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Sep 8 — YC Build Sprint Edition 13 Days To Go

I've found the YC Build Sprint to be a fantastic driver of focus!

I set what I saw as modest goals at the beginning:
(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 — 10 users signed up
2 — this ain't gonna happen
3 — achieved, but a week later than hoped

I've learned quickly that, at Xapnik's stage, just getting 25 users in three weeks (we lost a week to the app store rejection) is plenty to focus on.

We're quickly learning which parts of the user experience so far are confusing, broken or below expectations.

Today, I'm 'pounding the pavement' to get as many of those 25 (targeted) users signed up. If I can exceed that goal by the end of the sprint and come away with the punchlist of priority changes to make for the next release, that'll be more valuable than shipping goal (2).

  1. 2

    Hey, what has been your approach to get the beta users?

    1. 1

      I've mostly been sharing it with my personal networks at this point. I've been offering free top-tier subscriptions to people in my network who think it's something they could use.

      This has pros and cons. People I know personally are patient and happy to report bugs and retry things after a fix. But, they don't necessarily fit the profile of my ideal user.

      Two users came from listing on https://airport.community/ and as you can imagine, they don't seem terribly engaged.

      I was excited about last week's 10 users, but this week I'm not seeing the interest in a couple of my other communities that I was hoping to. I have a theory that my networks are SO tech-centric that they kind of have burnout as a result of people in their lives asking them to try their apps all the time!

      So I think I need to move on to create direct conversations with people I consider to be my "super node" users.

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