I started this week thinking I was making progress. In reality, I was still testing assumptions. This week was a reminder that the product in your head is almost never the product reality wants.
Outpost is going to be much more database heavy than other Ministry of Bits products, so early on in the week I set up one in the cloud. But as the work progressed, I stumbled across a paid solution that could do everything I needed and then some. So I ended up shelving the work I had already done and picked the better path forward.
Later on in the week, I was heavy into the UI for Outpost, only to discover that there was far too much vertical scrolling. What originally started out as a graceful interface was quickly turning into the elderly lady from the commercials from the 90s, "I've fallen and I can't get up." So I needed to spend more time ensuring that everyday folks would feel at home with the interface and wouldn't feel overwhelmed.
Along the way I reached out to the various forums and groups in the industry to validate my core assumptions about the product, what shops needed and what their pain points were. By mid-week I was sensing that folks didn't want another product and didn't want yet another subscription to add to their monthly expenses. And there were quite a few pain points that I hadn't anticipated and therefore hadn't addressed. I was feeling a bit deflated, although not quite defeated. So I went back and across several days adjusted my entire business model and how Outpost works financially.
But let me explain things more, especially for those of you not in the decorator apparel industry. One of the strong feedback items I received was that shops are worn out and tired from starting web store campaigns with organizers that initially are super enthusiastic, only for them not to promote the campaign and for the sold volume to be poor. If a certain volume isn't met, then the shop is often taking a loss due to the setup, labor and materials as low-volume custom work is expensive to run.
Where I ended up was to charge a $99 refundable fee to the organizer to set up the web store. If the store meets the target volume, then this fee is refunded. This ensures that the organizer has some skin in the game to promote and help make the web store successful. They're also charged a $19 non-refundable fee that includes $4 that goes to the shop to cover the payment processor fee and $15 that goes to Ministry of Bits to host Outpost. The shop pays nothing to launch a web store, including none of the traditional industry subscription costs.
My entire week has been spent zigging and zagging. Product design isn't just about the UI, it's about the pricing and the pain points a product solves. And sunk costs shouldn't hold you back from using better solutions when they're presented. Sunk cost is a terrible product manager.
If I thought building out in the open was hard last week, this week was no easier, but I’m carrying on anyway. Here are the first 11 screenshots, and I’d love your feedback.
View the latest Outpost screenshots
Comment and let me know what I got right, what feels off, and what could still use some work.
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