Hi there, autumn is often a time for many amazing sunsets which make me smile.
PERSONAS
In the world of startups, or even side-projects, we all have to wear multiple hats.
We need to try a multitude of roles, and communicate what we doing across multiple channels, with an experimental mindset. Twitter. YouTube. Subkits, and Substacks!
We need different calls to actions, tones and topics. Different experiments to understand what gets engagement. Gather the data and the metrics. And try to understand who your customer is…
It’s likely that they are more than one type. Once you can describe their role, activity & demographics, you can visualise their persona, and target them easier.
Visit: Hubspot Persona Tool
FEEDBACK
We like this, and please do reply to this email with more.
“The home page could be a bit more visual.”
Agreed. We would love to incorporate a richer design. But first we are reducing the risk by concentrating on our USP; running the smoke test automatically.
“The web page is quite slow.”
Agreed. The goal is to get five paying customers. Then move up to the quicker paid tier on heroku. It takes a few seconds to start in the meantime. We have our first paying customer & we’re happy about that.
“I read through the newsletter and I’m definitely a fan. … Keep on sending my weekly e-mail newsletters like this.”
Thank you :) How does this one look like on your phone?
HELP THIS WEEK
Time for more customers. If you can spare time for a retweet, or introduce your friends that would be great.
We want to help them by writing a smoke test for them. They can use it themselves, or with DidWeBreakIt.com
OUR STARTUP OF THE WEEK
The gorgeous Clocklet, developed out of Manchester by Sam.
They’re a hardware startup. Not a target customer of a web-based smoke test service, but we just love what they’re making. A beautiful way of visualising and animating the time, and weather.
Visit: clocklet.co.uk
PROGRESS
We’re moving forward and have mostly been remote pair-programming this last week. There’s been some hurdles on key aspects of our core technology, and I’m really happy to say that both me & Anna have jumped over them. We’re now in the progress of chaining them together, to make this as seamless and easy as possible for users. We’re getting close to our MVP.
SOME FUN
Ampelmann (Ampelmännchen); it maybe Potsdammer Platz that had the first traffic lights in Germany - or Europe? But it’s the Ampleman that is most well known. With it’s hug like STOP, and joyfully casual GO, it took over as the default light across Berlin, and keept some of the DDR alive after reunification.
We don’t want to scare folks when their site is broken. We want to send a hug. A little like the spirit of the Ampelmann.
Visit: Ampelmann on Wikipedia
NEXT UPDATE: 19th November! How to write a simple smoke test, easily.
Thanks for the retweets and follows recently on twitter. We are grateful for all further introductions. Who else should we be chatting to over a coffee / zoom?
Thanks for reading,
Ian & Anna.
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DidWeBreakIt
http://DidWeBreakIt.com - "Easily, and quickly, know when you've broke the internet"