Beta Users

The foundation of great products is early user feedback

You can’t always please everyone. I am reminded of that on a regular basis when it comes to this newsletter. While I generally write about topics in software engineering and leadership, I try to introduce other ideas that are important to me such as diversity & inclusion, community building, and food photos from around the globe. This makes some people upset.

One very recent incident involved an event I recently hosted. It was a talk on Clubhouse, the audio-only social network that is taking the world by storm. Apparently this offended diehard Android users among my readership, even though I did not make any announcements in the newsletter. I was simply testing the platform for an impromptu AWS conversation about startups last week. Now I am a terrible person for excluding people not privileged enough to have an invite nor in possession of an iOS device. (If you do have iOS, I have ten invites I am happy to share).

I take the criticism in stride though. I even welcome it. I do my best not to take it personally and to view all comments without judgement. In truth though, it can be hard when the feedback comes from people that seem unhinged, are trolling, or have ulterior motives, like the one star review I received on my talk at the YOW! Conference last December from one attendee because I happen to work at AWS. He did preface that it was too bad though, because I seemed like a “good bloke” 😂 .