Lessons Learned from a Private Beta Release | Hacker News Reader

Lessons Learned from a Private Beta Release

blog.beeplapp.com

18 pointspiotry10 comments

If you're building a product and your product's blog doesn't provide link directly to that product so I can figure out what your product is.... I automatically assume you don't have enough attention to detail to create a valuable product. Bummer.

I came here to say this. Especially when the name doesn't quite roll off the tongue. Inconvenient, and I didn't bother messing with the URL after clicking the blog's title image (which is just the product name…) and the link in the footer.

I dunno if my bias against direct links extends quite that far, but I definitely do take a product less seriously when I click the 'home' analogue and get taken to the root of their blog and not the app.

It's such a simple thing that people seem to overlook so frequently too.

From a UX perspective, if you click on the logo or the name of the website you're at, would u expect to be redirected to another page, or go to the root of that page?

Look at buffe'rs blog: http://blog.bufferapp.com/ Logo with the name of buffer goes back to the root. They added a "Whats buffer" link to point to the website.

No, I completely agree... but in this case, the link I clicked was separate from the rest of the nav, and titled "BEEPLAPP", which (to me at least) connoted a link to the app, and not the blog's home page.

Buffer's title is equally vague, but I don't have to question it there because there's the giant Hello bar at the top with a link to the app.

Ohh, I see! YOu're 100% right. Will have to put something like hello bar there :) Thx!

Hey guys, Piotr here.

Attention to detail VS. scrappiness / Get Shit Done. At an early stage when you're doing an MVP and validating your product, which would you recommend I go for?

The blog is based on a ghost theme, that I forked and adapted yesterday: https://github.com/BeeplApp/ghostwriter Feel free to fork it. If you're that attentioned to detail, then Beepl will definitely be a challenge for you ;) (And i'm hiring: piotr@beeplapp.com)

The article itself was written in a couple of hours. Nothing badly done there? ;)

Last but not least, as I say in the post, You can't please everyone. Its a bummer for you, but not for the people who flocked to the website. (1110 unique visitors since the post on HN.)

I'm a perfectionist, I wish I could nail everything down. But I have to be realistic. Solo founder, bootstrapper, one man show. Tradeoffs are necessary. And i'd gladly miss a link to my website that can be fixed easily vs making sure my website is live when massive unexpected traffic hits my server.

again, missing link or website down? perfectionisme or scrappiness?

P.S. check the blog now. I made a mistake, you pointed out ( thanks :)) and now its fixed :) Cheers!

Since you implemented all those tools, the next obvious question is: what does the data say? ;)

It made it clear which next feature should be built. I can literally predict now what each new user will ask for ;)

Those tools also taught me that I need to redo the landing-page ;)

Stay tuned as I'll write another post soon :)

Interesting..

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