Upvote for the post-mortem, and great happiness and congratulations for “did a thing”!
I think the “write a business plan already” is absolutely key here. And really, you often only need a business sketch, not a plan. What customers/developers have this need to connect, and why is this method any better than the hundreds of other community and discussion sites that exist?
What IS success for this? Number of surveys taken? Number of initial messages sent? Actual calls made? Long-term friendships formed that still stay in contact after 10 years? It’s easy to tell if it’s not successful if you don’t get many page views or initial uses. It’s not easy to tell if part of it is successful and needs expansion, or if it just doesn’t have as big an audience as you think,.
Some people are really averse to talking to strangers on the internet. Other people are very eager to do so. Most are somewhere in between. But since there are so many developers out there, I only need that light blue group
That light blue group may be a VERY thin tail. I think “chatting with strangers over the internet” is probably NOT attractive to the vast majority of people, and software developers even less likely to want that. You also have the problem that this thing is poisoned by a few bad actors, and that happens SO frequently in other domains that it’s a fair assumption that if I give any contact information to a stranger, I’ll regret it.
I may be wrong, and there’s a significant market for this. But I’d expect you have to solve the problem of initial anonymous/blockable contact and reputation before your target market will even try it.
great happiness and congratulations for “did a thing”!
Thank you!
I think the “write a business plan already” is absolutely key here. And really, you often only need a business sketch, not a plan.
Yeah, I agree. As my thoughts settle after this experience, that’s the main thing that keeps swimming around in the back of my mind. And that’s so true about only needing a sketch, not a plan.
Btw, it’s good to get this data point of someone really liking the “write a business plan already” idea. The post didn’t receive many upvotes, which surprised me and makes me question whether there is something unwise about it. I guess what I’m saying is that I notice some confusion, and so data points here are helpful to me.
What customers/developers have this need to connect, and why is this method any better than the hundreds of other community and discussion sites that exist?
Well, there are places to chat with people, but a) it’s usually centered around some topic. Like if you join a Discord group for a particular programming language, the types of conversations that are expected are different from the types of conversations you’d have if you sat down to get coffee with someone. I’m not actually sure where you would go if you were looking for the latter type of conversation. Anything come to mind for you?
b) I think having those types of coffee shop conversations via text is different from having them via video chat (which is different from having them via email, which is different from having them in person). Perhaps the differences aren’t very large, and there is a substitute good sort of thing going on. OTOH, perhaps not. I don’t feel particularly confident that text is sufficient for the large majority of people, and they wouldn’t be excited about video chat.
What IS success for this?
I think success is utilons generated. If you have fun filling out the survey and then decide not to follow through and actually do the video call, that generates a pretty small amount of utilons. If you have one call and it is ok, then that generates some utilons. If you make a long term friend, that generates a ton of utilons.
I agree that it is hard to tell these things though. I was thinking that you can ballpark it and assume that something like 50% of the matches end up having a video call, and 1% of those end up being friends. And that if the app actually did get a lot of users, I could email them asking them to report on their experiences. Definitely not perfect, but a) I don’t see better alternatives, and b) it doesn’t seem imperfect enough to make this idea a non-starter.
That light blue group may be a VERY thin tail. I think “chatting with strangers over the internet” is probably NOT attractive to the vast majority of people, and software developers even less likely to want that.
Yeah, the more I think about it the more I think you might be right about that.
You also have the problem that this thing is poisoned by a few bad actors, and that happens SO frequently in other domains that it’s a fair assumption that if I give any contact information to a stranger, I’ll regret it.
Ah, that’s a good point. Well, what exactly did you have in mind? The app feels extremely side-project-y, so I wouldn’t expect people to be worried about data harvesting. But now I’m thinking about stuff like chat roulette and how there is such a high proportion of weirdos there. Seems like moderately strong evidence that it’d be an issue for Connect Developers too.
I’m not actually sure where you would go if you were looking for the latter type of conversation. Anything come to mind for you?
Nope, but then I’m not looking for this, and I can’t quite identify WHY someone would look for this (with no geographic or in-person possibilities).
I was thinking that you can ballpark it and assume that something like 50% of the matches end up having a video call, and 1% of those end up being friends
This is the principal thing in an early-stage business plan / sketch. Write down your assumptions and unknowns, and figure out how to validate your beliefs. For most of these kinds of ideas, you should be optimizing for 5-10 attempts, and getting as much information from each. “Fail fast” is how this is often stated, but that’s not complete. “Fail legibly” would be better advice. Generate hypotheses about why people aren’t loving it, and find ways to test those ideas.
The app feels extremely side-project-y, so I wouldn’t expect people to be worried about data harvesting.
You don’t just need to assert that you’re not misusing data, you need to overcome the expectations that have been set by all the crappy chat/discussion/etc. sites in the world.
My prior is pretty high that SOMEONE is harvesting any data I give out. Whether it’s you, or the stalkers who’ve created an account and filled out every possible profile on your survey, or just the fact that I don’t like most people, and people is who your site attracts, I would only try it with burner info. And most people won’t bother with that.
Upvote for the post-mortem, and great happiness and congratulations for “did a thing”!
I think the “write a business plan already” is absolutely key here. And really, you often only need a business sketch, not a plan. What customers/developers have this need to connect, and why is this method any better than the hundreds of other community and discussion sites that exist?
What IS success for this? Number of surveys taken? Number of initial messages sent? Actual calls made? Long-term friendships formed that still stay in contact after 10 years? It’s easy to tell if it’s not successful if you don’t get many page views or initial uses. It’s not easy to tell if part of it is successful and needs expansion, or if it just doesn’t have as big an audience as you think,.
That light blue group may be a VERY thin tail. I think “chatting with strangers over the internet” is probably NOT attractive to the vast majority of people, and software developers even less likely to want that. You also have the problem that this thing is poisoned by a few bad actors, and that happens SO frequently in other domains that it’s a fair assumption that if I give any contact information to a stranger, I’ll regret it.
I may be wrong, and there’s a significant market for this. But I’d expect you have to solve the problem of initial anonymous/blockable contact and reputation before your target market will even try it.
Thank you!
Yeah, I agree. As my thoughts settle after this experience, that’s the main thing that keeps swimming around in the back of my mind. And that’s so true about only needing a sketch, not a plan.
Btw, it’s good to get this data point of someone really liking the “write a business plan already” idea. The post didn’t receive many upvotes, which surprised me and makes me question whether there is something unwise about it. I guess what I’m saying is that I notice some confusion, and so data points here are helpful to me.
Well, there are places to chat with people, but a) it’s usually centered around some topic. Like if you join a Discord group for a particular programming language, the types of conversations that are expected are different from the types of conversations you’d have if you sat down to get coffee with someone. I’m not actually sure where you would go if you were looking for the latter type of conversation. Anything come to mind for you?
b) I think having those types of coffee shop conversations via text is different from having them via video chat (which is different from having them via email, which is different from having them in person). Perhaps the differences aren’t very large, and there is a substitute good sort of thing going on. OTOH, perhaps not. I don’t feel particularly confident that text is sufficient for the large majority of people, and they wouldn’t be excited about video chat.
I think success is utilons generated. If you have fun filling out the survey and then decide not to follow through and actually do the video call, that generates a pretty small amount of utilons. If you have one call and it is ok, then that generates some utilons. If you make a long term friend, that generates a ton of utilons.
I agree that it is hard to tell these things though. I was thinking that you can ballpark it and assume that something like 50% of the matches end up having a video call, and 1% of those end up being friends. And that if the app actually did get a lot of users, I could email them asking them to report on their experiences. Definitely not perfect, but a) I don’t see better alternatives, and b) it doesn’t seem imperfect enough to make this idea a non-starter.
Yeah, the more I think about it the more I think you might be right about that.
Ah, that’s a good point. Well, what exactly did you have in mind? The app feels extremely side-project-y, so I wouldn’t expect people to be worried about data harvesting. But now I’m thinking about stuff like chat roulette and how there is such a high proportion of weirdos there. Seems like moderately strong evidence that it’d be an issue for Connect Developers too.
Nope, but then I’m not looking for this, and I can’t quite identify WHY someone would look for this (with no geographic or in-person possibilities).
This is the principal thing in an early-stage business plan / sketch. Write down your assumptions and unknowns, and figure out how to validate your beliefs. For most of these kinds of ideas, you should be optimizing for 5-10 attempts, and getting as much information from each. “Fail fast” is how this is often stated, but that’s not complete. “Fail legibly” would be better advice. Generate hypotheses about why people aren’t loving it, and find ways to test those ideas.
You don’t just need to assert that you’re not misusing data, you need to overcome the expectations that have been set by all the crappy chat/discussion/etc. sites in the world.
My prior is pretty high that SOMEONE is harvesting any data I give out. Whether it’s you, or the stalkers who’ve created an account and filled out every possible profile on your survey, or just the fact that I don’t like most people, and people is who your site attracts, I would only try it with burner info. And most people won’t bother with that.