Microsoft Max - The Human Touch

I’m sure you’ve already seen a blog entry (or two) for Microsoft’s new photo tool, code name: Max. It is in beta and while my machine crunches on yet more goop to deal with, I’d thought I’d point out some things you and your start up can learn from this application.

First, this picture:

You can argue the whole big company, Microsoft is evil, Robert Scoble the corporate shill thing, or you can use much of what big companies are doing in order to learn.

Simple message on this one: Put a human face on your software and/or service. It really helps and is meaningful to people using your stuff.

Second, the notice that Max is in beta. Again, the human touch:

Again, you can argue this language, but look at the larger point: Plain English. The full down load page, found here, is a good page for you to start when laying out a beta or preview announcement about your code.

Next, the product itself.  I’ve shown it to a number of people. The specific groups had various answers which might be interesting to you.

VC folk

The simple question was, if three Microsoft guys (and I added the, headed up by Robert Scoble part, but for a different reason) pitched this to you, would you be interested.  The answers were uniformly uhh, err, no. Nice little app but, big deal, dime-a-dozen type, etc. Then I pointed out this snip from the Max home page:

I then proceeded to “look around the corner” and give them a bunch of things the product will do. To be clear, I made it all up, vaporware like you’ve never heard, I was trained by the best. Anyway, people then got interested.

Message for you: It’s not always what it appears. Microsoft, Google, and those kids down the street living at home all have one thing in common, release it, get feedback and lay down the foundation for satisfied customers.  Don’t be too quick to blow off V1 one of anything the Borg does is always good advice but this applies equally to companies with an employee base of 1. 

Closed betas, fixed releases, schedules, etc, are out the window in many cases. Putting something out for “beta” or “preview” is now the norm which is changing the rules of customers expectations thus impacting what you deliver. Get out there, get some customers, and get the conversation and human touch rolling.

Customers

Simple question was play with this and tell me does this solve any problems for you. 10 people (not scientific!) looked and 3 said yeah maybe. All said ‘pretty interesting’ as well as “cool” on some of the UI stuff.  The more interesting conversation was the follow up being, well, what do you need solved with respect to your photos.  It was there I got some very good data with respect to the whole space in the context of what isn’t working with current tools, services, and sites.

Message for you:  If it’s possible, use your competitor’s product and do focus/survey work to see what problems they are really solving. I’m surprised by the number of people who are working on product that do not understand what customers truly say about competitor’s products but more importantly what the customers say is actually missing in the context of the competitor’s products. 

From a VC perspective, instead of that standard power point slide with the laundry list of competition, proving to me you know how to use Google, I’d rather know what you’ve done to understand the space, esp. from the view of customers using other products.

In the end, WinFX is now installed on my production laptop and I’ve had no problems whatsoev$)%<$#)O!)#$<……………………………….

Comments

[Zoli Erdos]

Wow, they could not find a token female for that photo ...

[Rick Segal]

Zoli,
That could be my fault. The picture to the far left is a constantly changing one on the site which may have females, dunno, I just clipped it.

Also, not sure 'token' anything would make the point about being human/real. If it is a bunch of geek guys, well, so be it. I'd hope the team would be more diverse but, tis what tis is

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