In case you don't follow the WhyGoSolo blog, last night was a big time for us… not just big, huge. It was our unofficial launch party. We've kept a great deal of things and portions of the site close to our chests for a long time, but last night the world (well, people attending the SocialTimes launch event) got to see what we were talking about.
Yes, that means we had a full demo of the site available for people to click around, review, and generally see what's going on. It was amazing to finally let people see what we've been talking about for months.
The feedback was overwhelmingly good, some of it was useful, and a few of the things were pre-empting things on our agenda for immediately after the holidays. Yes, we have a trio of things that are up our sleeves – some already underway – and utilizing the skills, experience, and platforms (!?) of existing team members…
So there's some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we've gotten great feedback, input, and suggestions. The bad news is that we need to implement some of them and finish some other things on the site. It means that we're still a couple weeks away from launching and with the holidays in there, the specific schedule is shaky.
But I'd like to take a minute for some Thank You's.
First, Nick O'Neil deserves credit for putting together a great event. It really was a blast.
Next, a handful of close friends of team members… such as Michael Ford of Proteus and Eli White of Digg, both friends and verbal sparring partners of mine. I got them both onto the site yesterday morning where after some brief browsing they offered lots of punches to the head considered feedback and comments to make the site better all the way around. When you've been living and breathing something for 3 months, you often lose site of what other people think… another personal thanks to them.
Last, and definitely not least, the WhyGoSolo team from top to bottom. They can't be thanked enough… from Lindsay who was determined to smooth out every UI issue before it went live to Michael who was coding until his wife dragged him to their vacation flight to everyone else. I mention these two because they simply stood out among a team of great people.