I love my friends. They are great.
They support and encourage my endeavors and I support and encourage theirs.
Which is awesome when you are starting something new and things are still pretty shitty. They’ll keep you going by telling you it’s great, even when it’s not. Because they can see you are enjoying it and you want to do it. Like most people, I don’t typically enjoy being lied to. But I think the trade-off is worth it.
Even when I know they are lying to me about how good it is, I still appreciate it and it still does what I need it to do: it keeps me going.
When a project is going well for me there come a time when I have to decide if I want to invest more money, time, or resources into it.
If it’s a project that I expect people other than my friends to enjoy – especially if I want them to pay for it – then I need to find some strangers and see what they think. Ones that are the target audience/market.
Strangers who can see what I am trying to do and want what I am trying to provide have nothing to lose by giving (hopefully constructive) critical feedback. Strangers tend to be more honest about where the points of exhaustion and boredom are in the program. My friends are often too nice to point those out.
When I started reaching out to strangers about testing, I was surprised how many volunteers I received and many of them turned out to have great advice and ideas. Fortunately the Eureka Room is relatively easy and inexpensive to test out. The cost is usually just some of my time and a few beverages. It’s been totally worth it.
Not only that, but lots of people love being “behind the scenes” and giving their advice and opinions. They even thank me for having them over.
The experiences and my understanding of the Eureka Room have improve ten-fold due to testing and I plan on continuing to do it. (Now I just need to figure out what that looks like during a pandemic…).