As a team, how willing are you to test new tools vs use proven ones?

Brenna Donoghue
15 replies
Today we launched the early access list to TimeTo, a AI-powered time management platform for teams. We want to test it with nimble and tech-savvy teams. How willing are you to test something new with your team vs on your own? Here's the launch: https://www.producthunt.com/post...

Replies

Margaret Grobler
Our young startup team is open to adopt new things—particularly if a specific process is broken and something can fix that. But our research is showing that many teams are growing tired of new tools and are hoping to find a one-tool-for-all solution. It's definitely a challenge for new products trying to enter a saturated market.
Brenna Donoghue
I think we're similar @margaretgrobler, when something is broken we're more likely to be open to trying a new tool. Out of curiosity, is this research you can share? It sounds really interesting and very relevant for us.
Margaret Grobler
@brenna_donoghue Hey. Unfortunately we don't really have it in a proper format to share externally. This insight about wanting "one tool to rule them all" were mostly from interviews. It was research around meeting/productivity software, so somewhat related to TimeTo, in that it's about helping people spend time on the right things. What I can share that you might find useful, is out of the 100+ people we surveyed (focusing on Engineering Leads), ~80% indicated that they have the authority to change their primary meeting software, and about ~70% said that they would be inclined to do so. Hope that helps!
Won Park
We test with supportes
Leo Wendler
Ideally, get teams that are supporters and also teams that are external. The latter is harder to attract, but might be the better tester! I joined the waitlist and am excited to use it soon!
Brenna Donoghue
I love this advice @leo_wendler. Yes, the completely unbiased tester may have different expectations than Morgen users... and yes, might be harder to find! Any advice on finding those?
Leo Wendler
@brenna_donoghue Good question! In the case of Morgen, if you are aiming for team use, you could incentivize that in the app over individual use. So once an external individual signed up to morgen, they will not only be rewarded to refer someone else that converts to a paying user, but also just inviting a team member should have a benefit for them. The benefit/experience of using it in a team vs alone should be 3x more convenient, useful, etc. Hope this was helpful in any way :) I am on the waitlist for TimeTo and will definitely try it out with my team!
John Carmichael
Generally, we're always looking to improve internal operations, so testing new tools is a natural part of that endless process... when will TimeTo be available for general use?
Brenna Donoghue
@john_carmichael that's good to hear your team is open to new tools and looking for ways to improve your ops. Early access testing will run throughout the spring, kicking off in April, with a wide release in the summer. Hope it's valuable for your team.
Mohcine Heddi
my willingness to test new tools is very corralated to the security level of the this new tool. If the makers do a great job in showing me how their new solution is safe and secured as much as the proven ones then i ll try it without hesitation if it solves my needs
Brenna Donoghue
@make_mhe such a good point. What gives you confidence in terms of privacy and security? Is it their principles, their approaches, formal certificates?
Mohcine Heddi
@brenna_donoghue it really depends on the tool, but basically i use 4 ways for checking that: 👤 I check the project's team in Linkedin, from the makers background i can guess whether the solution is reliable or not 🗣️ i exchange with the project team in order to understand how they built the solution 📖 some solutions are very educated on this subject so they write articles explaining how aware they are regarding security protocols 🔓 sometimes i perform some pen testing myself on new solutions and let the makers know if i found any problem, but i dont do that a lot as it s a bit time consuming. The main idea is to check whether the team that built the tool is aware about security problems and be sure that these specifications has been taken into account while building the product 🔥
Brenna Donoghue
@make_mhe Super interesting. I love hearing about your approach, especially with new products that probably don't have the certificates in place to give the external validation. Thanks for sharing this!