In response to Mashable's note on The Personal Bee.
Pete --
Thanks for the fair observations on our current state of progress with The Personal Bee. By the way I am a regular reader of Mashable and find your writing always insightful and interesting. This case is no exception -- you are right that we are working toward serving a mainstream audience (not the geek audience).
Many Web 2.0 companies are trying to launch with a "bang", throwing exciting features out to the "53,651" in order to get their first 25,000 visitors... Perhaps this is all influenced by Seth Godin's really interesting book Purple Cow in which he argues that companies must have extraordinary products. But I think that the problem with a "bang" is that it is over almost as soon as it begins. There isn't even a long tail...
My approach might better be thought of as a snowball. Yes we launched "so early that it was practically unusable" but by doing so we received an enormous amount of useful feedback on what was most important to people and what would be most important to our business model. Sure, we could have tried to do that behind a fire-walled beta. But a core part of our product value is what we call Social Media and behind a private beta, social connections break down quickly.
Now we are in the second phase of our test process -- the site that you describe (fairly) as "clunky." This version has allowed the snowball to grow in size and speed. We have learned much more about what is important to our users and to our business model. Phase 3 is just around the corner - in early June. And we already have started work on Phase 4.
I would love to talk to you more about why people want to create Bees. Or even why you might want Bee content to appear on Mashable. Please feel free to contact me anytime to talk about what the Bee is and is becoming.
best
Ted Shelton, CEO
The Personal Bee, Inc.
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