Best. Crash Report. Ever. (at Cluster HQ)
Don't Launch Your Product
I think there are ways to do a launch correctly, but overall I agree that organic growth is far far far better than a buzzy launch.
Having been through multiple launches, seen companies launch at big conferences, and talked with many startups that have experienced the same effect, what I recommend – and what we’re doing at Origami - is not launching at all. Take the word launch out of your vocabulary – it’s a sign that you are gambling on your app and not building a long-term, sustainable company. Instead, put your sign-up page up or your app out because you need more feedback on your idea. Find an audience of passionate users, even if small, and reach out to their community through appropriate means. Try SEM and Facebook ads to find a target market. Experiment with business models and onboarding flows. Let the press come to you because they love what you’ve made.
Cluster: Comments are here with an updated design!
Today we’re releasing Cluster 0.11.0 into the app store! (We’re still chugging away in public beta, but we will have the full 1.0 launch soon. Still more to do!)
The release today has four major parts:
Comments on Photos!
People have been asking for comments since the first time we started…
First version I’ve gotten to work on, and it’s been awesome.
URLs are for People, not Computers
Most people don’t understand what a URL is, and don’t care; the war is already lost.
This Hacker News post (comments here) says that we should make URLs more understandable to regular people, and that putting in garbage into the url makes people less likely to click on them.
You and me are different, because we live in the tech world. But to the vast majority of people, the url is just visual cruft that they ignore. We cannot simply teach them how URLs work because, well, it’s just not worth it to learn to manipulate them.
Don't Try: My Father's Horniness
My father, Dave Robert Shepard Sr., died on either December 30th or December 31st, depending on what time zone you were in. I received the call on the 30th at 11:30PM in Los Angeles, but the caller, positioned in Detroit, was two hours deep into the 31st. He was dead at 62 years old. Small cell…
Soundslice: Where was this in my life a few years ago??
This blew my mind after Taylor linked me to it. My head is reeling right now. As someone who has hunted through the awful guitar tab websites to find good music to learn from, Soundslice immediately makes all guitar tab websites seem, well, from the 90’s.
I just experienced a forehead-slapping moment which has made me realize how crappy we’ve had it, and how THIS. CHANGES. EVERYTHING!
Adrian, if you ever want to work on an iPad version, hit me up. I love this.
The product gestalt defines the soul of the user experience. It’s the combination of UX and functionality that makes the product fundamentally wonderful.
I was way too excited seeing this.
Page 1 of 18
I write code and I like beautiful things.
