Sep 14 — YC Build Sprint Edition 6 Days To Go

Product : Xapnik, an app that's like Slack for all your community's social media feeds, making it easy to amplify each other in less time.

Overall Goals:

(1) sign up at least 25 beta users,

(2) add at least one new social media network to the app based upon beta user feedback,

(3) get app store approval and launch!

Progress:

1 — 17 users signed up

2 — this ain't gonna happen

3 — achieved, but a week later than hoped

Added a couple more users in the last ~24 hours.

Got some feedback from someone I thought was my "ideal" user that they don't have the problem that Xapnik seems to solve. While it's not what I want to hear, obviously it's what I need to hear. And I'm grateful to be getting that kind of vital info this early in the process.

Posted a little humor about OracleTok today, for anyone needing a laugh
https://www.xapnik.com/top-oracletok-hot-takes-from-twitter/

Plan:

• talk a lot with the users who joined recently and learn from their experience of it
• circle back and do some deeper research on my users' real problems (YC says "change the product, not the customer!")
• run some A/B testing on two different viable positioning options and see if either one shows potential
• pause 99% of any feature development until a clear PMF emerges

So basically, running on parallel tracks, I'm (i) testing to see if there is a viable market for the product as is (the BACKWARDS WAY, because I'm a sucker for punishment), and (ii) gearing up to pivot the product towards a better-researched customer.