My mobile apps company, Cexi Me recently came out with something called POP apps - Point of Presence Apps - or branded applications which highlight a specific brand or company or individual. They’ve been incredibly well received and I’m grateful for that. (For more info: PoP Apps)
So what’s the problem? We’ve got ten POP apps committed and we can’t deliver any of them.
Our POP application is like a Website on a mobile device. We build for both Android and IOS. The application requires customer information (RSS Feeds, FAQs/Q&As, Photos, Profile Info) and many customers aren’t quite ready to deliver that information.
Our first customer committed (and paid) three months ago. They readily paid in advance, we gave them a list of information we needed and we’re still waiting. Why? They’re building their entire marketing program. They’re just not ready yet. Ok.
Unfortunately, several of the next few companies (with more business maturity) are completely sold on the concept and the app and they too aren’t quite ready.
Needless to say, when you’ve got a backlog of sales and can’t deliver any of them, you don’t know whether or not to be happy or afraid or both. I think we’re both.
Several business questions come to mind:
- What happens if they all give me their data at the same time?
- Can I avoid this in the future?
- Do I keep selling this app? There is the real question. Do I keep going after business while everyone flows their data to me?
- Do I have any other problems I haven’t though of?
I’m not really worried about #1 but I thought about if we could handle it and I think we can.
Can I avoid this in the future? If we were to better estimate the sale cycle a bit better, I think we could avoid this. I didn’t even think that we’d have so many sold in three months. A positive problem.
The last question is the most important to me. Do I keep building a backlog and worry about scaling to it later?
The answer here is no. I can’t and won’t. Why? I don’t know what it will take to support the ten customers I have - after I’ve shipped. I will not sacrifice customer satisfaction due to quality or support. (Sounds nice, has a great ring to it - and it’s true.)
I can do other things, right? Validate code, add a feature here and there, perhaps work on other apps (I always do that anyway).
What am I missing here? I have this vague feeling that I’m in trouble on this stuff….
(BTW, if you’re a customer and reading this, great! Lemme know what you think! I’m open to suggestions!)
I needed a small application to be built. I put up a description in Odesk and priced it modestly.
While I specified that the developer had to be experienced, I received a bid from a gentleman in Pakistan asking me all sorts of detailed questions about the functionality. I answered his questions and then him a single question: What is your background in building applications such as this?
He answered that he is a beginning developer and hadn’t built anything before! He said that if what he delivered didn’t work, then not to pay him!
I replied that I admired his guts and would give him two weeks to show me something - but I would keep the job open for someone who had experience.
He accepted. Now? I can’t wait until I see what he’s building. I’m hoping that he’ll leverage his network of friends and get the application built. Who knows, it might get him started on a great new career!
