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Eithiriel DeMerè | Language-Market Fit
@erictwillis @betashop Looking at the Product Hunt listings today, I have no idea what "Get insider tips, direct from the experts" actually means. Insider tips about what? For whom? From what kind of experts?
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@erictwillis @nikkielizdemere Thanks for your reply!
When we say "Get insider tips, direct from the experts" what we're talking about is democratizing expertise and enabling anyone anywhere to connect with everyday experts on the stuff that it's important to them, be it travel, parenting, fitness, nutrition, music, whatever. Think about it almost as LinkedIn for the other stuff in your life.
Here's a snippet from our Medium post today on the same topic.
We began working on Pepo in February 2016 with a big idea to democratize the market for everyday expertise. We imagined an efficient and seamless way for anyone anywhere to connect instantly with the most relevant expertise and experts on any topic.
Our original Pepo thesis was formed through a series of observations:
Foremost, we observed a market gap for connecting with everyday experts. When you want to get in touch with a business professional, you know where to go: LinkedIn. But where do you go when you want to get in touch with an “everyday expert” on all of the other things in your life? Travel, local tips, parenting, fitness, nutrition, fashion, entertainment, etc. — important everyday life topics. These topics tend to be very personal and very specific to one’s particular life situation, e.g. solo female travel in Columbia, caring for a home garden in Pune, India, where to find a safe gay dance party in Dubai (yes, they do exist), or planning for budget backpacking in Japan. These are topics where reputation is earned through first-hand experience, and topics that lend themselves to long and arduous research and reading first before asking questions or finding someone to get in touch with. Sure, you can find content on such topics by searching the web, but how do you get the most relevant, current, and even real-time information? Who can you trust? And, when you need more information or want to ask follow-up questions, how can you appropriately contact the everyday experts?
If interested in diving deeper, I encourage you to read more on Medium... https://medium.com/@betashop/ann...
@erictwillis @betashop Thanks so much for your reply. I wouldn't have guessed that it's a way of "democratizing expertise." To be honest, I thought it was going to be related to the stock market, since "insider tips" is a phrase commonly associated with that. You'll want to update your value proposition, and even description on here to be specific enough so that people know right away who your product is for and what value/benefit they'd be getting from it by using it. "Get insider tips, direct from the experts" is too general and could be about anything.
@erictwillis @nikkielizdemere That's super helpful, thanks! duh insider tips can feel very stock markety, you're right! We're so in the mindset of travel and food and such that we never even considered it! lol. oops.
Thanks for the hunt @erictwillis!
Today we are launching Pepo 2.0, inching us a bit closer to realizing our long term vision to democratize everyday expertise. Pepo 2.0 introduces a completely redesigned Pepo featuring the Pepo Insiders Feed. Pepo 2.0 was informed by hundreds of thousands of early Pepo member points of feedback. Thank you early Pepo members!
New in Pepo 2.0:
-Every Pepo member gets a personalized Pepo Insider Feed with relevant insider tips, Q&A, and experiences.
-As you use Pepo, the app learns what you like -- and suggests what you might like -- and your Pepo feed gets more and more personalized.
-The new My Activity section presents a feed of all the posts you have interacted with.
-Secret messages and channels are now split out into a separate inbox, and are not included in your feed.
-Streamlined navigation.
@betashop Correct me if I'm wrong Jason but Pepo really seems to be dead, just looking at your growth globally, particularly in the us ( where you are producing and focusing )
You have absolutly no ranking - last ranking a few days ago was 1,200 in social networks.
What's your churn at right now probably 93% for 30 days. Most users have left already, not sure if you guys are working on a major marketing push for this. I'd strongly suggest looking at people in the entire world that are having real issues and try solving for them. The guy you picture in the app store pages doesn't have any of the issues you are saying you solve, not hundreds of millions of them and not so large that you are the only ones in the world that can solve it, also nothing about this app allows humans to form long-term habits that will screw with your churn. I see 0 product market fit for this.
"What’s the purpose of Pepo?
Pepo is the place to connect with people who share your passions. ( Every other social network that has scale )
On Pepo you can connect with everyday experts on the topics that matter most to you.
Family, Food, Travel, Fitness, Lifestyle, Culture, Entertainment, Health, and more"
That far far too big of a scope to be the best in the world at, if this was just a product for Asia around food I'd get excited but it ends up now looking like something no one asked for with no reason to exist, I'd love for you to come back strong with a bang on this one and actually focus and add value but the numbers don't lie. I could get excited if you were targeting Asia which they could use more products in the health space around expert opinion, or in the us around food and he in the health and fitness category but you're listed in social networking and you only support one language English.
In every app I've build we've pretty much always out of the gate supported 35 languages.
Have you tried charging for anything tied to this Jason, that's one indicator/attribute around product market fit that you'd need to obviously unpack it doesn't just start and end with a payment but just giving this away hoping it grows or becomes sticky is the wrong move.
Thanks for your comment @nicholassheriff
I've been around this business for a long time and there's more than one way to skin a cat. The days of apps growing massively big overnight are behind us.
Instead, we're rather taking a very long term view on Pepo, and building towards a big vision to democratize everyday expertise -- bit by bit by bit, with a clear and exciting long term plan. We've been following a very specific playbook and we're about 1/50th through it at this point.
I'll be posting on Medium later today with more details on our development and our long term plans.
-jason
@betashop Oh I completely agree and I by no means have built massively large apps but every single product regardless of environment or platform I can clearly see and measure churn, user engagement toward the goal of product market fit and solving a very clear and impactful need. Whether that's with 100,000 or 100 million. I consult with a load of clients some very known in the business one client I had was worth $50 million lots of his apps have died, for this very reason no product market fit. Marketing, being a billionaire can't solve for that very real issue. Was just wanting to hear you talk about that journey. I should be able to see market fit, a number of numbers don't actually matter because it's a pretty basic equation. Looking forward to reading that blog post. Also time doesn't actually help you at all with product market fit if you're not aiming there, it's just time. Also "democratize everyday expertise" is pretty loaded and a lot of that won't just be in the delivery that you guys have designed, being not just a founder but a product designer for 10 years I see a billion things wrong with your user experience and your entire interface. That's going to hamper anyone from building long lasting habit forming engagement that's also a mathematical law whether one believes it or not it's true. I'd strongly suggest being the best at design in this space as well.
Best of luck I'll keep a look out for you guys.
@nicholassheriff Thanks, perhaps take a read of the Medium post once it's live, and try Pepo 2.0, as we just revamped the entire user experience.
No worries at all on your critique. We beat ourselves up every day about how to make Pepo better.
We have a great plan and a fantastic team and we are going to surprise a lot of people.
I've read the feedback to this hunt, the Pepo website, watched the YouTube video and read the Medium.com article. @Betashop, it occurs to me that this product exists out of a core belief that sees human experience as invaluable - especially when it's made available for consumption on-demand -- in that it can contribute to the creation of quality experiences in the future.
If I'm correct in this assumption (and it's a big assumption), I have to question the need for labels like "experts" or "insiders." If you're a person in the world whose experience is defined by a set of criteria, or limiting factors (for example) - and you decide to share that experience... then it's simply an experience you share. It becomes valuable if there are other people in the world who share the same limitations in life, or choose to live their lives by a similar set of criteria as you do.
For example - if you're traveling to a specific part of the world and you're a person who suffers from Celiac disease, you might want to share your experience being in that part of the world... including the things you did, the places you ate (as a person who suffers from gluten intolerance), the things you loved most about the trip, etc. In fact, there may be other factors about you beyond your gluten intolerance that make your perspective interesting. Perhaps you're a music lover? Maybe you're an anxious person? Maybe you love fine art?
What I'm getting at here is this: no one said that they needed an expert. What most people crave is the ability to picture themselves in an experience they haven't had yet, but want to have in the future.
Pepo could be hugely valuable as a network of people who share their experiences rooted in their limitations - or the set of criteria by which they live their lives. Where most social profiles are composed of personal details that feature wants, likes, desires, etc. - Pepo could stand out as a searchable / filterable network of individuals made up by their dislikes, likes, preferences, personal ailments -- whatever factors shape the experience by which they move about the world. The likelihood that someone out there is like you -- someone who craves an opportunity to see themselves in an experience they haven't had yet (that you have had) is incredibly high. Wouldn't it be awesome if you found that person who is like you - as well as their experience, on Pepo?
My two cents. Entirely meaningless, of course - unless it means something to you. Excited to see how this evolves beyond what you think you know about the future of this product, seeing as how the greatest opportunities for success come from the areas of our lives where we don't know what we don't know.
Best of luck to you!
@camban You nailed it, thanks!
Here's where we've been coming at this. There are certain people who are "experts" at certain things based on their life experiences. Many of those people make a living from their expertise, or supplement their primary income. As we democratize this, the notion is that everyone is an expert on somethings and we want to match the most relevant "expertise" and "experts" to your situation and needs. We envision a world where the notion of expert begins to breakdown and it's more about connecting people with matching experiences.
Thanks again for your input and your encouragement!
-jason
im still mad at you for making me sign up by phone number and then sending me ads via text message.
@gopietz Hi. We added facebook signup a few months back, so you can switch to that, or use phone number. We never send ads via SMS. We have twice informed users via SMS of major app version updates.
An update: Pepo 2.0 is now live on iOS and Android worldwide. Please let us know what you think of the redesign. 500+ new features.
@betashop Loved reading the blog post! Very well thought out insightful plan I might not agree with a few of your assessments but I love it.
@nicholassheriff awesome, as long as we have an intellectual debate based on facts, i'm thrilled. Results we shall try to prove over time.
@betashop Of course there isn't one point I've made that wasn't factual unless you can go point by point and provide numbers to refute my assessment, your actual blog post wasn't really addressing a lot of my concerns given the app was launched last year you have all of the numbers and data I mentioned but I get that there is a pivot happening and learning to go on and you're looking toward a bigger path my only issue is that same rhetoric has killed so many corporations and great teams focusing on the wrong things for the wrong reasons without a product market fit goal, I didn't get the product fit goal perfectly from you guys but that can come later. I still didn't see market fit either but I'm guessing that's something you guys are addressing from your blog post and raising huge amounts of cash with ICO to support this massive vision for years to come...so we shall see.
Here's my long-form Medium post about our vision and plans for Pepo, and 1st mention of planned Q4 2017 Peo Coin ICO.
http://bit.ly/2sSJk0I