And we’ve launched… again!
This week we released the largest update to Sydnee since its initial release last September. I don’t think there was a single part of the entire app that wasn’t updated or reworked.
It’s borderline sacrilegious to brag about the amount of lines in a git commit in the developer community, but the update came into about 90,000 new lines of code on the platform. I don’t care – I’m proud of it!
I’m a big believer that being open and honest about the journey is the best way to build trust so I’m starting a mini developer blog series that I’ll hop into every now and then.
Hopefully in the future it can also act as a bit of a time capsule for where Sydnee was at in certain moments.
The Vision is Becoming Clear
We’re making a useful tool that freelancers and small teams can use in their operations & client management which leads their clients to see your other services for easy upsells.
Sounds simple but there’s a reason no other platform has taken this on the way we have! Even honeybook tried to have a “Services showcase” that entirely falls flat.
Our first release got us close but we weren’t entirely there. This week that changes.
This update brings the following which gets us much closer to that full vision. Here are just the highlights of what we launched this week:
- The Service Showcase can create follow-up Tasks from supported client submissions on the account's configured board or the fallback
Service Requestsboard. - Per-account Task boards with reminders, repeating Tasks, descriptions, comments, and activity.
- Clients can upload and organize Files according to their access.
- A client invitation system with account-level portal access.
- Custom portal pages and external links with dedicated destinations.
- A client dashboard with configurable modules and widgets.
- A verified custom sender for supported emails, with current behavior documented in the email sender and delivery log guide.
- And more!
The Infinite Loop
Putting out into the world things that were built with a lot of passion, but includes the constraints of time and money means that there were a lot of features left on the cutting room floor. At some point you have to launch and get the update into the hands of the people.
Once the community gets their hands on these things, only then can you actually get a good idea of priority of what to focus on next.
The feedback loop is an incredibly important part of the process.
We have more ideas than we have time, so we heavily rely on feedback from our users to prioritize what to add next. Already in the demos that I’ve personally done, I’ve received awesome ideas that hadn’t come up internally yet.
For example: A private task area, folders in files, being able to charge for your services from inside of Sydnee have all come up so far (and it hasn’t even been a full week).
With the relaunch of Sydnee, the foundation is stronger and more flexible than ever.
New features can be added at a much faster pace and we have systems in place to beta test features on production so we know they are useful before turning them on for everyone.
Lessons Learned
I was told that I was going to underestimate how much support it takes to launch a software application into the world. They were right.
With our initial launch and our first 300 users came an incredible learning curve for what it actually looks like to start an application like this from scratch.
Every new change in the application has been made with very real fact that being agile and supportive of our users is going to be top of mind.
A couple of takeaways that we are moving forward with:
- More tooltips and info in the app across the board for better clarity on how the portal works. Client management and web portals are fairly technical and complicated. When our goal is to help freelancers grow their business, we need to make sure supporting them is always top of mind during user journeys.
- A more modular code base so updating is much easier and quicker.
- A feature flag system so we can turn on or off beta features for individual users in the case of supporting individuals (The Silicon Valley trope “Do things that don’t scale” comes to mind here).
- A first release needs to support its critical use case. Incremental improvements work when revision one is useful on its own. The product also needs to communicate its purpose clearly, and the new update process lets us keep improving that experience based on how people use the app.
Onward and Upward!
I’m proud of what has been accomplished this week and I’m excited for the future of Sydnee client portals.
We’re already testing on production some really cool enhancements, the marketing machine is already providing some excellent sign up rates, and the team feels more aligned than ever.
Thanks for reading!
P.S. sign up for Sydnee white label client portals today by clicking here!
