The Magic Bullet

Entry posted by BLaBZ · December 15, 2014

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It's been 15 days since the official launch of my first software and so far it has been an incredible learning experience. You can't predict the future, but you can learn from your mistakes, and with that I'd like to share my number one discovery.

When your product releases it reaches a number of unique people who each have a unique age, position and disposition of your product. There will always be a myriad number of reasons a person might want your game or product but it's rare that this has been their dream product or something they've been following for awhile.

What I've discovered is that the users who have purchased and taken their time to understand the product are the users that have always wanted a product like this or dreamed of the results they could create through using this product. There is an educational curve that, unfortunately, surpasses the attention span of the average downloader curious about the product.

The lack of instant gratification deters a trial user from moving any further into discovering the products capabilities. It's a lost opportunity.

What's obviously essential in creating games is finding that perfect combination that keeps players interested and hooked. They play for hours on end and can't help but tell their friends about it. Then you have a game that's becoming viral.

I never thought to truly apply this concept to software. To me, software development has always been about creating a useful tool to solve a particular problem. Designing a software in terms of instant user gratification has always been an afterthought.

The lesson: Most users want a magic bullet that gives them instant gratification, do you best to give it to them.

-Ben