3 ms·

Ask HN: how do I deal with the barrage of feedback after alpha launch

2 points by kunle 16y ago

just launched a group photosharing site at beta.flicsy.com. . . our demo video is at flicsy.posterous.com/flicsy-demo. Have been getting a ton of user feedback, and now I'm worried about keeping their attention and keeping them engaged while we respond and build out the product. My biggest worry is about those for who the product doesn't yet add immediate value (very specific needs) but who will get a lot of value when we implement those features.

endergen 16y ago
I just released yesterday too and I had a pretty good response. I think that your initial surge is just the beginning. If you've captured emails and twitter follows you have something to work off of. I'm personally back to focusing on building more features and interacting with a limited amount of users. You'll get more surges and users with newly announced features, when being mentioned by media, and when doing presentations at conferences. My release is here: http://emotely.com http://emotely.com: for reference.
minalecs 16y ago
I think you're focused on the wrong set of users. Because of the nature of your product there are so many alternatives that people use.. I would focus on that very specific niche that need these features to try to build a loyal base. I think in general the subset of people that want the pictures at original resolution, is the one you need to focus on.
- kunle 16y ago
  How do you figure out what the right set of users? In my opinion, the niche I fill is that of people who want to share photos privately with specific groups, but that could be anyone. I've honed in on friends and family right now to be beta testers (and classmates) but I just want to make sure that I'm engaging them the right way, so that they can become repeat, engaged users.
  - minalecs 16y ago
    well I'm not as familiar with the space as you, but I've used facebook for example to do exactly what you're proposing. I can share a specific album with other facebook users, which sounds very similar and you can even create a public link for others to view that album. You can even create Photo Album and share them with other people and people can add to them. So I was assuming your user base was that of more professionals that wanted to be able to have everything in its original format. So what are your differentiators, since you are using facebook login only, where you are just redoing facebook functionality.
    - kunle 16y ago
      The idea is to be robust around groups, and to be dead simple. So as a beta, I only use facebook because quite honestly that was the easiest way for me to get the product out fast, and get feedback. The key differentiator between this and facebook (right now) is that the album is shared i.e. multiple people who were in the same place/event, and shared the same experience, also share the same album. Basically perfect anytime several people do something together and want to have access to everyone's photos, to share, to print, to store, whatever. Our mobile app will extend this functionality live to events happening in real time and will be a way for hundreds of people, taking pictures at the same event, to have all their photos (instagram/picplz etc) in the same album - the end value in this is that it becomes an additional discovery mechanism for people with similar interests. It's important that we break away from a facebook login for example, but this is really the crux of my question; my goal is to build something robust that a lot of people can use, and I'm torn between depth and breadth; depth being making it more useful to the people currently on it for now (and focusing on functionality/UI before acquiring users) or building out features more slowly, and focusing on acquiring more users. If we focus on depth, we'll have a better product sooner, but less users for now, which means less feedback to react to, less traction etc. If we focus on breadth, it will mean more users more quickly, but it will take longer to realize the vision.

2 points by kunle 16y ago

endergen 16y ago

I just released yesterday too and I had a pretty good response. I think that your initial surge is just the beginning. If you've captured emails and twitter follows you have something to work off of. I'm personally back to focusing on building more features and interacting with a limited amount of users. You'll get more surges and users with newly announced features, when being mentioned by media, and when doing presentations at conferences. My release is here: http://emotely.com http://emotely.com: for reference.

minalecs 16y ago

I think you're focused on the wrong set of users. Because of the nature of your product there are so many alternatives that people use.. I would focus on that very specific niche that need these features to try to build a loyal base. I think in general the subset of people that want the pictures at original resolution, is the one you need to focus on.

kunle 16y ago
How do you figure out what the right set of users? In my opinion, the niche I fill is that of people who want to share photos privately with specific groups, but that could be anyone. I've honed in on friends and family right now to be beta testers (and classmates) but I just want to make sure that I'm engaging them the right way, so that they can become repeat, engaged users.
- minalecs 16y ago
  well I'm not as familiar with the space as you, but I've used facebook for example to do exactly what you're proposing. I can share a specific album with other facebook users, which sounds very similar and you can even create a public link for others to view that album. You can even create Photo Album and share them with other people and people can add to them. So I was assuming your user base was that of more professionals that wanted to be able to have everything in its original format. So what are your differentiators, since you are using facebook login only, where you are just redoing facebook functionality.
  - kunle 16y ago
    The idea is to be robust around groups, and to be dead simple. So as a beta, I only use facebook because quite honestly that was the easiest way for me to get the product out fast, and get feedback. The key differentiator between this and facebook (right now) is that the album is shared i.e. multiple people who were in the same place/event, and shared the same experience, also share the same album. Basically perfect anytime several people do something together and want to have access to everyone's photos, to share, to print, to store, whatever. Our mobile app will extend this functionality live to events happening in real time and will be a way for hundreds of people, taking pictures at the same event, to have all their photos (instagram/picplz etc) in the same album - the end value in this is that it becomes an additional discovery mechanism for people with similar interests. It's important that we break away from a facebook login for example, but this is really the crux of my question; my goal is to build something robust that a lot of people can use, and I'm torn between depth and breadth; depth being making it more useful to the people currently on it for now (and focusing on functionality/UI before acquiring users) or building out features more slowly, and focusing on acquiring more users. If we focus on depth, we'll have a better product sooner, but less users for now, which means less feedback to react to, less traction etc. If we focus on breadth, it will mean more users more quickly, but it will take longer to realize the vision.