Learnings from HiddenKemp: Failed at Pilot Stage
You can read about HiddenKemp here.
In this article, I am going to cover the learnings from my short adventure with HiddenKemp. Firstly, I would like to thank all folks who helped me with this project from ideation to testing.
So, three primary flaws contributed to the product being discontinued:
- Altering with the natural frequency of user experience
- Flawed idea validation method
- Misunderstanding effective value creation
Now, let’s go through each of the above points in detail
Altering with the natural frequency of user experience
Observe this small part of the user journey and where HiddenKemp fits in
HiddenKemp basically removes the event of interaction with locals or fellow travellers. But that event serves as a very crucial part of the overall travel experience
Learning: Make sure that your product doesn’t kill the natural experience of the broader problem you are addressing
Flawed idea validation method
Being a traveller myself, I have faced this problem multiple times and also had in-depth discussions on it with fellow travellers. What I failed to gauge was that solution to the underlying issue was though not structured but wasn’t a pain for users. Travellers generally refer to different websites( tripadviser.com, atlas.com, etc) and the process is not really painful as it leads them to various other discoveries like local cuisine, culture, etc.
Learning: The solution to the problem should be 10x better than alternative
Misunderstanding effective value creation
HiddenKemp serves as a platform to discover hidden places thus addressing two types of users:
Viewers: who want to explore travel destinations
Contributors: who shares travel destinations on the platform
The value to viewers is quite obvious as that they get to know about different tourist spots but for contributors, I believed that they would like to share travel destinations as fellow travellers. Sort of contributing to the travel community.
Learning: Empathy is not a user value that will lead them to act on your product unless it is addressing social issues in the true sense
I hope my learnings will help at least one of you folks to not make the same mistake again.
Happy shipping products!!