In my last check-in post (27), I set the following 3 goals:
So, for this year the goals are;
- Have a team of at least 4 or 5 people who are working alongside me.
- (Hopefully) Get out of the city and find a better environment for ClassHill. Possibly Waterloo, Vancouver, Boston or California.
- Reach out to more users (professors included) to validate the Alpha version of the platform.
Goal #1: Have a team of at least 4 or 5
While I don't have a team of 4 or 5 people (including me), I do have a team of 3, and a potential 4th. This has been a blessing and a task that has only become possible due to a close friend Saurav coming on board and bringing some key connections with him.
I think this journey will be lonely, it is the nature of how it is. Not only that, but it is also going to be torturous, that too is the nature of how it is. But there is beauty in one thing; having people around who seem to give a fu*k. People who don't care about the mundane things and seem to (even if it's for their own selves) want more than the regular. So this has been a good change, and hopefully, we can all make something out of this.
Goal #2: Get out of the city and find a better environment for ClassHill
Thanks, COVID, but I'll eventually find a way around you.
Goal #3: Reach out to more users to validate the Alpha version of the platform
As of this writing, we've reached out to near 1,000 students with hopes of in-person/on-call interviews. Our goal was to reach out to students based on their activity levels on ClassHill, and by doing so we could gauge how they were using it, and why they decided to leave.
With 5 or so good interviews we were able to conclude a few key findings, but we're now approaching 10, and there are clear patterns in what they want.
I'm also sending emails to our users in a few hours to fill out a survey, this is just one final avenue to get user feedback before we enter product development and marketing stages for the coming fall semester.
That should be it for now. I think from this point onwards, these posts may be a way for me to write about the progress that is being made. So, for the next bit, it will all be about ClassHill, user interviews, and where we stand in developing a product that university students will find useful.
For the next check-in, here's what I'm hoping will be discussed;
- What were our key findings from our user-interviews?
- How they interacted with us during their interviews?
- What we took away, in terms of the potential of the platform?
- What we took away, in terms of features, if the above was answered positively?
- How do we proceed with the development?
- How do we proceed with marketing?
