Sutterbus

PM Fast TrackMay 2nd, 2014

Objective

Lonely PMs meet with even lonelier Engineers to work on an app project that needs love

Andy Jiang - Dev

Banned by Southwest AirlinesExperienced with Node.js & JavaScript

Ravi Singh - PM

Banned by Oakland A’sExperienced with startups/established companies

Sutterbus

Andy needs to find the closest bus ETA, according to his route

He developed a v1 app, using public data, to display Muni bus ETAs

Find your closest bus

What should we do?

● Release the app?● Improve it?● Start marketing it?● Monetization?

Option: Release the App

● Fastest● Have to rely on feedback to improve● Little or no marketing, more time needed

● but are we ready?

Option: Add More Features

● Make a GoogleMap UI● Add most-recent bus stops to top of list● Color-code bus ETAs by red-yellow-green● Or pivot towards a more “alarm clock” feel

● but how do you know if the UI needs it?

Option: Start marketing it

● Keep the name (it’s catchy, personable)● WOM (word of mouth)● low-fi (flyers on bus stops)● Social

○ Twitter? Facebook? FourSquare?

● Which marketing tool is most effective, and who do you market to?

Option: Monetization

● Putting this on displays at local convenience stores, so that customers will know when the next bus will arrive

● Would this even work?● We still need users to justify anything

Which way to go?

We have options available with a v1 project, but which direction do we go?

Clearly, we need more information to base a better decision...

Let’s start with Analytics!GoogleAnalytics, through segment.io

Ideally, use heat-map software, so we can analyze if users struggle with the interface itself

Encourage usage by a few friends of Andy, and see how they use the app.

Study users

● Find the time of day most accessed● Find the routes most frequently queried

○ inbound vs outbound○ most frequent location where apps are used

Start marketing the app

According to the app, let’s start with media like Twitter/FourSquare

“Andy just checked in on [BUS] going to [LOCATION]!”

Start marketing the app (cont’d)Based on our results, we can decide if the social media marketing is working well or not

We can also consider making the source code public, and increase marketing even more, but that’s a business decision

Add some features, based off of dataHopefully, analytics will show us if users struggle with the app, and we can add small features (like adding most recent searches), or even big ones (a GoogleMap UI).

If this feature doesn’t improve things, we can kill it.

Over time, we will have more data to justify adding more features, or possibly changing direction if things don’t improve

In Conclusion...

Andy created a v1

At this event, we created some options to take the app forward

Who knows where the future holds, but with some strategy now, it could be great

Thank you!

Andy Jiang - andy@rainforestapp.comRavi Singh - ravinder@global.t-bird.edu

Try the Sutterbus app

Special thanks to: PM FastTrack