Alpha Rising

After months of product development and testing, our Alpha is being loaded to the live site right now, and it's really exciting. We've come a long way from that first spark of imagination, and we still have a long way to go. But it's the little pieces of gratification along the way that make the startup ride worth taking. And today is one of those days.

This update includes a whole host of stuff that is just plain cool. All the functionalities of our core product are here, along with a bunch bug fixes and UI updates that make using Pinyadda a truly enjoyable experience. The difference between this version and our prototype seems infinite, and the product is really starting to come into its own.

A new, way more intuitive Build page, better Pintax navigation, and host of back-end improvements are all up and in working order, and we're pumped. When we look at the big picture these seem like small changes, but when we put on our user hats and try it out we realize that these improvements make a big difference. It's an encouraging and exciting milestone, and as we start to refine the product, the tech, and the business model, the amount new opportunities and ideas seems to be multiplying almost daily.

With all this comes an ever-expanding to-do list which has required us to begin developing and implement some key workflows and processes that are already helping us to stay better organized and be more productive with our time. Scheduling our time better, setting and achieving measurable small goals, and using collaboration technologies have been a key focus over the last several weeks as we begin to think about growth phase. While we're still really small and everyone is definitely wearing multiple hats, we're very aware that streamlining our processes and workflows and documenting our systems will be a key component of how fast we can ramp things up and how much we can squeeze from each dollar of investment. Two of our key organizational philosophies are agility and resourcefulness, and making sure that we can get new people up to speed quickly and adapt to changing conditions are tasks that affect every aspect of the business.

As we ramp up this summer we're making it a point to share our experiences on this blog, and we're always interested in hearing what you have to say. Post a comment, drop us a note, tweet us, whatever. We're also going to schedule a couple of external work sessions where anyone can drop by and shoot the breeze about tech, Boston, Pinyadda, or pretty much anything else. We'll post those times and locations up here and tweet them as well. Hopefully we'll get to meet a bunch of new folks who are down with what we're doing and love the internet in the same freakish way we do.

Today's a great day for Pinyadda and for us, but we're already logging bugs, testing features, and thinking about ways to make it better. With every milestone reached comes a new starting point and a new opportunity for improvement, and we can't wait to get moving on the next round of stuff as we head toward Beta. It's part insanity, part geekiness, and whole lot of obsession with our product and our vision.