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There's a few things involved, and they're not all BS! You want to build a couple new features. You have 60 person-hours at your disposal. Which one do your us

There's a few things involved, and they're not all BS! You want to build a couple new features. You have 60 person-hours at your disposal. Which one do your users want? Build two quick prototypes and see which one people actually use more. You need to convince people to give you money (aka "get customers"). You're not sure what the best way to convince them is. Try 3 different approaches (Landing page with tech details? Youtube ads with customer stories? etc) and see which one works before you spend all of your budget on something nobody uses. Out of a thousand people walking down the street, only one _might_ be interested in what you do. How do you make sure you focus your efforts on that one person? Or "we have a million f2p video game players. 99% of them will never spend a dime. 0.1% of them will buy a $100 package once. 0.01% of them will buy a $9.99 package three thousand times. When should we present this package to them? Will we sell more $100 packages if we ALSO have a $200 package? Will we sell more $100 packages to Jane Doe who takes the bus to college at 8:45 AM and plays for 34 minutes 5 days a week?" (obviously that one gets a bit more troublesome) The above comes with some severe implications re: privacy, filter bubbles, etc. but it's not there for no reason. Though there's plenty of people who just want pretty charts for their own sake; having worked in analytics the toughest question is "we have these charts.. umm... so what now?"

lazyjones 8y ago
So which parts of your example does Qualtrics provide/solve? Probably not the prototypes. Once I have these, logging/counting usage is simple. The decision is made with a one-page Excel sheet with the raw numbers. Where does Qualtrics come in? Perhaps it has similar data from competitors, so my decision making process does not require as much field-testing but then I'd have to worry about my findings being used to improve competitor's products as well?
- Novashi 8y ago
  This is a hot take, but Qualtrics seems like one step lower than a full-blown CMS that collects the same data but doesn't manage web pages or content (this includes automated management and 'personalization' based on statistics you collect), e.g. Sitecore or Adobe Experience Manager, two big, leading CMS products.
- CalRobert 8y ago
  Oh, I was addressing the more general question about the field of stats, dashboards, etc.. "Once I have these, logging/counting usage is simple. The decision is made with a one-page Excel sheet with the raw numbers." I think a lot of people would get the data in to excel and not know what to do next. Also, implementing tracking of views, clicks, etc. is non-trivial for a lot of people. Or just a hassle.
  - lazyjones 8y ago
    > I think a lot of people would get the data in to excel and not know what to do next. Also, implementing tracking of views, clicks, etc. is non-trivial for a lot of people. Or just a hassle. Really? In "enterprise" class companies? Managers who can't use Excel like this should be (and probably are) fired quickly and for tracking there are plenty of solutions any junior web developer can implement and report on.
    - lucaspm98 8y ago
      I interpreted what was said as saying Qualtrics provides a solution that has more flexibility and functionality than Excel. Excel's limitations are much more apparent in "enterprise" class companies.
    - CalRobert 8y ago
      Yeah, but those people can also do other things that are more important, and pay a company like qualtrics to handle this boring stuff for them.
    - IanCal 8y ago
      > Managers who can't use Excel like this should be (and probably are) fired quickly For not spending their time dealing with random excel files being thrown around full of raw figures? It's a common way businesses work but it's an absolute nightmare. Dashboards mean a bunch of things, one is that people are all seeing the same figures. Another is that people aren't reimplementing the same analysis code (where you can easily get errors, because it's not necessarily going to be obvious how to do the stats on the results). And a very obvious one is the time it takes. Give me an excel file full of raw numbers and sure, I can pull something together. I can even do it quickly. But I'll bet a boatload of cash I can't do it faster than I can open a link. I could get another dev to spend the time doing it, but without knowing how much Qualtrics charges it's easy to view this as simply being cheaper.
rhizome 8y ago
>0.1% of them will buy a $100 package once. 0.01% of them will buy a $9.99 package three thousand times. The first group is worth $1MM, the second $3MM. I think it's likely you'd be able to afford to create both packages, regardless of what time any of your players take the bus.
- CalRobert 8y ago
  The point is to figure out how to offer the right package to the right people (I was responding to a question asking about targeting and segmentation) to maximize profits. It's not a question of affording to create them. Mind you I'm not endorsing this approach. But it does make a lot of money.

lazyjones 8y ago

So which parts of your example does Qualtrics provide/solve? Probably not the prototypes. Once I have these, logging/counting usage is simple. The decision is made with a one-page Excel sheet with the raw numbers. Where does Qualtrics come in? Perhaps it has similar data from competitors, so my decision making process does not require as much field-testing but then I'd have to worry about my findings being used to improve competitor's products as well?

Novashi 8y ago
This is a hot take, but Qualtrics seems like one step lower than a full-blown CMS that collects the same data but doesn't manage web pages or content (this includes automated management and 'personalization' based on statistics you collect), e.g. Sitecore or Adobe Experience Manager, two big, leading CMS products.
CalRobert 8y ago
Oh, I was addressing the more general question about the field of stats, dashboards, etc.. "Once I have these, logging/counting usage is simple. The decision is made with a one-page Excel sheet with the raw numbers." I think a lot of people would get the data in to excel and not know what to do next. Also, implementing tracking of views, clicks, etc. is non-trivial for a lot of people. Or just a hassle.
- lazyjones 8y ago
  > I think a lot of people would get the data in to excel and not know what to do next. Also, implementing tracking of views, clicks, etc. is non-trivial for a lot of people. Or just a hassle. Really? In "enterprise" class companies? Managers who can't use Excel like this should be (and probably are) fired quickly and for tracking there are plenty of solutions any junior web developer can implement and report on.
  - lucaspm98 8y ago
    I interpreted what was said as saying Qualtrics provides a solution that has more flexibility and functionality than Excel. Excel's limitations are much more apparent in "enterprise" class companies.
  - CalRobert 8y ago
    Yeah, but those people can also do other things that are more important, and pay a company like qualtrics to handle this boring stuff for them.
  - IanCal 8y ago
    > Managers who can't use Excel like this should be (and probably are) fired quickly For not spending their time dealing with random excel files being thrown around full of raw figures? It's a common way businesses work but it's an absolute nightmare. Dashboards mean a bunch of things, one is that people are all seeing the same figures. Another is that people aren't reimplementing the same analysis code (where you can easily get errors, because it's not necessarily going to be obvious how to do the stats on the results). And a very obvious one is the time it takes. Give me an excel file full of raw numbers and sure, I can pull something together. I can even do it quickly. But I'll bet a boatload of cash I can't do it faster than I can open a link. I could get another dev to spend the time doing it, but without knowing how much Qualtrics charges it's easy to view this as simply being cheaper.

rhizome 8y ago

>0.1% of them will buy a $100 package once. 0.01% of them will buy a $9.99 package three thousand times. The first group is worth $1MM, the second $3MM. I think it's likely you'd be able to afford to create both packages, regardless of what time any of your players take the bus.

CalRobert 8y ago
The point is to figure out how to offer the right package to the right people (I was responding to a question asking about targeting and segmentation) to maximize profits. It's not a question of affording to create them. Mind you I'm not endorsing this approach. But it does make a lot of money.