Reflections on startup life: Week 74

We’ve finally moved the new release into user testing. What a relief. The mood has instantly picked up and we are steaming ahead. On the down side, some of the initial feedback hasn’t been as enthusiastic as we’d hoped, which I think is really confirmation that releasing early and often is the way to go. The sooner we get that input the sooner we can adjust and fix it.

There’s lots to go, but it feels like the log jam of the last month is starting to clear and we are picking up pace again.

Highlights

• Several networking events last week — it’s great to get out and talk with people and learn about Trunk.ly from them. It’s also useful to have to describe it, meeting someone and describing what Trunk.ly is and where it’s going pushes ahead the vision far faster than repeating it to yourself 50 times in the mirror.
• New release moved to user testing.
• Met with a possible intern who is undertaking our “programming challenge” at the moment.
• Met with a product manager who wants to share her expertise with us — I’m really excited about this, I love getting outside eyes onto our vision and process. Always happy to learn more.

Lessons Learnt

• Relearning the value of persevering.
• Sometimes you need a break — our mood was down last week undoubtedly. We feel a lot more positive this week. What changed — not much, we took a proper two days off.

Goal this week

• Expand the user testing, tweak the site in response to feedback, complete the Twitter sign up process for Trunk.ly.