[mbesto]

Brian, I can't quite seem to grasp what you're really trying to say here. It sounds (to me) as if you're trying to justify the ubiquitous position of entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs that 'I need to spend a lot of time planning and building before I launch'. I get it...it's scary as hell to launch something that is half-baked and may not feel like your proudest moment.

Some constructive criticism - I, nor you, can comment on your user experience, because you and I are NOT the user. I'd love to hear more about "Sheri Foxton, who can't get enough of the app" (made-up name and story). Comments like "Our beta product looks and acts amazing" and "two of the most talented UX/Marketing guys in the city" make lean advocates like myself cringe. Lean is about getting close to your customer, and at no point do you ever talk about how you're actually hitting the streets. Your Appstori video is cool, and is exactly what "lean" is about - asking potential customers if this is something they want/need. However, there are two things that I just couldn't get past: (1) Your video talked about YOU (Find Your Lobster company) way more than it did ME (the person who wants to find a date). (2) I'm not sure if your UX buddies explained the psychology of user experience (the UI looks great btw!) but basically UX solves one problem - user frustration. If you have no frustration to begin with, than UX means nothing. MVP's are all about creating an app (which will inevitably include some frustration) and then adding features and interfaces which reduce that frustration.

Anyway, good luck!

[brianscordato]

Thanks! Very helpful. I've kept the user experience descriptions a bit vague as all of our user feedback has been from "lean" products - basically me emailing people with match suggestions with screen shots of shared mutual friends, then asking if they'd be interested in these people. We've had favorable response to that, but until the app is in our users hands I don't want to jump the gun. It's not yet - the stuff we can play around with works "amazing," but a full experience is not yet built so our users don't have it yet. I definitely could've been more specific, though.

On the video - great point. Wish we'd thought of that a bit earlier... The hope was to prove that we were legitimate. Gaining users for a dating site is not an easy proposition, and we should've focused more on what we can do for users than why we are viable.

Thanks again.

[mbesto]

> Gaining users for a dating site is not an easy proposition

But finding the market is! You've got a great market to tap into. "Off to the races" as they say...