We recently took the alpha version, just as soon as we thought it had passed our testing, to a bunch of users, real ones, the ones who we're building this for. First off, as an early stage startup, we don't have the luxury of dedicated testers. All team members, full-time, part-time, hey-I-just-like-you-guys-and-I'll-help, all pitch in to 'check' it out. We don't have a plan for our testing yet - just a schedule. So we knew when we took it to the users that they'd be seeing it quirks and all, but we thought it would be worth it, as they'd be doing a real test and, most importantly, we'd find out very quickly if this product had value.
It was the most fun I've had in a long time. Of course there were the minor stumbles and mis-reads and consequently lots of input on what should be fixed/improved. But, the users seemed to genuinely enjoy testing the product and we had to ask them to stop and talk to us about their experiences instead. It is a huge rush to create something and find that people like it and think it useful. Of course, there was the predictable dour voice of prudence in the background cautioning us to not read too much into this as it was only a small sample set after all, but one has to live in the moment. This is one of the great highs of entrepreneurship, and it was worth wallowing in - at least for a little while, as there are all those fixes to take care of before doing it all over again.
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