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>to last minute catastrophic product failures You have to have a product that works. People are trusting part of their business to your software. Depending on

>to last minute catastrophic product failures You have to have a product that works. People are trusting part of their business to your software. Depending on your software, they also have to spend a lot of time and money with integrations, training and all that. It's a large commitment that isn't easy to reverse. If your software was working perfectly and provided obvious, quantifiable value, do you think you would have reeled in those clients? If so, slow down the features and concentrate on stabilizing the software. To do this effectively you need to have both an eagle-eye QA person/team and an existing beta client. The more beta clients the better, because people will use (and break) your stuff in ways no one in your company imagined. While you are doing this, make sure the people who are demoing it know a happy path and are disciplined enough to stick to that and can explain away the problems. For them to be able to do that, you have to have a committed relationship with them, especially before demos. You also need to be in constant communication with your clients and make sure they know you are turning things around. You need to show them proof with quick releases on the most painful items and constant improvement. Proper triage is big in the beginning and majority of this phase. You also might want to ask your investors who are bullish on the product if any of their other investment companies or connections have any need for your software. They usually have connections that you and I probably wouldn't. That's the best advice I can give given my experience. There is a lot more in the details but that's the top points. I've been the head technical person in 2 turnarounds now, but they had existing (but angry and fleeing) clients. We had the software stabilized within a year, but it's a grueling process. Expect nights and weekends for the first 3-6 months, depending on where you are, then things will go more smoothly.

mlevental 9y ago
>You have to have a product that works. it was completely outside the scope of my product. we have a mobile webapp that doesn't work in a uiwebview (ios). simple solution: pop out safari from a button. catastrophic failure: conference apps insist on keeping users in app and so those buttons load up the site in a uiwebview. in fact at the last moment (one day before the conference) i figured out a pretty viable solution, slapped it together in 6 hours, made calls to make appropriate changes on site (at the conference), and it should've gone okay. >quantifiable value this is what i think we're missing
- numbsafari 9y ago
  It’s totally inside the scope of your product to work. You sold someone on your expertise and ability, but hadn’t done enough homework to know that your web app wouldn’t work in one of the most important ways their customers would interact with it? There’s a lot to learn here, but step one is owning up to your own mistakes and not blaming others.
  - mlevental 9y ago
    I did know and it was exactly why I warned that customer that a uiwebview wouldn't work and that they needed a button. what I didn't know (because I was not privy to their conversations with their other app provider) was that that button could only open a uiwebview.

mlevental 9y ago

>You have to have a product that works. it was completely outside the scope of my product. we have a mobile webapp that doesn't work in a uiwebview (ios). simple solution: pop out safari from a button. catastrophic failure: conference apps insist on keeping users in app and so those buttons load up the site in a uiwebview. in fact at the last moment (one day before the conference) i figured out a pretty viable solution, slapped it together in 6 hours, made calls to make appropriate changes on site (at the conference), and it should've gone okay. >quantifiable value this is what i think we're missing

numbsafari 9y ago
It’s totally inside the scope of your product to work. You sold someone on your expertise and ability, but hadn’t done enough homework to know that your web app wouldn’t work in one of the most important ways their customers would interact with it? There’s a lot to learn here, but step one is owning up to your own mistakes and not blaming others.
- mlevental 9y ago
  I did know and it was exactly why I warned that customer that a uiwebview wouldn't work and that they needed a button. what I didn't know (because I was not privy to their conversations with their other app provider) was that that button could only open a uiwebview.