Personalizing the Beta Routine
Today, TechCrunch announced the acquisition of InviteShare. Now is a great time for me to tell you of my experiences with two highly visible startups.
In recent months I have participated in both Coghead & TimeBridge’s beta testing programs. At the end of my beta testing period with Coghead I received a friendly message from the company’s CEO, Paul McNamara, asking if I liked the product offering or had suggestions. The initial message told me a select group of Beta testers were being asked about their experiences with Coghead. I had been chosen to give feedback. I could give feedback by phone or email to McNamara or another member of the Coghead team. I opted for email correspondence to McNamara himself. He replied with 4 questions I could answer if I wanted. I replied with my thoughts on the product offering, documentation, and why I hadn’t done much with my account. His reply seemed genuine. He said thanks & that they would absorb the feedback. This experience led me to believe Coghead was really going to read what I wrote and make it even easier to build applications using their platform.
I signed up for TimeBridge’s beta program some time ago thinking this would be a fantastic web 2.0 app worth using at the office. I never installed the Outlook plugin or logged into the service again. About two weeks ago I got a personalized message from the CEO & founder, Yori Nelken, asking why I had not created any meetings yet. The message began with these lines “I am the CEO and founder of TimeBridge. This is not an automated email, and not a mass mailing.”. I still haven’t taken time to login to my TimeBridge account but I was impressed with the personal note from the CEO & founder.
Even if this is only a fad, I like the idea of personal attention from a company leader who may actually have the power to apply suggestions I make. I feel more important in the development process of a soon-to-be super successful startup.
Leave a Reply