your product. Mixpanel and all the companies that improved on them. But it's really something to watch someone's face and body language when they try to use your product. That works best in-person.

What's your favorite way to ask people to try something new that you built?