Over 100 Users in 2 Days
We’ve been onboarding users to our Circles dashboard (that works with the Oura Ring) for about a month now. The process has taken time because we decided that I would personally onboard all users on a zoom call. You might be wondering, Why? Well, I believe face-to-face communication with users is invaluable, especially in the early stage we are in! We can take our product in many different directions, but the point is to make something people want to use. Our mission is to make things that people Love, and if we aren’t talking to people, then what the heck are we doing?
Firstly, we built Circles for the Oura Ring because me and Phil (co-founder) each had a ring and it changed our lives. You could say it inspired us to see how much we could get out of the data, and how we could improve. I’ve written a lot about my personal health story that ties into this. The Oura Ring users I’ve chatted to really love how discreet it is (it’s a ring on your finger, not a wristband or a headband etc), and that it’s focussed on sleep (it’s not a fitness tracker). We also believe that people who are willing to spend $300 dollars on a sleep tracker, are serious about their data and improving their sleep and their health- and we want to help them. Just to note, we are not affiliated with Oura in any way and promote their product purely because we love using it!
But getting back to how we talk to our users… we can give people surveys and send e-mails but at the end of the day, the candid conversation I have with users really helps me understand them in a way that a survey can’t (I still think questionnaires serve a purpose and have value — we still use them!). I have to admit, part of the reason is a little selfish too. I love meeting new people! I’ve had the chance to chat to dozens of people all over the world and it’s been a great experience. It’s amazing what motivates people to use Oura and their different reasons for wanting to improve.
Based on the feedback we received, we built an ai sleep coach on Telegram Messenger. The hurdle was getting our current users who use the Circles dashboard to download Telegram. We sent a few e-mail updates and created easy step-by-step guides to link Telegram to Circles, but with with a very low conversion rate. A handful of users downloaded it and sent us positive feedback almost right away. So how do we convince the rest to try something new? We were excited, we were confident they would love the feature, they just had to try it.
Our answer was to make it as easy as possible. So last weekend we gave out access to the sleep coach with a simple link, no need to request access (and answer a survey) and no onboarding calls. The results? Our users doubled overnight. And then kept growing… we went from about 40 users to 145. We made it to our first 100, and are beyond excited to keep growing. Most of our existing users (who didn’t download Telegram when we sent them the e-mail update with the guide) took this opportunity and started using the sleep coach too!
Now we’re at the point where we want to balance our growth and our feedback. We can keep growing fast, without onboarding calls but then we miss out on important face time with our users. On the other side of this, we can insist on Zoom calls to onboard users and grow at a very slow rate. We want to be somewhere in the middle, steady growth and sufficient feedback. I realise that not everyone wants to jump onto a video call with a stranger in order to try a product, but there are a good number of people who will.
So our plan now is to keep listening. We want to create something people love and we want to know what that is… And yes, we know this will keep changing and developing, but so will we!
If you already use the Circles
If you already use the Circles dashboard for the Oura Ring and/or the Circles ai sleep coach on Telegram, we want to hear from you! You matter to us! So get in touch, we would love to hear whatever it is you have to say about our product.
You can reach me by:
E-mail
Zoom call (will link to to scheduling calendar)
If you don’t use Circles yet
If you don’t use Circles yet, get access with an onboarding call here, or get immediate access here — please click this link on your mobile device. If you use the immediate option, please share your thoughts with me over E-mail, or schedule a feedback Zoom call with me after trying Circles for a few days.
Thanks for following my story, I will continue to post updates as we make progress with Circles, and as I make progress with my personal health.
I hope you are sleeping well!
Pete
