No, we run a Discord and I am a user so I talk to them and get feedback like I would with friends and they are pretty open about bug reports, feature requests, etc. :)
Ask HN: Do you find it challenging to talk to your users?
31–40 of 93 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you find it challenging to talk to your users?
#32Getting feedback is tough. It’s why bigger companies will even pay you to give them feedback.
My method has always been to be offer a few companies/users a free account. Assuming your product is something they really need, a free account in exchange for feedback is a win win for both sides.
Re: Ask HN: Do you find it challenging to talk to your users?
#33I'm going to take a bit of different tact to other answers.
TLDR: Don't look for "feedback", learn the customer/user and the problem they are trying to solve.
Communicating with users (or future users) is not really an issue I've faced with either of my startups (metaverse for outdoor sports https://ayvri.com & neurotech/sleeptech https://soundmind.co).
I inherited Ayvri, but started SoundMind. The first thing is speaking to users, not something you do after. Who is your target user and where do you find them. I think if you are solving somebodies problem, or understand the problem you are solving it makes it easier to reach out and communicate with the users.
It's difficult to reach out to existing users with a "can you give feedback" without really understanding the problem you are solving for them specifically, or asking about a problem.
When working on Ayvri (then Doarama), we had a few paragliders who were really into the product. I'm not a paraglider (which always amazes that community) so I had no idea what they wanted. I looked at our most viewed 3D scenes, found out who made it, and reached out saying "hey, you're getting lots of views, and you clearly love the platform. I know nothing about paragliding and why you use our product, can you tell me about it, and how you use it and why?" Sure it's "feedback", but it's really about understanding what they are trying to accomplish and why they use the product. That is more important than getting "feedback" on what you've got. Understand the problem, and you may find solutions that the users don't know they need.
With SoundMind, before we really didn't knew what the product would be, I was communicating with people on reddit re: neurotech, sleep, biohackers, etc. From there, I've had people (including investors) hunt me down on linkedin or message me on via reddit (HN has also been a good source). I dove deep into understanding people's problem with sleep, and from there we've focused on two initial HIGHLY specific use cases that we can help them with. So once we know who THOSE users are, again, it's fairly easy to speak to them.
Re: Ask HN: Do you find it challenging to talk to your users?
#34Add a discord link
Re: Ask HN: Do you find it challenging to talk to your users?
#35You say you don't have any way to talk to them, but when I looked at your signup process, I noticed that you ask for their email so you can email them. So here are some questions and example emails you could send as conversation starters. Send it from an actual email address, not a no-reply, and allow them to email you back or contact you via chat or schedule a call.
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Hi, it's Abylay Keldibek from just-diary. It's been a week since you signed up, and I wanted to ask what's been the most useful aspect of the product? What's been the least useful?
I am also happy to answer any questions you have.
[sigblock with phone or skype or way to schedule a call]
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Hi, it's Abylay Keldibek from just-diary again. It's been two weeks since you signed up, and I was curious what has been the most surprising thing about just diary?
Is there anything missing that you would like to see or something that you would like to be able to do that does not appear to be supported
[sigblock with phone or skype or way to schedule a call]
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Hi, it's Abylay Keldibek from just-diary. We are planning the next major feature release, and I wanted to know if there is anything you would like to see fixed or anything you would like to see added.
[sigblock with phone or skype or way to schedule a call]
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I don't see a pricing model, so I am unsure about your longer-term business model. There is a significant difference between "Free users" and paying customers, and you are more likely to get useful feedback from the latter.
For more details on customer conversations, I have collected 40 Tips for B2B Customers interviews many have found helpful in preparing for and analyzing customer conversations. It's a long blog post up at https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2020/01/30/40-tips-for-b2b-cus...
Re: Ask HN: Do you find it challenging to talk to your users?
#36From my experience working as a PM with a medical/educational/hardware/software product, I think everyone finds this process is extremely challenging. First surprising thing I learned is that users don't usually actually have the will to spend any amount of time giving feedback. But they will avoid admitting it. The second discouraging thing is that when you do get them to sit down and talk, you will find that they'r…
People really don't have any passion for talking about your solution because they don't really care about you and you should take any discussion of solutions with a large grain of salt because customers are not PMs. But people are passionate about talking about their problems and that's where you should orient your discussions on. Don't ask about your product at all during PM interviews, simply try to understand the…
Ya your product is your entire world. But it's just a small thing for customers (esp. before you find traction)
Helps to know exactly what type of feedback you're looking for. Frame any ask as a way to help them [save time / money etc]. And come up with open-ended questions.
Some good templates here: https://giddy-amusement-c74.notion.site/Interview-customers-...
Re: Ask HN: Do you find it challenging to talk to your users?
#37I'm on IRC and and the project's own Discourse forums, plus two independent different Discord servers, at all times. There's also the bugtracker, currently with about 2700 open bug reports. Not really a problem, but this is all after 22 years, so probably not equivalent to a "when I had my first users" situation. This is, by the way, why I prefer having other developers as my first users.
Definitely do a Discord or similar if you’re always online.
Re: Ask HN: Do you find it challenging to talk to your users?
#38From my experience working as a PM with a medical/educational/hardware/software product, I think everyone finds this process is extremely challenging. First surprising thing I learned is that users don't usually actually have the will to spend any amount of time giving feedback. But they will avoid admitting it. The second discouraging thing is that when you do get them to sit down and talk, you will find that they'r…
The people who have to deal with your software when it's bad are more than willing to talk to you. However, if you make it super hard or ignore them when it's not flattering or doesn't match up with your plan.. you get what you deserve.
Re: Ask HN: Do you find it challenging to talk to your users?
#39I have a link to the Discord server on the web page and I always have that open. Once every week or two someone will ask me something, usually really basic, about how to use the system. Mostly it seems like they want to make sure there is support for the product. So the questions are usually easy to answer. People do also occasionally message me with feature requests or put them in the public room. I will say though…
FWIW I’ve had success just DMing tons of people on Discord. Asking people as a group might be tough.
Re: Ask HN: Do you find it challenging to talk to your users?
#40From my experience working as a PM with a medical/educational/hardware/software product, I think everyone finds this process is extremely challenging. First surprising thing I learned is that users don't usually actually have the will to spend any amount of time giving feedback. But they will avoid admitting it. The second discouraging thing is that when you do get them to sit down and talk, you will find that they'r…
People really don't have any passion for talking about your solution because they don't really care about you and you should take any discussion of solutions with a large grain of salt because customers are not PMs. But people are passionate about talking about their problems and that's where you should orient your discussions on. Don't ask about your product at all during PM interviews, simply try to understand the…
> The biggest mistake I see PMs make is coming in with an over optimism bias and assuming that your product must be top of mind for all users when the reality is that the most often scenario you discover from user interviews is that the problem you're trying to solve is of relatively minor importance to most people.
You see this come through in products all. The. Damn. Time.
Some PM, and probably one or more designers who were on their side, wanted an "experience". The user just wants to get in and out of your thing as fast as possible and in a way that requires minimal attention.
I just wanted to pay my fucking water bill. A barely-formatted HTML form with nothing else on the page would have been better than almost anything they might come up with. Anything but expert and extremely tasteful efforts to improve on that, will just make it worse. But no. The PM wanted an "experience".
And don't get me started on people in software who complain about users complaining about redesigns. Those users just wanted to do the three clicks they do every morning to do the one thing they do with your software, then forget about it again until tomorrow. You surprised them with a full screen "LOOK WHAT'S NEW" they didn't want and had to figure out how to get rid of, then made them waste some time playing "Where's Waldo" for the element they usually click, and maybe even made it so they couldn't figure out how to do that one thing at all. Of course they're not happy.