your audien.cc

Products are based on ideas which take time to be thought through, to be put through a few feedback loops and to execute on. Initially the focus is on identifying the Minimum Viable Prototype (I am going to let Eric Ries explain this concept cause he does it best) and start getting feedback. Charlie O’Donnell has a great post today about it never being too early to talk and that’s something that we did very early on.

We had an idea very early on that we wanted to test out with as many people as possible. The reactions were mixed - Enterprises loved the idea but were apprehensive about control and policy, Consumer/Prosumers loved the product but wanted a ton of stuff on top that we didn’t provide yet. We put ourselves out there enough for people to soft-test it and identify our failures. As Fred Wilson says, we didn’t hide from them, we learnt from them.

Instead of starting afresh, we analyzed how could pivot our initial idea and build enough to release something usable as soon as possible. After a couple of months of working feverishly, we are hours away from releasing our product in beta. We are still ‘bumbling around’ but now are ready to talk to real users and work closely with them to build something awesome.