How I: Test beta-product features using Google Apps Video Lecture | "How I" by Google Developers - IT & Software

MATTHEW CHIC: Hi,
my name is Matt.
I'm the Chief Commercial
Officer for FlatClub.
We're a marketplace for booking
medium-term accommodation.
And I'm going to tell
you how non-developers
can test beta product
features with Google Apps.
So in our example,
we run a marketplace
for accommodation for
medium-term stays.
And we found that a
common situation was
that our suppliers--
and, especially,
our new potential
suppliers-- wanted
to know what type of guest
demand we were seeing,
and what we had coming in.
And on the flip side
of it, our guests
just wanted to ask us
for what was available,
or what could be available.
So, basically, they
didn't have any time,
and they wanted us
to just provide them
with a list of options
for accommodations
that they can book.
So we wanted to see if we
can better match the two,
instead of in a
typical marketplace,
where you search
through listings
and look for something to book.
And we thought we could
accomplish the two goals, which
was proving to the suppliers
that we had a lot of demand
coming in, and, then, meet the
goal for their guests, which
was that they just wanted
to get options sent to them.
They didn't want
to take the time
to actually look for something.
So our method for
testing this out
was to do everything via very
basic forms, spreadsheets,
and email.
We had already been
collecting the guest searches
and that criteria.
We needed budget to
actually facilitate
a supplier making an offer.
So we set up a basic form.
Asked the guests
that were incoming to
just instead of searching,
to fill out the form,
say what they were looking
for, their ideal budget.
We set up the form so that
it automatically populated
a sheet.
And when we had enough
requests to look pretty good
for the suppliers, we
sent out-- just copied
and pasted the table, put
it right into an email,
and sent it to our group.
And we did this to an initial
batch of about 200 suppliers,
and got the highest
engagement rate
we had ever had on
anything that we
had done so far in the product.
The call to action
in the email was just
to reply with the
bid and your offer,
and a link to the
property that you
wanted to send them, which
was quickly unmanageable.
So we did iteration two
of the Cloud App system.
So we did another form, just
where the suppliers could see
all of the requests ID'ed on a
sheet that they themselves were
looking at right in the Cloud.
And then they went to the
form, and put in the ID,
and then put in the
same information.
So that facilitated our process
of backing the other way.
The offers came into a sheet.
We sent it out to the guests,
and then brought them back
into the website by opening
up a communication thread.
And it was probably we did this
over about two weeks of really
getting the language that
we wanted to use correctly,
the information that we
needed to collect correctly,
the format of the
information that we
needed to present correct.
And then we started to
build a beta product.
And the progression from
doing that system interacting
with our suppliers, to the
first, second, and third,
and now present
iterations of the product
was something that
everyone really
liked and were
very impressed by.
So there's a couple benefits
for non-developers to use
out-of-the-box Cloud tools
to test beta products.
The first one is that they are
very easy for your customers
to understand.
So if you are testing a product
concept or a new process
that you want to do with your
existing user base, using
things like
spreadsheets and forms
and just communication on
email, anyone on your team
can execute the project.
Your customers can understand
what's going on very easily.
They can feed back
to you immediately.
And then when it
comes time to build,
your non-development team can
have a much more productive
conversation with
your development team.
And at the end of really
doing some testing,
the non-development
team has come up
with a system and a
series of processes
that can be directly
translated into the product.
The other benefit
is that when you
start on that level
with your customers,
they're going to be very
impressed as you move up
the product development
cycle, and then give them
something that
looks a lot better.