After reading 'The Lean Startup' I've decided to start a pet project where I could apply lean ideas in product development.
I'm sure there were tons of posts like this over the years but writing about it helps to consolidate the knowledge and the feedback really helps with the learning.
So please bear with me during this journey and thanks for your patience, time and knowledge shared with me.
Totally agree with that. The only time I would use an app to interact with SO is when I go out on weekend or vacation and I just want to check if someone answer a question I left there or to check if someone reply to an answer/comment I left.
Congratulations on your product. It really sounds awesome.
Since this post on HN got a lot of attention do you have any stats on the number of sign-ups from here?
I really liked the page and you got me hooked with the service.
But initially I missed the point on the search for the hidden images. I searched with the magnifier but I didn't clicked the button so I was there for an entire minute just moving the mouse (congrats on that :)). I think it could be expressed more clearly what the visitor is expected to do.
About the product. Just iPhone? I guess you missed an user there. Another suggestion: being a father of a 3 month baby I miss a service were I can register my baby growing. I take a lot of photos but there is nothing out there (that I know of) that let me easily aggregate those photos into a living album. I just realized Persona could be just that with slight changes. Think about it as a possibility
Excellent feedback, I'll make it a little more clear what visitor is expected to do. On another note though, you not finding the hidden images for at least a minute meant the game worked ;).
We're starting with iphone, but unsure still as to what other platforms we'll expand to. You know, the usual budget problems, hiring more people, etc. To clarify, your problem with a three month old baby is already solved with Persona. Persona focuses on things that are about you that make up who you are and defines your life. Photographs are stored in "slices" of your life which can be named "Growingup" or "proudtobeafather". You can name that part of your life anything you'd like. Within those slices, you would store the photos of your baby so you can visualize he/she growing up day by day.
Welcome to Persona. It's everything you are, in pictures. (sorry, had to throw in our tagline, it just seemed like the perfect time to do it :-)).
Thanks for your reply. Haven't thought about providing documentation about that, just adding an option to do it.
I don't mind to write tutorials on how to export the client's data to competing services...
I think 2 TB is an absolute edge case. Even if you have that amount of data you wouldn't need to share everything.
I love the concept of www.storytree.me. For me the storytelling element is the most compelling factor when choosing the platform to share these type of albums.
That was my gut feeling as well, but I my suspicion is that virtually unlimited storage is turning us into digital pack-rats, either because of fear of losing a file or because we are too lazy to cull the bad photos from the good ones.
By artificially limiting the number of invites, you get a finite number of individuals to work with and get feedback from during your beta.
I'm not sure the referrals program is always the solution you want. You should try to make sure the people who are coming to your site are qualified, otherwise Joe will ask Alice, Bob, and Charlie to join. Those 3 won't stay for any meaningful amount of time (blowing 3 of your slots), and Joe now has upgrades/perks/???. It's more desirable for you to have those 3 users giving you input.
However, there could be a time when you don't want to limit invites, such as when you need user generated content. Then the more beta users you have, the more content you have generated when you go "live".
I would still prefer to have the option to select the timezone. Sometimes I want to attend some workshops that announce the time in one of the US timezones and its always difficult to do the conversion.
I'm sure there were tons of posts like this over the years but writing about it helps to consolidate the knowledge and the feedback really helps with the learning.
So please bear with me during this journey and thanks for your patience, time and knowledge shared with me.