Days and nights of hard work, sacrificing a lot of immediate gratifications, not attending lots of friendly gathering, not sharing funny quotes or memes in our social media. All were done to keep us focused on our goal; to get this massive project done. We did it eventually. We made both iOS and Android apps ready to get beta tested.
Disclaimer: I deliberately chose not to mention the actual names (the project, the company, countries, etc.) as I signed an NDA. However, we, in the company, decided to disclose the apps’s tagline at this point for the purpose of this post.
We registered our business entity somewhere that wasn’t our home country. We managed to get all certificates and licenses we needed to get officially recognized as a promising international startup company. It wasn’t easy, especially when some of your team members are from nationalities that are heavily restricted by US sanctions. However, with the exorbitant cost of time, money, energy, assuring correspondence, and constant cooperation with officials, we did this too.
We had been dreaming all this time of this big launch party, where we would release our sweat work, where we would tell our story.
And 2020 arrived…
We are in one of the most challenging times we have experienced ever since we started this project. It’s somehow started for me a couple of months earlier when I realized that I could no longer stay in my home country where I was most comfortable.
I had been traveling a lot between my home country and where most of my team members were based during the project development. Yet, I always preferred working remotely from my place in my home country.
But sometime in November (2019), I had come to this conclusion that It was about time I moved my workstation. It was about time I moved somewhere where I no longer need to worry about my Internet connection stability. I’m not too fond of talking excuses, and believe me, these were not small little extras that you can dismiss.
The Problem
Moving between countries took time, and the global situation got critical. Some countries worst than others. All of a sudden, the Coronavirus epidemic hit our launch plan, in the worst possible way we could ever imagine. To help you understand the magnitude of its effect on our app release plan, I just reveal the app’s tag line that reads:
” Let’s get together! “
Our Feelings
Well, it sucks. It hurts, and it doesn’t matter. Probably a lot of people have started judging us already. We just hope they will never experience our shoes.
Our Reaction
Timing is no joke when It comes to business projects. Concerning the abovementioned events, we decided to put off some parts of our plan and change the execution order of steps defined in our timeline.
It is indeed impractical to perform a thorough beta test in current world circumstances with Coronavirus fears. Therefore, it’s highly unlikely that we release the app in the first quarter of 2020. We’re not even sure if the situation could turn in the first half of 2020.
We continue the development of the app by implementing the next set of planned features. Also, we are going to perform another private testing involving much more real-world end-users than the first one. However, we are yet to see if we can call that a real beta test and if we can make some public testings alongside as well. We continue moving forward until we feel the timing is right.
We worked really hard, and we are not going to jeopardize the project by taking inconsiderate actions. We still are firm believers in the bright future. We never give up on our dreams. We are looking forward to the first opportunity that we can confidently perform a public beta test and, subsequently, the public launch.
Till the next update, stay safe.
Cheers!