We've onboarded a few families at a time, testing small and spending time with each tester to understand what is working and what isn't. While I think I'm an optimistic person, I tend to see the room for improvement first, and that's where my energy goes. But testing a new product means there is always a lot of room for improvement, so I have to force myself to stop and appreciate the things we're getting right. In honor of that pause, for myself just as much as for anyone curious about Fynn, I want to share some "aha" moments I've heard from our testing families. We'll start with the one I was holding my breath for.
A friend of ours is testing Fynn with his family, and I'll admit I was hesitant to send it to him because this guy really has his stuff together. I imagine his whole world lives in spreadsheets, and his house functions like a very well-oiled machine. You know the type. Despite having two young children, I'm never tripping on toys at his house and his girls are always in clean, pressed clothing. How do they do that?!
I had assumed Fynn's value would be clearest for families buried in logistics, and here was a family with a system that already worked. So he became a test of a different question: would someone who has it all running smoothly still have an "aha" moment with Fynn?
The answer, thankfully, was yes. When we connected after his first two weeks, my friend admitted he didn't originally see the value of using a different calendar when he has a system that works for his family. But he's a good friend and took it upon himself to try it anyway. Every family on Fynn gets their own custom email address, and anything you forward there gets handled. So when the first birthday invitation of the school year came in via email, instead of his usual process of creating an event on the family Google calendar and adding his wife to it, he just forwarded the email to Fynn.
He said, "Wow! I mean, that was pretty cool. I expected the event to show on the calendar, but I was pleasantly surprised to see a task created for purchasing a gift."
That surprise about the gift task is the reaction I've heard most from testers, and I smiled to learn that even my friend who has it all together found value in Fynn thinking ahead. He also had notes on how to make Fynn more enticing for him. Mainly, he wants Fynn to take things off his plate completely. I told him that's exactly where we're headed. We talked through the roadmap for Fynn Act, where Fynn will be able to suggest gifts and then, with one click, handle the purchase and shipping for that same birthday invitation. Today Fynn anticipates and plans. Soon it will act.
But it's one step at a time, and these first beta families have been instrumental in showing us what families really value. So that's my pause for this week: even the most organized dad I know found something to love. More aha moments coming soon.