Ask HN: Should we degrade our product to get a first, major customer?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7016111

by Protostome • 13 years ago

4 4 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hello everyone,

I'm here to share my frustration :)

Few weeks ago we met a CEO of a major company that had interest in our product.

He was really excited to work with us - up till the moment he heard we haven't developed an IOS version of our product yet.

The meeting ended when he said to us something like: "I'll be glad to work with you, but only when you have both Android and IOS versions."

So, after a short discussion we made a small pivot and started developing the product almost from scratch - with PhoneGap. (Not such a big deal since most of the logic reside on the server anyway).

Now although the app is relatively basic in terms of graphics, it feels a little sluggish and slow to respond.

So we were left with a dilemma - would you make a compromise about the quality of the product just to get a first major customer you would love to have on your porfolio?

keenrodent• 13 years ago

I can't tell if you need the money from the first customer, or just the credibility of having that first big customer in your portfolio. I also can't tell if you're looking for product improvement suggestions from this customer. If you don't need the money and you don't need the input, why half-ass a solution nobody will be happy with?

In my own experience we needed that first big customer for two reasons: the money, and the feedback from a real-world customer. Our approach was to deliver early and often, with a product that in hindsight was more "minimum" than "minimum viable", but we got good feedback and were very responsive to our customer's input. We ended up with a much better product with that deliver-early-and-iterate approach. Plus that sweet, sweet money.... But we had a customer who was cool with that, and we were cool with that, so it worked out.

Clearly you can't leave your product feeling sluggish and slow to respond, but one way you could go is to use the new iOS "prototype" to get buy-in and feedback from your new customer, with speed and responsiveness improvements as part of the improvement plan. I assume you're not married to phonegap, as your new implementation sounds like a quick-ish hack. So get your customer, get paid, get feedback, and get to work making it all better.

Protostome• 13 years ago

Thanks for the insights :)

You are prefectly right - we need the feedback and the credibility, the money is not issue here.

Our main dilemma was whether to outsource the IOS development (and pay a lot of money to a freelancer that we are hardly familiar with) or develop it in-house with phonegap (Which is something that I can handle easily since I'm a web developer)

Eventually, we chose the second option, mainly because it will be very difficult for us to maintain an IOS version (in terms of bugs, new features, etc) that was built by a freelance.

With this big customer in hand, it will be much easier for us to get an investment and hire a full time IOS developer for the real deal. That's what we had in mind :)

ra00l• 13 years ago

If I were you, I'd try to find more customers within 1-2 months. Then, see if the current big customer is actually right in asking for a iOS version.

tagabek• 13 years ago

You might want to ask them to preorder your product.