Jose and I have been hard at work on Project MochaG which, incidentally, is also our first web startup.
“Launch early, iterate quickly” is advice we’re definitely trying to follow. But how is this done effectively? The answer isn’t just about code but setting up a communications process. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been learning quite a bit (understatement!) about what this should look like and we recently had a breakthrough which is now driving some of our early development process. I’m sure none of this is anything new, but it’s a lesson that we’ve had to learn ourselves and we thought it would be valuable to share.
This breakthrough wasn’t so much about the code itself as much as the design requirements generated by the needs of our communications strategy and data collection.
The breakthrough:
At first Jose and I were focused on product requirements, defining a development roadmap, and getting to work. We quickly realized that before we could dive into working on features, we needed to ramp up our data collection as quickly and effectively as possible. In order to do this, we needed users. But at what point do you try and solicit potential users? Is this a chicken and an egg problem? In (at least) our case the answer is a resounding no! That’s what the private alpha/beta process is for! The breakthrough came when we started discussing user experience from the point of view of communications.
This is when I went into marketer/community organizer modes! Given our needs, mailing list software is clearly what was called for. We had very particular requirements however. We wanted to the signup process to be seamless and minimalistic as possible. We also wanted data from sign-up to connect with our back end database. We also wanted to be able to filter our list based on metadata so we could specifically target specific users based on who they are, their behavior, etc. We could very well have built this out ourselves, but that would have taken time away from building our core functionality.
The solution:
I started doing research on mailing list software, and fairly quickly one company came to stand far, far out! Mailchimp! They’ve been around for awhile, but it seems that in the past few years they’ve really developed their product for ease of use, social media integration, and use by large organizations and small startups alike. They also have an api that’s allowing us to completely manage our mailing lists from within our own software, but then use their interface to manage email campaigns. Most importantly, they have a free price level! Honestly, I could go on for a number of blog posts on all the little ways in which Mailchimp is so perfect for what we need. I’m still discovering features here and there that keep on blowing me away! The purpose of this blog post isn’t to talk about how great Mailchimp is, but how it’s helping us launch our project.
When you are creating something new and generating interest for a project with a long roadmap that you’re just getting started on, it’s key to communicate expectations to those who have expressed interest effectively. Great User Experience is part of this equation because minimizing the number of clicks lowers the risk of confusion by users. Mailchimp is helping us rapidly deploy a well developed and proven user experience so that we can focus on our messaging.
What this essentially enables us to do is launch our front page and begin collecting potential users for our private alpha. Through one form we can gather key targeting information, plug it into our database, and begin sending email campaigns to very specific subsets as we need to. Once we begin inviting users to join our service, we’ll be able to collect even more metadata that will make it possible to filter through our mail list even further to provide greater service tailored to the specific needs and behaviors of our users.
Twitter example:
Here’s a cool example of the kinds of tools this setup is enabling to easily build.
Mailchimp features integration with your startups Twitter account. Through the Twitter Api, we will be able to correlate our twitter followers with the users in our personal database. When a new user signs up for our mail list and gives us their Twitter information, our Twitter account will be able to autofollow them, and through Mailchimp we will be able to specifically email users based on whether they follow us on twitter or not. By correlating our mailing list with our Twitter followers, we’ll be able to manage both means of communication more effectively ant tailor our messaging based on who is paying attention to us and where they are doing it from.
We’re kinda excited about this actually. :)
Takeaway:
By setting up an advanced mail list management system we are launching our primary line of communication near the beginning of our development process. This is the key because rather than build our service in a vacuum and see if it sticks after we launch, setting this up off the bat will allow us to iterate rapidly through the positive feedback loop opening up dialogue with the community we seek to serve enables.
