For the whole year before going out on my own, I was saving, paying down debt, and trying to cut costs so that when the opportunity presented itself, I'd be ready. I didn't know when or why I would finally go out on my own, but I did know it would happen sometime. The sooner you start preparing, the sooner you'll be ready to make it happen.
The sooner you start preparing, the sooner you'll be ready to make it happen.
The quality of your ideas goes up dramatically as it's exposed to more people. If I hadn't written any blog posts about Sifter or given any presentations about the design process, I never would have had the courage or support to bet a year of my life on creating a new product in an already crowded market.
Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If it's a good idea, you'll have to cram it down their throat. - Unknown
While there are ways to start a business without taking a pay cut, those methods aren't for everybody. To give a sense of perspective, this year I'll make about 50% of what I made last year, and I've been working a hell of a lot more hours. Next year will likely be about the same. That's a significant amount of opportunity cost.
Everyone is busy. Very busy. They don't have time to provide feedback. It's imperative that you make it incredibly efficient and obvious for them to provide feedback. While a small handful of people will take the time to provide feedback, you're going to need more. A lot more. With only a few people, you run the risk of encountering the vocal minority and being tempted to make changes that only one person cares about. Even with an easy feedback process, it's likely you'll have to proactively solicit feedback in order to get enough feedback to see the big picture
Everyone is busy. Very busy. They don't have time to provide feedback.
As of this morning, we've sent out about 300 invites to people who specifically asked for one. That includes friends, colleagues, and even some strangers. The most interesting statistic is that only about 50% of those people have created accounts. That means that 150 people who asked for invites have not bothered to spend 1 minute to create a free account.
150 people who asked for invites have not bothered to spend 1 minute to create a free account.
Nothing worth doing is easy, and following a dream to build software won't be much different. It's a constant struggle for attention and a balancing act between paying the bills and launching. It's exhausting, stressful, and even a little depressing, but when you do find those people who love what you've built, it's worth it. It's like finding a needle in a haystack, but, thanks to the internet, we've got a pretty big haystack with plenty of needles.
…when you do find those people who love what you've built, it's worth it.
We built a simple bug and issue tracker named Sifter and we blog about it when we're not working on it. We think it’s a great way to get feedback and keep everyone updated on our status.
Grab our feedWe'll only send emails for significant product announcements, and those happen every couple of months at most. Of course, we won't give away or sell your e-mail address either.
Comments
I think one reason is that they need a credit card to sign up. My colleague sitting next to me got an invite - but he has not credit card.
Do you remember what I told you at the second (spontaneus) Sifter chat about that? CCs are very wide spread inside the USA (I tend to think there are more CCs than habitants), but not necessary outside the country.
As I said, here in Germany CCs are kind of a "special" payment method. I'd say that not even 1/4 of the people I know do have one. Even my mother doesn't - she simply does not need it.
If people own one, they use it very, very, veeeeery rarely. And they will think about using it at least two times. It's known as a kind of "unsecure" payment method here - especially when passing CC data over the internet. And outside the country - oh my god! ;-) (but hey, the media coverage is still telling [sometimes] that cookies are dangerous like trojans and can harm your computer =)
But nevertheless, I got my card a few days ago ;-) So please send me an invite for Sifter and I will try. I'm so excited!
Dominik - I definitely remember, and I've been wondering about it a bit lately. It's definitely something that we're considering, but there are just so many other things that we're focusing on that I just haven't given it that much thought.
I'll definitely be keeping a close eye on it. Thanks for reminding me that it could be a cause of the invite acceptance issues.
How about extending the beta love downunder? I'm kicking off an exciting project and would love to give Sifter a go. Room for one more? :-)
Gentlemen,
Do you plan on adding some concept of "milestones" or "releases" into sifter? Looks solid otherwise at first glance!
Matt - It's definitely something we've spent time thinking about, and I believe we'll add something along those lines eventually. I think it's important that we get it right, and the best way to do that is to get feedback from people using Sifter so that we take the right approach.
That said, there are quite a few other features in line ahead of milestones, so it may be a while.
Garrett: I must admit, the requirement to have a credit card threw me as well: I didn't have mine on me (but I will get round to it and signup soon) so I dropped off at that stage of the signup.
On the other hand I think it is definitely quite a novel way to make sure that only the people who are serious about your app 'gets in', and I'm guessing your conversion rate is going to be quite respectable.
Alan - There is a trial plan that doesn't require a credit card, but it's not very visible. It's listed below the other plans. I've been meaning to make it a little more visible, but it just hasn't been a high priority.
Took me a while to find the 30 Day free trial too.
Of the 300 people if only 150 signed up, I'd wager 50 to 75 people were turned off when they THOUGHT there was no free-trial for a BETA product.
Makes making the free-trial link more obviousVERY important if you value feedback.
Quick "Point-of-feedback" in app is crucial too. AJAX makes this dead simple with very high return on effort with a one-man team.