We really want to compete at internet startup competitions during the coming months. The submission forms made me think about the product, again. I remembered the article ‘Will it fly? How to Evaluate a New Product Idea’ by Evan Williams. So I decided to use this to evaluate the current and next release of Bemba.

Oh, and how will the next Bemba differ from the current one? In short, we are deleting features like messaging, friends, inbox, private websites and for friends only websites, and will introduce open commenting and gadgets to share websites on your social network profile.

1. Tractability
How difficult will it be to launch a worthwhile version? Bemba is ‘medium’ tractable. The next release is more tractable than the current one because we left out many components, also increasing its ‘obviousness’ – see below. Bemba should look and perform awesomely from the start. People will compare Bemba to other services, making ‘the bar higher’. We will be working with API’s and gadgets, but others have paved - and are paving - the roads ahead of us.

2. Obviousness
Is it clear why people should use Bemba? The less the product is, the easier it is to understand and therefore to ‘sell it’. I think that we are taking a major step here with the new Bemba by throwing out the irrelevant features. And we have created a much better user interface and visual design, with the help of TNO. A brand new visitor homepage with a short ‘see how it works’ video and Bemba gadgets on social networks will surely help. I do believe that people will understand why to use Bemba, before it becomes successful. Altogether, I see us going from a ‘low’ to ‘high’ for obviousness.

3. Deepness
How much value can you ultimately deliver? We have a hard time keeping Bemba lean and mean, and can’t wait to get feedback from users before building next components. There are many possible ways to create more value for our users. I’m not going to be to open on this one. But think about tipping users to others for content and using Bemba on different media platforms. We’ve been ‘high’ here from the beginning.

4. Wideness
How many people may ultimately use it? Bemba is a mass market product. It will be used by many people for sharing their niche, personal interests with friends. In the new Bemba, they can present themselves by sharing what they find interesting and communicate about it on the social network of their choice. Don’t forget that users will discover Bemba as a way to gather content of their interest too. I think that the next Bemba will be appealing to a large crowd, giving it a ‘high’ on wideness.

5. Discoverability
How will people learn about your product? This is something where the old Bemba fails. How will this get better? Easy. We focus on people sharing websites on their social network of choice, using a Bemba gadget. People will find the Bemba gadget on the profile pages of their friends. It’s our challenge to develop the gadget with a high ‘I want that too!’ factor. How do we get the first people to use the Bemba gadget on their social network profile? We have our thoughts on this. If you have any tips, please let me know! The score must become a ‘very high’ here.

6. Moneytizability
How hard will it be to extract the money? Our focus is on getting a lot of happy users. In the end, all business models fail on a small user base. We have not ‘positioned ourselves close to the spending of money’, so it will be harder to ‘extract some’. Obviously we have ideas on advertising and maybe even subscription models. Considering my expectations for ‘deepness’ I do believe we’ll figure this out to getting a ‘high’ score.

7. Personally Compelling
Do you really want it to exist in the World? Yes, I really do! And I do think Bemba can make many more people into happy content sharers.

Am I flying too high? Do you feel that you should get me back on my feet again? Or do you see the vibe? I would love to know!