What’s new at the technology zoo?
My brother-in-law, Don, is a project manager for an app development company in Chicago. Whenever we get together for family gatherings, everyone loves hearing about the new technologies the company is working on.
One night over dinner, I asked how things were progressing with an app that had launched a few months prior. Don explained that things aren’t going well. The app’s designers are refusing to make suggested changes that would help both its usability and marketability.
When you assume…
“People just assume that once their app hits the market, it’ll be a success,” he said. “Everyone thinks that their idea will turn out to be the next Facebook because they have these grand plans in their head.”
Recurring trend
Most of us know that this isn’t the case. I asked him what behaviors he notices in developers that could ultimately lead to their app’s demise.
His explanation was simple. People walk into his office with grand ideas that only exist in their mind, and they often neglect to think about how it translates to the marketplace. And, once you get something in your mind, it’s easy to be combative about changing your ideas.
Stepping stones
“We live in a world with well-done apps like Facebook and Instagram, and people want their ideas to be like that,” he opined. What they forget, he noted, is that “Instagram started out simple, and now it’s evolved.”
He went on to explain that people want to build what Instagram is today, not what Instagram was in 2011. And, because of this, they have trouble scaling back on their ideas.
Tread lightly
He urges anyone with an idea to start out as simple as possible, test it, and go from there. When you’re launching a technology to the world, you want to get it out there quickly and have it fail quickly.
That way, you can see what went wrong and figure out how to tweak it sooner. This is much better than pouring energy and money into an idea for months upon months, only to still have it fail.
His advice can apply to any idea we have in life. It’s almost impossible to be a great success at your first attempt of anything, so it’s best to start off slow and learn through trial and error.
