An anonymous poster asked a good question yesterday on the Poker Copilot discussion forum. To paraphrase,
"Why doesn't Poker Copilot have feature X that some Windows products have?"
There are two reasons.
The first reason is this: Poker Copilot is a one-person operation. I have a finite amount of time and need to prioritise.
Secondly, I don't pay much attention to competitors. Even if Poker Tracker finally releases their Mac OS X version, I won't give it much attention. If I follow my competitors closely, I'll become preoccupied with the wrong things. I'll start obsessing over the features they have. I believe I should be obsessing over the features my customers ask for instead of the features my competitors have.
Why re-invent the wheel, you may ask? Why not use the most popular Windows products as a spec, and copy what they do? The little I have seen of the Windows products are a usability disaster. They use what I call Matroshka tabs: tabs within tabs within tabs. Buttons and icons and check-boxes are flung everywhere. I try hard to add important features without making the user interface overwhelming. It's a tough balance.
I'm finding that people tell me what features Poker Copilot is missing. I try to focus on the most highly requested features.
Sometimes I'll suddenly get an avalanche of requests for a specific feature. I interpret that as a sign that a) a Windows poker analysis product has added that feature; and b) people like it. And therefore it becomes high priority.
Posts
7 comments:
There is a lot of information that needs to be shown potentially and you have to show it one way or another.
The most interesting tracker UI I've seen so far uses a tabbed interface but, surprise, it's not a Windows tracker.
It imports hands at 3-thousand hands per seconds, it supports millions of hands and it uses a tabbed interface. It cannot be all wrong :)
Tabs, when done right, are very powerful.
I think competition is coming and dismissing them as being "UI disaster" is maybe not the way to go!
I am a very satisfied Poker Copilot user. However, I'd say you ignore the competition at Copilots peril.
You may not be comparing your product to the competition, but us customers are about to.
In terms of features, Poker Tracker 3 is a far (and that's an enormous understatement) more advanced product than Copilot. Which is understandable.
This product is new, and you're a one man show. Depending on what your ultimate goal is though, it might be time to consider hiring, and really pushing for Copilot to be feature comparable with the competition by the time you reease Copilot version 3. In fact, ideally you'd be both feature cvomparable AND more useable.
You're about to be face the first competition you've ever had. Competition from an established name, entering the market with a far more powerful, feature filled product, (and here's the other problem)...at a very comparable price.
The usability gap is going to have to be pretty large to make up for the features Copilot is lacking.
I'll take you at your word you haven't looked at Poker Tracker at all. I think you should so you can see what we the customers are going to be seeing from a comparison standpoint. Because, I think you're seriously underestimating (or are just unaware of) the disparity in features between the two. And just how huge the "usability gap" would have to be, to make up that much ground in terms of features.
Screw this head in the sand crap. You're gonna get burried that way. Make your product both feature comparable AND more user friendly and now you're talking.
quote:
You're about to be face the first competition you've ever had. Competition from an established name, entering the market with a far more powerful, feature filled product, (and here's the other problem)...at a very comparable price.
The usability gap is going to have to be pretty large to make up for the features Copilot is lacking.
I'll take you at your word you haven't looked at Poker Tracker at all. I think you should so you can see what we the customers are going to be seeing from a comparison standpoint. Because, I think you're seriously underestimating (or are just unaware of) the disparity in features between the two. And just how huge the "usability gap" would have to be, to make up that much ground in terms of features.
Screw this head in the sand crap. You're gonna get burried that way. Make your product both feature comparable AND more user friendly and now you're talking.
end quote.
I agree 100% with what he said.
You said -
"I believe I should be obsessing over the features my customers ask for instead of the features my competitors have."
Why do you think your competitors have the features they have? Because THEIR (your potential) customers asked for them!
Turning a blind eye to your competition is a road map to disaster.
"Secondly, I don't pay much attention to competitors. Even if Poker Tracker finally releases their Mac OS X version, I won't give it much attention. If I follow my competitors closely, I'll become preoccupied with the wrong things. I'll start obsessing over the features they have. "
Just because they have a craptastic interface doesn't mean that their features are useful. They're extremely useful and people will put up with a lot of crap to get them. My guess is that 50% of the serious poker players on Mac are using PT or HEM under VMware or Parallels.
"I believe I should be obsessing over the features my customers ask for instead of the features my competitors have."
Which customers? The ones who post the most? The ones who use play money? The ones who are obsessed with java?
I appreciate that you've done a lot of good work. Your attitude towards your competitors will most likely end up destroying your company. You can be absolutely sure that they know what you've done and are lusting after your cash flow.
This topic is also being discussed on your "message board" blog, at:
https://barbary.fogbugz.com/default.asp?pokercopilot.1.103.11
hmm to be honest PT on Windows has a lot of issues for multitablers (up to the point that people recommend using HM if you're multitabling) and I fear that their "split codebase" Windows/OS X is going to suck (how comes PT needed years to develop an OS X version?)
But I think that real next generation trackers shall come soon and it's going to be leaps and bounds better than PT/HM...
Certainly possible that PT for Mac will have issues. As far as I know Poker Tracker never actually started the Mac version in all those years. They talked about but never took it on. They were making plenty of money from Windows customers. HEM still isn't bothering with the Mac market.
Steve produces this beauty of a product, and all of a sudden PT announced (early summer I think) that they'd started work on the Mac version. I doubt that's a coincidence.
Poker Copilot is great. I think that's why all the fuss about this. I know I love the customer service and the product has served me well. I think it's just disappointing to hear that Steve is thinking he'll not be paying attention (competing) with the competition.
Competition is good for the consumer. If you were Poker Tracker, how psyched would you be to read the competitors newsletter, saying they don't know you're product, they're not looking at your product, they're not going to look at your product. I bet they've tooled around Copilot plenty. That's business.
Ignoring the competition is always going to be a mistake. Even if you think you have the market dominated, you want to stay all over what your competitors are doing.
Likewise, if these next generation trackers are out there, wouldn't you want to be all over too? What they are, and how close they are to a real product? Lest they appear out of nowhere and steal the market overnight?
I guess it depends on your goal for a company. If it's part company/part pet/side project then it might not be so important. But, If you want it to be your primary, or even a major source of your income, you want to know the competing products as well as your own. And you better be constantly on top of where the future of the industry is headed or you'll, wake up on morning and find you've been left behind. That goes for Copilot, PT, HEM, widgets, cell phones, cars, whatever doesn't it?
Post a Comment