Bustin’ a Move
Vulnerability is the key to co-creation.
Last Friday, I threw a party with the cofounders of my color-focused startup, Zenmo. It went sideways, and we couldn’t be happier.
The early supporters of any project are the BEST. I go to great lengths to make sure that they know it. I email gratitudes and send picture messages. I mail treats via post. Acknowledgements go a long way, and I put tons of good effort into them.1
In this case, the perk was an event invitation (“a shindig, not a rager,” said the invite). Set to coincide with our first ever leadership retreat, the party would be an opportunity for Zenmo’s local fans to meet our other cofounders. Roo, our indomitable CTO, was visiting D.C. from the UK. Marc, our brilliant user experience guru, flew in from San Francisco. Yours truly, I live here.
We heralded the debut of a fresh new feature we’d been fantasizing about for weeks.
People were psyched.
For our retreat, we conceived an ambitious three-day sprint2 and dove into it. By Friday afternoon, we had defined, prototyped, and published the code, our sprint’s deliverable.
In the entrance of the stylish AirBnB that had been Zenmo’s world headquarters all week, I arranged for a garland3 of atmospheric color swatches. Bags of chips got poured into bowls, tubs of guacamole were placed out on the counter, and beers & seltzers stocked the fridge.
It was party time.
Guests began to arrive. They sloughed thick winter coats onto chairbacks as we welcomed them with cheery hugs. We oriented them to the vibe4 and offered tours of our beverage inventory. We introduced folks. We cross-pollinated. We laughed.
Then, we unveiled our new feature set.
Heads cocked. Faces contorted into puzzled looks.
“I’m getting an error message?” several people said as they held up their phones.
“Mine’s dead-ended and I can’t get back out,” reported others.
“It won’t let me submit!” came the chorus.
Holy shitshow!
Our feature was crashing. The code wasn’t fully baked.
Would you believe it was totally okay?
Instead of sinking into a vortex of frustration and criticism, these superfans of Zenmo’s bright potential saw us try, fail, and learn, and they loved us for it. They knew it had only been published a few hours before. They knew that this special access was a privilege. They were cool with it bombing.
We quickly whipped out the link to our feedback survey and passed it around.
Then, everyone happily went back to mingling and storytelling and trying new snacks. Games were played. New friends were made.
It was a party, after all, and the most important deliverable was a good time.
The next morning, Roo, Marc, and I gathered on the big L-shaped sofa in the sunny living room to debrief the night. Our fancy new feature had debuted kind of crappily, but a bunch of other features and functions of our app got exposure. All in all, it was strong. We felt great about it.
I don’t mean to pretend like it was easy to watch our thing fizzle. It was a bummer for sure. I’m also not trying to say that it’s fine cuz we got some good data; that part was honestly minimal.
The prize was the brightness in our guests’ eyes for having been included. We took a risk on each of them, trusted them, let them hold our delicate thing even though it might break (which it did).
What’s more, they witnessed us bouncing back. They knew what we knew: we’d be stronger next time because of this trial, not despite it.
Co-creation is only possible when we make ourselves vulnerable.
It is core to Zenmo’s path to success.
Lucky for you (and since no one has infinite tolerance for apps that keep crashing), we take care to spread out the aforementioned joy. If you are feeling inspired to help advance Zenmo to the next level, you can sign up here.
We are always in search of more beta alpha testers. ;)
P.S. This week, I’m experimenting with moving the BrainSpin shape to a footnote.5 Let me know what you think in the comments.
If you have ever playtested eckso, for example, your name is listed publicly on our website.
The “sprint” concept was developed by Google for addressing complicated design problems. Read more at https://www.gv.com/sprint/
Special thanks to my number one garland maker, Susannah Fox.
Brazilian DJ Afterclapp is my latest fave for parties. This Spotify station based on his music was our soundtrack for the night.
sparkle on a tooth in a toothpaste ad/ sea urchin/ diatom/ the big bang/ four M’s/ pomegranate stem/ pow!/ compass rose/ cat butt/ prickle bur/ bear trap/ mace/ spiky fidget toy// What do you see when you look at this shape? Drop a comment below.
