Tue, Jul 20 2010
By
ben kaufman at 4:07 pm
July already? Time is FLYING.
As we promised back at our first town meeting in April, big changes to the way products are submitted, rated, and evaluated are due to roll out this month.
I’d like to re-iterate the goals behind these changes:
1. Provide increased transparency to inventors/ideators as to how their idea did
2. Simplify/clarify our rating criteria to be more useful/self explanatory
3. Make the submission process more “Question/Answer” based vs. “Title/Description”
4. Allow us to better bubble up ideas, and get smarter about the way products are chosen.
A good portion of our time over the past few months has been devoted to boiling down the product submission/evaluation process to its core, doing dry runs with different rating/voting procedures internally, and working to create a flow which will make the process delightful for all stakeholders.
So here’s the plan (and a sneak peek of what’s not too far away):
1. You may have notice Product 0053 has not yet been moved into evaluation. Reason being: we plan to push the first batch of these changes in the next day or two, and would like to wait until that’s done to have voting begin on 53.
2. Product 0054 will be the first product for which ideas are taken in the NEW FORMAT (details below).
3. While product 0053 will carry the newly designed voting/rating mechanisms, Product 0054 will be the first product for which a “0-100″ score will be provided.
Product Submission:
Beginning with Product 54, product ideas will be submitted with a 140 character description of your product. You’ll have to categorize your submission into one of the following, and answer the corresponding questions:
Kitchen, Organization, Fitness, Home/Decor, Accessories, Lawn & Garden, Electronics:
Describe Your Problem, Describe Your Solution, Key Features (bullet points), Similar Products/Inspiration
Home Decor, Toys, Pets, Other:
Describe Your Customer, Describe Your Product, Key Features (bullet points), Similar Products/Inspiration
You’ll be given a preview of your idea in the format it will look when the world feasts its eyes on it, and then you’ll be asked to pony up your 99. Soon, you’ll also be able to save drafts, and edit a product at any time prior to the time evaluation on that idea begins.
Here’s a sneak peek:
Product Evaluation:
Rating & Voting:
For the time being, voting will remain as 3 votes per member per product evaluation round. However the rating criteria will be switched to:
- Uniqueness
- Usefulness
- Wow Factor
- Likeliness to Purchase
Voting & rating will no longer occur on the “product evaluation” page. Instead, every idea will carry its very own URL & page so that you can directly link friends & followers to your submission.
When you click on an evaluation project, you will see the countdown clock, along with a list of all of the 140 character descriptions of the idea, all which are clickable and will bring you to the “idea detail” page where you can vote, comment, and tab forward/next through that week’s submssions.
Comments:
One thing we have all observed since the launch of Quirky is how powerful/productive comment threads on the initial ideas can be.
For this reason, we will also be introducing categorized comments beginning with the evaluation of product 53. When you make a comment on a product, you will be asked to classify as:
General, Features, Inspiration & Competition, or Attachments & Assets
Just imagine seeing an idea and thinking “that exists already” you can sort the comments by competition and see what other members are saying about the competitive landscape, instead of reading through all 238 comments in the thread.
Scores & Decisions:
As I stated above, all ideas beginning with those submitted into Product 0054 will receive a 0-100 score:
Up to 50 Points: based upon community reaction (votes/comments/ratings):
The top 25% of the community reacted ideas will then move into the hopper for the staff to evaluate. Ideas that are not in the top 25% based upon community reaction will not be evaluated by our staff. The final score on these ideas will just be a reflection of the community reaction.
Up to 20 Points: based upon Quirky employee & retail partner reaction (votes/ratings that will occur internally):
A “deep dive” will then be done on the top 5 ideas (based upon score after community & employee input). Ideas that are not one of the top five will receive their final score, which will just be the addition of the community points, plus the internal points.
The “deep dive” on the top 5 will look at 3 major areas:
Up to 10 Points: based upon “Design Potential”:
How much potential does this product have to WOW?
Do we feel this idea provides us with the opportunity to design something distinctive so we can stand out from the market?
Up to 10 Points: based upon “Viability”:
Could we price at a competitive level while still maintaining the margin we need to pay the community, expenses, etc?
Intellectual Property / Uniqueness Concerns? (input from our legal team)
Up to 10 Points: based upon “Market Potential”:
What is the market potential for indirect sales? (input from our retail partners around the world)
What is the potential for direct sales? (input from our SEO/SEM team)
Once all the scoring is complete, the winner will be announced (the winner will now always be the top scored idea), and all ideas will carry a 0-100 score next to them. Depending upon how far each idea got in the evaluation process, you’ll be able to see how many points it recieved in each one of the above 5 areas.
As you’ll see, only the top 5 ideas are going to be eligible for the full 100 points.
Sneak peek of the product detail page with the final point allocation:
