What are the most common mistakes to avoid when launching a new feature for your EdTech product?

Failing to gather feedback and test the new feature with a smaller user group before a full-scale launch can lead to significant issues. Validation helps identify usability issues, unmet user needs, or technical glitches early on. It's essential to ensure that the new feature aligns with your users' expectations and adds value to their learning experience. Skipping this step can result in a feature that misses the mark and disappoints users.

One of the things I have found helpful is speaking to users to generate new ideas. The mistake I often see product teams make is falling in love with a feature that sounds great on paper, without truly understanding the needs and motivations of their users. Users are not only validators of ideas but often one of the best sources of new ideas. What I recommend for product teams is to spend time with their users, learn about their most pressing problems, and then design elegant solutions that solve those problems effortlessly.

There are many pitfalls but these two stand out: Not Understanding the Users' Needs: In the world of EdTech, it's vital to grasp what educators, students, and sometimes parents, really need. Missing the mark on this can lead to features that are fancy but not functional for your audience. Skipping Over Teacher and Student Training: Even the best features can fall flat if users don't know how to use them effectively. Providing clear instructions, tutorials, or training sessions can be a game-changer.

- Neglecting user feedback: Avoid the mistake of launching a new feature without gathering feedback from your target audience. Engage with users, conduct surveys, and perform usability testing to ensure the feature meets their needs and expectations. - Overcomplicating the user experience: Don't overwhelm your users with a complex feature that is difficult to understand or navigate. Strive for simplicity and intuitive design to enhance usability and ensure a smooth adoption process.

The most important thing is to validate what feature you plan to launch. Product team should regularly interact with the users to understand VoC and build features that are really required by users instead of what they thing would be 'cool'. This approach becomes particularly crucial as product matures and gains acceptance in market, preventing common pitfall of assuming rather than actively validating and responding to them.

This point is absolutely key. With TutorWand, we focused on clearly conveying how our solution was different and why it mattered. It was about bridging the gap between our product’s capabilities and our users' expectations. Effective communication of our value proposition involved not just highlighting the features of our platform but also demonstrating its real-world impact on teachers' and students' lives.

It can be exciting to share your new product feature with the world! However, instead of focusing on what the feature does, focus on what it enables educators to do. How are they going to better collaborate as a school community, how are they going to better engage their students, how are they going to better communicate and involve families? It’s all about THEM - not your product. Connect the dots between your features and the impact on their efforts.

Crystal clear messaging is key! A muddled value prop drowns in the EdTech noise. Speak your users' language, highlight unique benefits, and show how you solve their biggest challenge in a punchy, bite-sized message. Clarity conquers confusion, driving adoption and engagement.

in my experience, it is better to clearly identify and communicate the unique selling points of the new feature. What sets it apart from similar features in other products or from alternative solutions? Highlighting these differentiators helps users understand the specific advantages of your offering.

Communicating your new edtech product feature should lead with how it is helpful to the user, not what the feature does. For example: “get actionable insights faster” vs “powered by AI.” To market the new feature highlight stories, quotes, or outcomes related to how the feature helps people on your website, email, social media, and wherever else you are promoting the feature.

Solid foundation, stellar launch! Prepping your team and infrastructure isn't an afterthought. Upskill your crew, clarify goals, and test-drive your systems. Anticipate hiccups, build resilience, and watch your feature shine, not crash and burn.

Eliminate the traditional sit-and-get, one-time training. Have multiple follow-up sessions with continuous feedback so that future training can be adjusted to suit the needs to the organization and their goals.

Preparing your team and infrastructure is vital, as we experienced at TutorWand. We ensured that our team was well-equipped and aligned with our evolving strategy, which was crucial during our pivot. It involved training, development, and sometimes restructuring to meet new challenges. Building a flexible infrastructure that could adapt to changing demands was also a cornerstone in our strategy to ensure smooth deployment and scalability. It was great experience when your teammates just re skilled themselves and developed the product in latest technologies.

Being unable to prepare the team or infrastructure leads to a difficult transition. Better preparation leads to fewer pain points, a shorter transition period, and better utility of the technology. Proper training, infrastructure to maintain the system, and anticipation for expanding the utility of the technology are all a must. We can't expect efficient adoption at all without preparation.

Para ter sucesso em uma EdTech, a equipe é de fundamental importancia. E aprimorar a equipe, capacitando e dando subsídios para o entendimento do sistema, traz frutos que ser?o colhidos de forma concatenada com os objetivos a alcan?ar.

Not implementing analytics or neglecting to monitor user engagement is a common mistake. Setting up analytics tools to track user behavior, and gathering insights, will help measure the success of the new features for your product.

Measuring the impact of new features is a critical practice, particularly in the EdTech sector. At TutorWand, we focused on establishing clear metrics to assess the effectiveness of each new feature. This approach wasn't just about tracking performance; it was about understanding user behavior, gathering feedback, and using this data to make informed decisions. This continuous loop of feedback and improvement has been instrumental in refining our offerings. At times, you might find it exhausting or repetitive process but it has to keep going otherwise a startup might end up taking wrong turn.

The saying “if a tree falls in the woods…..” Especially using a SAS platform, if you launch a feature and are unable to see if it is being used, then you will never know if the feature launch was successful.

In my opinion, not following up with your users is a big mistake. If the learning development process is performed properly, the learning needs assessment is performed and the product is developed, but how can we make sure that the product is good enough? In many cases, Learning specialist will develop a clear design for the product assessment, even prior to the product development. This means the product has multiple levels for development and when delivered it's only one of the iterations to make the product better and fit our learning needs.

My experience is unique to the MOOC we launched for journalism students a few years back. We did a very risky yet extremely useful follow up for students that was divided into two parts, the one right after the course and another one in a six months time. This data proved to be insanely useful in outcome analysis, topic development and even course further accreditation. Feedback is crucial at all times. Providing contacts for guidance and any questions will definitely prove to be appreciated by the users/students.

If you offer a free and premium experience for users, consider offering new features for free for a limited time / free number of uses. This will give you a larger pool of data related to the use of that feature. If it is a limited offering to free users, you will likely see greater eagerness to try it out while they have access to it, giving you more data to inform your decisions.

Ensure a mechanism for continuous user feedback and iterate on the feature based on user suggestions and experiences. This fosters a user-centric approach, improving the feature over time. Evaluate the feature's accessibility to ensure it caters to diverse learning needs. Addressing inclusivity concerns will enhance the user experience for a wider audience. Prioritise data privacy and security measures to build trust among users. Clearly communicate how user data is handled, stored, and protected in compliance with relevant regulations.

One key learning from TutorWand is the importance of agility and a holistic view of your startup's ecosystem. It's crucial to be aware of not just your product but also how it fits into the broader market. This means being open to new partnerships, understanding evolving market trends, and continuously learning from both successes and failures.

Another important consideration is making sure you're compliant and secure with your data and infrastructure. Be sure to spend time with IT to ensure your products/services meet the latest security standards.