When Rich presented Kindling to about 700 people at the NY Tech Meet-up on Monday evening, we had a group of about 10 Arc-ers representing a cheering section. Seeing our app on the big screen (aside several other talented technologists’ work) was as exciting and nerve-wracking as one might expect. Perhaps the best thing about these opportunities is the ability to tell audiences directly about our product, to show the features we think are useful and important. After the presentation we hung around the lobby where we chatted about Kindling with other members of the Meet-up crowd. Honestly, these are some of my favorite moments along the journey of marketing a product. The verbiage we carefully craft, the perfect icons that we carefully design, the interactions that we develop: they are all tucked away along with the workday. Finally, it’s the time for storytelling.
I get such a kick out of telling the story of Kindling to someone in person.
Maybe what I like the most is the luxury of sharing some of the ideas that Arc has adopted from our own instance and the freedom to talk about those that we’ve flat-out rejected. “Here’s why it’s useful for us,” I can say. “Here’s why we made it like this and not like that.” The conversation, the back-and-forth: it’s a welcome moment of connection with the people I spend my days thinking about and for.
It’s not like I never have the chance to speak with Kindling customers. In fact, a large part of my job is answering emails and speaking with potential customers on the phone. But there’s something to be said for face-to-face interaction, particularly one that’s as open-ended as networking.
This process of sharing stories and gathering feedback, however, also happens to reside near a slippery slope. One of the most difficult aspects of working with a product like Kindling is maintaining a balance between two extremes: what do YOU want for your product and what does THE MARKET want for your product? Are we shaping the market or living within it? And how is the strategy affected when others apply their own labels and qualifications?
I doubt anyone can escape a healthy dose of both perspectives, but as the Client Relations guru for Kindling, I particularly find myself square in the crossroads. On the one hand, I’m the person on the phone with the users, answering questions about Central Authentication, storytelling in the lobby outside the auditorium at F.I.T. On the other hand, I’m aware of the various business and developmental road maps we’ve planned and our need to capitalize on clear direction.
In truth, none of these questions are particularly shocking for a company exploring product development. Building and marketing a product is a lot like forming a personality; some people and experiences form you along the way, despite the fact that you have natural tendencies at the core. Staying flexible enough to respond to things we don’t yet know about seems to be a requirement for our process. In a recent meeting, Rich lobbied for keeping the next release minimalist.
“We don’t know enough about this feature yet,” he said. “Let’s let them tell us what else they need because we won’t be able to nail it on our own.”
He was right. And so we inch along, making instinctual guesses but also relying on a variety of sources to show us how Kindling acts and reacts in the Real World. We’ll present Kindling again at the Web2NY Meetup in April and hopefully have some more storytelling opportunities. In the meantime, stop me on the street, at the grocery store, on the subway. HAVE I GOT A STORY FOR YOU…
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