It's rather easy for me, as an introverted techie, to get excited about communicating and marketing...online. However, the other social network still exists -- public, face to face interaction. In my spare time, I have published my app BANP to all the app stores and to the offline web at banp.info . It's my fifth app published to Apple and a bunch to the other stores so I should celebrate, right?
Wrong.
If you are just starting out by yourself, or have a team of designer/developer or designer/developer/project manager, and those are the only positions you have, you are still missing a necessary item in app success -- the position who presses the flesh. For local/geolocation mobile businesses, I still believe that human interaction is the best way towards an initial critical mass of users for your product/service to take off.
What this app does is promote public art in different places around Chicago, going out to see said art/event/showings/parties, and then a reduction of fear/crime/crumbling neighbourhoods and the hiding/exploitation of people as (hopefully) a result. It is time-sensitive and geo-sensitive. This is so that when the user takes a picture of themselves/the art at the Glenwood Arts Fest in Rodgers Park or the Paperish Mess store in Ukrainian Village or a couple other partners using the app, the user earns a badge which they can share (as well as the picture) to social media. Trying to work out things so that if they achieve certain numbers of badges, they can be redeemed for Chamber of Commerce gift certificates or something like that. It really works as a time/location game version of Instagram, tested at a Columbia College fest and ComicCon, and it was built using free tools. However, whether it is amazing or not, I will still have to actually go out there and deal with people more than my comfort zone will allow, one shop at a time. I can't make any judgements about its success or failure until I really just get on my feet this weekend and stop with the endless tweaks.
Do you have stories of products you have built and were nervous to market yourself? If you were just hired to sell, any complaints by the customers you can just say, "Those dumb developers!" Or, if you are a developer, your sales people might "be missing the main point!" I've just got to point both fingers at myself (from both sides) and report back with the results in a part two, right?...and you the same?
