Engineering process Build it Make it pretty Ship it Make it fast Make
it
work Add
tests Finalize
design
and
user
experience Verify
and
measure
usage Scaling
OVERALL: SUCCESS Surveyed millions of people. Collected millions of records. Could have validated product interest with merchant using sample and survey data PURCHASE FEEDBACK Could have validated with consumers before building
MISSED TARGET Tested on a small set of deals (good) Failed to achieve a statistically significant increase in purchase conversion. QUICK CHECKOUT Removed code
MISSED TARGET Learned we typically had the maximum inventory from hotels Purchase conversion from wait list subscribers was < 10%. WAIT LIST FEATURE Learned the majority of deals do not sell out Small opportunity, removed code.
DID NOT LAUNCH Working with third-party added extra time to our development speed LOYALTY PRODUCT Could have validated riskiness assumptions first (merchant enrollment)
ESCAPES NEW DEVELOPMENT Manually loading inventory Building piece by piece (air, packaged tours, mobile) Deferring merchant payment project while working with hotels that don’t require it Starting small
CONCLUSION Validate riskiest assumptions first Use a/b testing for optimization and new product development Optimize for iteration speed and quick recovery Test small ideas with big potential Make customer validation your primary goal