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When was your “Aha!” moment?

It’s not always necessarily intuitive what an app’s exact purpose is right away, especially when it comes to an app like Glassboard. We built the app with the intention of not just small business teams using the app, but also families and friends: anyone who would want to communicate in a small, private group. Because there is a broad audience, it’s not obvious on the first run of the app what you’re supposed to do with it.

It’s often that I’ll read (via Twitter, or our support channel) people commenting that they’ve downloaded the app and created an account. Now what? It looks nice and all, they can upload photos and send messages out into the ether, but unlike Twitter or Facebook, who sees any of it? Where are all my friends?

In our Sepia Labs board, Brent Simmons pointed out that for a lot of people he’s talked to about Glassboard, they didn’t quite understand what it was really for until they used it at a conference. These folks had been invited to a board dedicated to the conference, and in there they saw ongoing discussions of sessions people attended. They could also see people making plans for things to do once the conference had ended for the day. The app suddenly became useful to them. They began to see how they could use it outside the conference with their families or colleagues. That was their “Aha!” moment.

Even though I’m on the Sepia Labs team and I’ve used the app since the very beginning, I didn’t have my “Aha!” moment until a couple months later, when I created a board devoted to live music with my friends. It’s one thing to work on an app where you can tout its utility because of this or that feature, it’s another thing entirely when you arrive at seeing how beneficial the app is in your real life. Once I experienced that moment, I came to trust that Glassboard could accommodate many different people and situations. Honestly I can’t go a day without using it!

Posted by Jenny Blumberg