14
Vent: My co-founder swore by a no-user-research launch strategy and it backfired hard
Last year my co-founder pushed hard to skip user research before our beta launch for a budgeting app we were building in Toronto. He said just ship it and iterate. I went along with it. We launched in June and got like 10 signups after blowing $500 on ads. Turns out no one wanted the features we prioritized. We spent 2 months redoing everything based on actual feedback from those 10 users and finally got traction. Now I wonder if we wasted more time and money than if we had just talked to people first. Anyone else have a partner who gave bad strategic advice and you had to deal with the fallout?
4 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In4 Comments
kellys7827d ago
Oh man, that stings. I've been down a similar road and it's frustrating watching time and money go down the drain because someone insisted on skipping the basics. The whole "just ship it" thing sounds great until you realize you built a product nobody asked for. That 2 months of rework must have been brutal on your budget and your morale. Good on you for turning it around with those 10 users, though. Hopefully your co-founder learned that user research isn't optional, it's the whole map.
10
sarah81827d ago
That "just ship it and iterate" advice has burned me more times than my morning toast.
5