Hi!

Now that the dust has settled from the Instagram battle, we're looking ahead at how to solidify our new value proposition to our users, how to market said value proposition while we finish up the last remaining features before our full launch which is scheduled in the summer.

To comment on the last part first, there's always been an internal struggle in the company as to how "perfect" we want everything to be before we launch. But as Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn) said: " If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late."

So our compromise is simple: The features we currently have are actually enough, but to keep everyone happy, we have a couple of more to add before launching. This doesn't mean that our backlog gets erased, it simply means that it becomes just that: a backlog. A list of tasks and features needed to be implemented after the release. There are a lot of technical improvements to be made, loading times which could be reduced, UX improvements and not least UI.

The latter is what we're focusing on in the time before release. We're finalizing a contract to get our UI and UX overhauled in time for the launch, and implementation of this will be the most important thing before the launch. Yes, loading times as well, but they are not critical, just mildly annoying at times.

So, on to the main point of this post. Over the years, we've put a lot of thought into how to onboard new users. How do we show them the value of Steem, and their own potential within it? How do we convince someone that their voice needs to be heard on another platform, a more free and just platform?

Well, our experience dictates that we don't. We can, but it takes a lot of time and a lot of following up to ensure their satisfaction. We need to explain everything about Steem, Steem Power and Steem Backed Dollars and the relationship between them. Then we need to explain the market mechanisms and why they even get paid here. Then we need to calm them down when they ask us why their post initially made $5 but now they only have $3 in their account. All of these hurdles create friction for the user. And friction is the one thing we do not want to provide our customers. It has to be smooth, no matter what.

Which leads to our new project: "Deegram-onboarding"

People have talked about guest accounts, light accounts, the possibility of creating sub-accounts that post for us and when they have made enough Steem for their own user account then we can just allow them. Why not make it a lot simpler and make it an ongoing posting series from our official account? I can't find a good reason not to, so that's what we're doing. We've been hypothesizing and thinking about this for too long now, it's time for action.

It works simply: We scour the internet for people we know (or don't know) that has potential in here. Either by their writing, their imagery, videos or audio. We then re-post their content (sometimes after we translate them, as our network is mainly Norwegian) to Steem with the pre-fix "Deegram-onboarding" and the tag "Deegramonboarding". This allows traceability for the posts, and it allows the rest of Steem to know which posts are what from us.

Hopefully, these posts gain some traction and it shows the users that they should join. We then approach them, and if they do decide to join, we will use their earnings to create and power up their account so they get a good start.

One important thing here: When we at Deegramofficial post with the prefix "Deegram-onboarding", it is very important that you cast your votes carefully. Even though we love all of our followers, we do not want the onboarding posts to provide the potential new users a false image of their potential. It needs to be genuine. So if you're following us, we're very grateful for every upvote we get, and I normally wouldn't tell you not to vote for us. But with the onboarding posts, only vote if you actually believe this user is a positive addition to Steem.

I don't know if this needs any further explanation at this point, but feel free to ask any questions and provide any criticism you have! We need to think out of the box here, and we believe this is a good way to do it.

The first post in this series will be coming this weekend.

Steem on!