In my last couple posts, I have been talking about some of the key elements that make up successful Internet Start-ups. While you will probably get varying perspectives on what is most important to building great Internet companies, my experience has revealed that feedback from colleagues, industry friends and of course the almighty end user is an absolute pre-requisite to continued success for any Internet Start-up.

There are essentially two types of Feedback that we accumulate for our own business: Peer Feedback and End User Feedback.

Peer Feedback involves enlisting a focus group of industry friends and colleagues to review your product and solution and provide specific feedback based on what ever parameters you have laid out. Peer Feedback can be a worthwhile AND humbling experience…. There are times when you think you have made your solution or site the best it possibly can be until you bring in some 3rd party evaluators that burst your bubble and point out some of the flaws and issues that you may have overlooked.  I recently ran a focus group with 10-15 of my close industry friends and it was immensely helpful and humbling.  I received many fabulous new ideas as well some changes we can make to improve our solution’s usability and functionality

A Peer Feedback process is simple to set-up. I just used a free onine survey solution (Freeonlinesurveys.com) and provided some specific questions on what I was wanting my focus group to evaluate. Now, you may not implement all the feedback you receive, but it is important that you have outside viewpoints so that you don’t fall into the "Start-up Vacuum" and miss some key changes that could enhance the future success of your business.

In my recent survey, I wanted to  know four things..

 - Is my site usable and navigation friendly?

- Is my Call to Action clear and compelling? (In other words, can you quickly identify the benefits for this solution and actions to take for registration)

- Are their issues or flaws in the functionality of the solution?

- Any other improvements to consider?

Again, the feedback was immensely useful!

End-user Feedback is an equally important element you need to factor into your game plan. For us, we ran a pre-launch campaign and built up an opt-in list that we will use as an end-user focus group. For many sites, End-user feedback is becoming an integral part of their Web Analytics Plan. We need to find out what is motivating our users to stay or leave our site. This can be done with java-based survey pops or follow-up emails, or even phone calls. Whatever method you use, The important thing is that you have a system in place for gathering qualitative feedback for your site. You are likely using Google Analytics or some other web analytics program and have all sorts of stats on visitor return and exit rates, conversion rates etc…., but it still doesn’t give you the clear motivations behind the behavior you are tracking.

If you are currently involved in an Internet Start-up, then I believe you must become a "Feedback Junkie" and find ways to gather both Peer Feedback and End-User Feedback. This, combined with other analytics tools you are using, will go a long way to implementing successful change for your company.

Feedback is truly the "Breakfast of Start-up Champions"!

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