ReviewCycle

We've de-uglied ReviewCycle.

With the help of a great designer out of Tulsa, OK we've completely overhauled the design of ReviewCycle, to make things much more polished and nice to use.

This marks a bit of a turning point for us. Now that the product itself is polished up, and the homepage actually communicates the value (we hope), we can turn to a critical phase in our product development: gathering as much feedback as possible about the current product.

At this point, priorities shift. Up to now, we've been focused on building product, getting enough in there to create a reasonably useful thing (we think, anyway).

Now, we switch our focus to gathering as much feedback from real users as possible. We'll be slowing our new feature development, and focusing much more on driving people to the product and talking with them about their experience and what's missing or incorrect in what we've got today.

The singular focus at this point is to find product/market fit. We know we probably don't have it yet, and ultimately, closing that gap is all that matters at this stage in the game.

So. This is some pretty cool shit.

We just launched version notes on ReviewCycle!

What does that mean?

Well, if you're working with a client, or coworker (or anyone, really), on revising a visual asset (wireframe, visual design, graphic design, you get the idea), and you're creating new versions with changes in them, you can now add a summary of those changes right inside of ReviewCycle.

So what?

One of the biggest things when working through iterations is keeping tabs on what's changed. Now, you've got a single place to keep all that information, with a full record of all your changes.

Complete transparency and accountability in the creative process. Boom.

Curious to see it in action? Check out our demo project and hit the "Version Notes" link at the top of the screen: https://reviewcycle.io/p/c08525

Or, upload your own assets at reviewcycle.io for free!

We just released PDF support on ReviewCycle! So, if you're creating assets that need review, and they're in PDF format, we got your back ;)

As a reminder - ReviewCycle is the quickest and easiest way to get feedback and chat about any creative asset, from #wireframes, to #comps, to postcards. Anything you want to get feedback on, you can do it in seconds for free.

Coming soon - annotations (the ability to draw on an asset and chat about it), content tools, and much more.

Reviewing something with a client or your team? Give it a try at https://reviewcycle.io/.

(Note that PDFs are currently limited to single-page PDFs, multi-page support will be coming soon!)

#userexperiencedesign #visualdesign #reviews #creativeprocess

We just rolled out the ability to version assets on ReviewCycle, allowing users to upload multiple versions as edits are done, to respond to client feedback. So, as our users upload assets to review on the platform, and they start creating new versions in response to feedback, those new versions can be uploaded.

PRETTY DOPE!

This was a bit of a bitch to implement, requiring a pretty big change in the data model, but it's a great example of why you launch early, use your own product, and quickly iterate on what's obviously wrong.

Excited to have this feature out there! Next up are some minor additions for basic project management, then working on some new features that we've heard from users (such as creating simple task lists alongside assets).

Here's the uncomfortable truth about startups: you're probably wrong.

Fact is, ideas are pretty easy to come by. And, anything easy to come by doesn't have a ton of value. It's a law of supply and demand.

The good news is, being wrong is fine, and natural, and where nearly everyone starts. It's what you DO with that information that's important.

So you need to validate your ideas. There are a bunch of resources out there that talk about how to do this (check out Steve Blank's book, "The Four Steps to the Epiphany" for starters), so I won't go into detail about the mechanics. But suffice to say, you need to validate to ensure what you're building actually solves a real problem that people have, and that you're solving said problem in a way that's meaningful.

That's the first reason to validate your idea - to make sure what you're building is actually worth building.

Here's the second reason, and one that no one ever thinks about.

When you set out to validate your product, you're not just validating the product itself, you're validating your path to market and customer acquisition strategy.

Hold up, let's unpack that.

What's the biggest problem that startups have? Building things that people don't want. Second to that, and very related, is an inability to find customers.

This is where your validation exercise helps to uncover that quickly. If you can't find 20 people to go talk to about your idea, who represent your ideal customer...how in the world do you ever expect to go out and acquire customers in a scalable way?

This is the dirty little secret about customer validation. On one hand, it's a way to find out if what you're building actually provides value to people. On the other hand - and almost equally as important - it's a way to find out if you even know how to get in touch with those people to get your product in their hands.

If your reaction to "find people to validate your product with" is "I don't really know the people who would be using this", you're in for a hell of a long ride when it comes to going to market.

It's clear how important it is to build products that you, yourself, actually use. In using ReviewCycle over the past couple days with actual client projects, we've been able to find a litany of bugs and feature ideas.

Note to founders: it's much, much easier to iterate on a product when you actually use it yourself.

(If you're not using your own product, ask yourself - would anyone else? Is this actually a problem?)

#fyi