I think this conversation would be more appropriate for the below thread so we can keep this thread focused on CEO Communication. Here are some of Nate’s responses in that thread that can be used as some starting points for conversation. Frankly, he’d have a better response than anything I could share due to his immediate and intimate knowledge of AT as it stands right now.
Ditto. What’s wrong with good old YouTube?
I know what thaaaat means 
I already added trad base for now while i wait for this
I think what @Nate_Pearson and his team are doing is great! Those little insights keep a user like myself excited about the platform and the brand, all the while knowing that it is not just for show - they are actually actively trying to make their platform better and stick with their mission statement of making us faster.
As far as knowing exact dates, they only real way to do that (and as a developer myself I know) is just set one so far out that it ends up not meaning anything anyways. Either that or waiting until you are so close to completion that you can actually give a specific date - both of these rob the user and the company of valuable excitement, anticipation and TBH marketing value.
You may not be able to please all of the people all of the time, but it looks like you can please 91% of them all of the time…
I think the main risk you have is if someone can get better data about a ride. How you parse the ride to get the information you pass into the machine learning. Which metrics are useful and which ones aren’t. Machine learning can’t really make up new metrics of how to measure a ride so it can’t create a more useful metric on its own, that has to be figured out first.
My thinking is if you can better model human physiology that will train the machine learning better.
Even saying what is in Beta could get people’s hopes up. Sometimes betas identify that the product as currently conceived doesn’t work as intended / meet “MVP” (minimum viable product), and you need to go back to the drawing board.
In the software industry, this is one of the reasons for doing controlled testing (betas, etc.) with actual customers. To identify if a product actually works they way you think it should when used by people who don’t know how the product was conceived to work, identify scenarios that the developers didn’t think of, and therefore the product isn’t ready for prime time.
In my engineering days, I actually had to demonstrate to a customer that every conceivable pathways that could happen / every part of the product spec was tested, and that every test was robust and passed. This was only possible because I was dealing with an embedded system, so I didn’t have to deal with humans doing something I never conceived of.
Nate, Thanks for the update. Keep up the great work.
Grumpy
Share whatever you want. Your doing a great job now with the information. When your excited about something share it when your ready. If it takes longer shit happens. If your not comfortable sharing or not ready then don’t.
Your the captain of this ship. It’s your call. You have not run us into any icebergs yet. Although a lot of us are unsure if this is actually Nate asking or the skynet AI.
Relax, your doing great!
Keep doing what you do, share what you think is appropriate. Frankly, you have no further obligation to me other than to provide access to the current product per my subscription. I am a bit taken aback that folks may be “pushing back” on your dissemination of information per your own free will. You can share what you know but running a business is not linear, things change, it’s just the way it is.
Keep it up, and thanks to all of you for taking the time to share what you feel is in your best interest.
The advantage we have over everyone else is plan vs actual. No one else has the same data set as us on that.
I think your current approach is great! From a practical standpoint, it gives us an opportunity to provide feedback on where your priorities in a way that we couldn’t if you were more close to the vest. More importantly, your approach seems to reflect your company’s culture. I think living your culture, not just saying it, is part of what makes great companies great!
Anyone in software knows you can’t ship until you are comfortable with the stability and bug count. What I like knowing is what you are working on and at least the priorities to help me make decisions based on my needs. I love transparency and honesty.
The team at TR have an amazing product and an even better team. I am a card carrying, rooftop shouting fanboy for everything that TR offers, and I’ll continue to do so with constructive criticism if its warranted. Keep up the good work!!!
You want them to make their bug tracking public info? Next they’ll have to be open source too? He already said what the major bug was that was holding things up
@Nate_Pearson
The fact that you’ve asked the question, speaks volumes for you and TRs approach.
As you said, I don’t know any other company that is willing to provide roadmaps or their future plans and values (your black lives matter announcement is a casing point), the way TR does.
Its obvious that you’re excited about all the cool things you have planned and want to announce it to the world. Why should you curb your excitement and willingness to share? This is all part of the TR experience, personally I love to hear you trying to hold back in the podcast.
If the development of TR takes a different direction then there will be a small amount of people who will share their negative disappointment. But on the whole, I believe the TR family understand and will be excited to in any new TR developments.
So you just keep doing what you’re doing.
I think you misunderstood my comment. I was saying that it is virtually impossible to nail down a hard date for releases and in my opinion I would rather know what you are working on even though you can’t publish a hard date vs. only hearing about it when its fully cooked and debugged to a point you feel comfortable with a full release.
I think the TR gang is spot on in their communications.
DE
Let me start by stating two items
- How we feel/like/are loyal to TR as a platform or Nate as a CEO can and should be wholly separate from:
- How the AT release was messaged.
These aren’t mutually exclusive - We can love Nate/TR, but not think AT was released well.
I kinda agree with @anon67840561 and that the AT release could’ve been messaged better.
@Nate_Pearson I do think the results of this poll doesn’t accurately represent how people feel, because they want to be supportive, be a team player. In everyone’s heart of hearts - if you asked them, they would want AT right now. And there’s some level of disappointment around that. The loyalty you’ve earned over the years has glossed that disappointment over.
Imagine if this were Comcast releasing this in the same way - they’d be roasted a bit for that. How many missteps can the TR brand handle? Quite a bit right now obviously by the poll.
I think the biggest mistake in the communication was that you allowed the TR faithful to set their own expectations around the release. The only follow up was basically “Hey, put your name on an email list, and we’ll contact you.” It allowed people to setup their own expectations instead of TR controlling the narrative.
I totally get that software and bugs aren’t on a timetable. I used to be a developer myself. But even if you had communicated out something like:
This is what the next 4 weeks look like:
- Thursday, first 100 beta users are let in.
- We’ll try to get 50 additional users in every 1-2 days.
- we hope to get X number of users into beta in the next month.
- updates will be on the podcast & blog every Thursday.
- We’ll update the plan/give you status on our progress in one month.
That would’ve allowed everyone to frame the timeline better and stop guessing about the plan. It also lets you comm 1) if you’re ahead/behind 2) revise the overall plan in a month.
Hopefully this helps in the future. Let me say that of course - I love what TR is doing and support the team. I wouldn’t be a paying customer if I didn’t believe that. Thanks for being open to feedback, and hopefully you found this constructive.
Thanks for listening.
Amusing to read some of the comments. Entitled (In reality: privileged) customers high on emotion and low on understanding.
Haven’t been part of the forum or a customer of TR for a long time, but it is awesome that a private business is so engaged and transparent as TR are. With their busy agenda this level of engagement goes beyond PR ploy and conveys the interest they have for their product. Some feedback comes off as too much. Just be excited they’re sharing updates, are keeping steps with data science in how to leverage big data as machine learning, and take a chill pill.
For me, it’s awesome you’re curious about the customers wants and needs. Better to share updates which you trust can perform than over-promise and under-deliver. Hence, no rush… there’s plenty of fun to keep me excited on TR for a long time.
That sounds like a terrible idea. The only way to get early access to a significant product update is by being friends with a member of the in group? Maybe that’s fine for a social network, but TR has paying customers, some very long-term, many of which are eager for access. I think it would be hard to find a better way of pissing people off than introducing a clubhouse style invite system. Of course doing the marketing of a regular product launch while the product itself is still in pretty restrictive closed beta is a good way to irritate people, too.
Also, are invites to random people on the list, or are they based on the criteria Brandon laid out in the “Adaptive Training Closed Beta Update” thread?