Closed Beta Launch
by Boris TaneThe result of 5 months of talking to people, experimenting and building in public.
I sent out an email to everybody who signed up for the beta of Bkmark. This is my first SaaS. It's with butterflies in my stomach that I ran the command to blast out the emails.
Building in Public
This is just the beginning of the journey. I have made new friends along the way, I have connected with 100s of incredible people both on Indie Hackers and Twitter. Building in Public was probably the best decision I could have made for this project.
I do not use apps to track my progress or log every day I work on the app. I see their value, but I prefer a more impromptu approach. I share things that I discover, questions I have or screenshots of the progress on Twitter and I engage with other bootstrappers on their projects.
Building the Beta version
It took about one month to build the core functionalities. The rest of the time was making sure it's usable. The app hasn't visually substantially changed in a couple of months now. However, I noticed from previous projects that the product can work but not be usable. It's not helpful to have a ton of features if users do not understand how they work or how to use them.
I spent a substantial amount of time watching my friends use Bkmark over the past 2 months. Noting down what they do, where they're lost and what they don't understand. Improving the UX at this stage seemed more important than adding integrations or further refining the proposition.
Why Closed Beta?
To experiment with users I have direct access to. Some of the beta users have been on the waitlist for 6 months and have always engaged with the emails/tweets I put out.
I have a ton of ideas for Bkmark. It started with the need to save my online stuff in one place and find it easily. That is still the core proposition:
- Save quickly
- Find Easily
- Get reminders of stuff you've saved
- Auto Archive obsolete things
I however now understand that the possibilities are near endless in this space. There are a lot of apps attempting to solve the problem of managing links, each taking a different approach, some more traditional, some more creative. There's enough space for many more players, and I think I can bring something different.
What's next?
Now I want to see how people use Bkmark, talk to more users and customers, identify pain points and focus on bringing value. This will help me triage what is important from the pool of ideas I have.
I will be inviting people from the waitlist to use the app weekly. If this sounds like something you'd want to participate in, visit https://bkmark.io
And don't hesitate to connect on Twitter. I want to see what you build 👉 https://twitter.com/BorisTane
