Public beta and starting the MVP process

This is part of a series about my side project Bashfully, which aims to give graduates and other new entrants to careers a seasoned professional level way of expressing themselves through the super power of story telling. Following the core principles of being discoverable, personalised and guiding in approach.
So deciding to "go live" shouldn't be a difficult decision ... in fact getting people interested enough to use an early stage project is hard enough!

 This is the latest instalment talking about going through the MVP process with Bashfully - my side project that hosts online profiles.

 Once we did though we got to see some real behaviour. So far this has lead to us:

  1. Cutting two stages from the on-boarding process
  2. Improving the layout and language in on-boarding
  3. Adding a page describing the profiles in Bashfully
  4. Made the "Call to actions" more prominent on the home page
  5. Prioritised some mobile layout fixes after seeing higher than expected mobile usage
Using FullStory has been invaluable here. Being able to play back and share session, to see what people actually do across all users was so helpful. With our initial batch of beta testers (thanks Shaun, Chris and Ed!) we were able to ask what was going on, then check the video. We could then look for the same behaviour in the all the visitors.

Having tweaked and tested with real life testers, we then started sharing to a wider audience. First a mail campaign to the people who had pre-registered. Next creating a profile on BetaList to get a wider range of testers. This has a month's waiting list. So, to generate more interest we have tried a limited Twitter ad campaign.

We have also got into a rhythm of smaller updates to improve the functionality and usefulness of the site. Two big features we are looking at for the next stage, based on feedback are:
  1. GitHub integration
  2. Tailoring profiles and sharing specific versions of them
The first one really fits in with our vision to tell a story and link experiences in one place. With Open Source Software, developer and designers experience is a lot more transparent. We can tap into that, and use authentication from GitHub so we aren't adding to the number of passwords people have to remember!

The second was a requested feature before we even launched the beta. It makes sense, and is one of LinkedIn's weaknesses. We are really giving people the control of their story and how they share it. The ability to remove experiences that aren't as relevant and highlight those that are.

Further reading

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CONFERENCE: TTI Summer Forum 2017 – Getting to Grips with GDPR

Image
T his week I was at the Travel Technology Initiative's Summer Forum . The subject was the new EU (and UK!) data protection laws. These are due to come into force in May 2018. It's a large topic where the individual member state's laws and guidance are evolving. There were three main points that I picked up from the presentations. First from Dai Davis , GDPR expert at Percy Crow Davis & Co. His lively presentation talked about how a large part of the change is in how rights communicated. Before this was by "fairness" through registration of usage with a central body. The shift is to transparency by informing individuals directly. This means that the consumer mindset could then shift to match how legislation is framed. For example, with the repetition of many companies holding personally identifiable information now having to inform what they are collecting and how they are processing it. Currently, awareness isn't high and the compensation not high eno
Read more

On HBX and online education

Image
I have written this blog post as a reflection on what has occupied me a lot in the past 3 months. After finishing my Post graduate Certificate in Technol ogy Manage ment with the O pen U niversity I was looking at what to do next in continuing my education - being a life long learner! I was looking at different online plat forms for interesting courses.  I was looking at sites like Coursera and  Future Learn , when I came across a new extension to Harvard Business School and a course they run called HBX CORe. This one paragraph pitch they provide sums it up pretty well: HBX CORe (Credential of Readiness) is a 120-150 hour certificate program on the fundamentals of business from Harvard Business School. CORe is comprised of three courses - Business Analytics, Economics for Managers, and Financial Accounting – developed by leading Harvard Business School faculty and delivered in an active learning environment based on the HBS signature case-based learning model. Sinc
Read more

On performance and environment

Image
Hobbies are a great way to relax and unwind from work. They are also an excellent opportunity to practice some skills and learn about yourself.  Photography shows a clear visual representation of how practice with tools can improve output . Running I have found has taught me a couple of lessons about performance and motivation. Here are my top four Goals are important   An arbitrary goal, doesn't fit in any plan but I feel good Yes, even arbitrary goals . As long as they have a narrative that you can use as a guide. They provide a sense of progress and small achievements to celebrate.  For example as an individual runner, it makes no real difference to my life running 10km just under an hour. Or a bit faster at 51 minutes. But the difference in the sense of pride and achievement in my progress was real.  Your environment matters Periodically I pause from running then have to restart. Sometimes this also involved a house move and I need to find a new route. On one of
Read more