
Instabug, the YC startup out of Cairo, is out of beta to squash mobile bugs - okgabr
http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/02/instabug-the-yc-startup-out-of-cairo-is-out-of-beta-to-squash-mobile-bugs/
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gregdoesit
I've been an Instabug user for a couple of months - and while the product is
alright, the company has some bug squashing to do themselves.

First off, the company coming out of beta meant that from v2.0 they updated
the site to v3.0 overnight. Yes, this meant a massive facelift, new features -
and of course breaking some existing functionality. Given the scale of the
change you would think the first people to tell this to are their paying
customers.

Not so fast - the company simply forgot to us that about this massive change.
The change included removing custom statuses that we built our issue tracking
workflow around. The only way to find out about the changes was... by logging
into our account, and realizing that almost everything has changed. Instabug
made sure to let Techcrunch know of massive update, but their paying
customers? They completely forgot about us, and we were scrambling to
understand what has happened.

Second, Instabug doesn't offer an API to record bugs, and their SDK is closed
source and sparsely documented. It also has a bunch of unnecessary things, and
they are very protective about any customer wanting to know more information
on why they bundle certain things. Even getting them to disclose how to turn
off automatic crash reporting - in favor for another app - was a difficult
task.

I am happy to see they are gaining traction. However I would rather the
company change mentality from moving fast and breaking things to being
transparent with customers and moving fast like that. Also, to the credit of
cofounder Moataz Soliman he still answers almost all support requests himself.

~~~
okgabr
Instabug's other cofounder here.

Wow, that does sound frustrating and I'm sorry we let you down. I thought we
did enough to communicate those changes, but obviously that wasn't the case.
This is a learning experience for us and we'll definitely do better next time.
But let me explain the things we did do, because I'm not sure yet how the
information didn't reach you.

We've been reacting very quickly (as fast as we could) to this. And we've even
applied some of the changes that you've asked for on the same launch day. And
this is the way we treat our users in general. We do our best to react fast
their requests.

We've made sure to document all the changes (even the statuses) in our blog
post. We've sent it to all our users and placed it inside the dashboard to
make sure everyone knows what changed and why it changed. What do you think
would have been a better way to notify you?

Also, we didn't mean to be protective! On the contrary, we'd love to get your
feedback. What would you like to know?

We got the crash reporting disable question more than once and we've added it
to our SDK FAQs a few months ago
([https://instabug.com/developers](https://instabug.com/developers)).

Anyways, we're truly sorry to disappoint you. And I'd be more than happy to
explore a solution for the statuses changes issue, and also let me know if
there's anything else we can do to make it up to you.

~~~
omaranto
How far in advance do you believe you notified your users?

~~~
okgabr
The main change in v3.0 was that we moved the custom statuses into tags. We
thought that would be a good idea to automate the workflow and make use of the
tags given it's agility. We did the migration but we didn't think it'll break
anyone's workflow. That's why we didn't think that we should notify anyone
before launching, and that was our mistake. We explained the logic behind the
change after we launched but we should have done that before we launched.

~~~
niij
To;dr: they didn't.

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cheez
17 engineers and they've raised $300K? Perhaps they're already cashflow
positive and are just getting the mechanics in place.

~~~
okgabr
Actually yes, we're cashflow positive. But we don't really call ourselves
mechanics, we prefer the word "pharaohs". Would love to hear your feedback
once you try the product that the pharaohs have built!

~~~
ignoramous
He meant the "business machine" is well-oiled...

Honest q: Have you surveyed your competitors? HelpShift seems to be a pretty
solid offering.

Also, alf mabrook!

~~~
okgabr
Helpshift is doing a good job indeed. What differentiate us is that we offer
one SDK and one dashboard to view bugs, feedback and crashes, and act
accordingly on each one (i.e., assign bugs and crashes or forward them to a
bug tracker, and reply to feedback). Plus Instabug captures far more details
(screenshot, device details and user steps) to help developers trace bugs
faster. I'd really love to hear your feedback once you try v3.0

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ulfw
Congratulations guys. Been using Instabug for a couple of months out in
production now and really like the product!

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danielha
Congrats Instabug!

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ukd1
Congrats!

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nickporter
Congrats guys!!

