ThinkFlood Blog

I do not have many heroes, but Steve Jobs was one of them. It is sad to think that we have lost someone with such leadership talent and vision. At the same time, if the measure of a true leader is how he inspires others to act, then I believe we have yet to close the book on Steve’s life and accomplishments. May the echoes of his example continue to reverberate powerfully through the future of our society, and may his family and friends find peace in their memories of him.

These last two weeks have been a little crazy. We have been flooded with calls — inquiries, suggestions, everything. It’s great. A little overwhelming, but great.

It’s always a little scary when you take something that you have worked on for a long time — particularly when your livelihood depends on its success — and you put it out there for the world to see and to critique. Wanting to pull back and wait is a perfectly natural — and perhaps the only sane — reaction. Every time I see another review go up, my heart starts beating faster. What was the experience? Did things work out okay? (After all, we are in beta…) Did the reviewer understand how we have laid things out?

I have the same pangs in my gut when we receive an email or a phone call from a beta tester. After all, these are people who laid down $119 of their hard-earned money to get a RedEye, and so we want them to have a great experience. But usually a call means that they are having a problem, and that is the last thing we wish on them.

To be honest, it hasn’t always been smooth. We’ve had our issues, and we’ve tried to work through them as quickly as we can. But in the end, the thing that amazes me the most is the reaction of those customers who have encountered the problems.

We have a fantastic group of beta customers. I am floored by the level of patience that they have had with us, not to mention the problem solving skills and the creativity that they have shared. To be honest, going into this I didn’t expect our customers to be figuring out solutions to problems we have, but today two people — one of them Frank Nicholas from Indiana (thanks, Frank!) — found solutions to two different issues. How amazing is that?

Earlier I was overwhelmed because I was worried that people might not take well to what we are doing. But today I am overwhelmed by the willingness of these early customers to put their own time and energy into helping us make the RedEye better. We could not have asked for more, and I am truly grateful.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

UPDATE (17 June 2009): Michael Watson is another of our fabulous beta testers. We are always tickled to see people write about us in their blogs as Michael did. Now we just need to make sure we live up to the high expectations.