Hey guys. Today, we talked about how to
lift an idea to an actual product and my guest was
involved in building an app in which researchers are trying to
figure out a better way to treat kids.
With anxiety, today's guests are in the here.
Beyond coating, a dive into. The it from.
Your peers your host, Patrick akhil.
Evan, welcome. Thank you.
How's it going? It's going very well.
Awesome. So I brought you here to talk
about how to lift an idea to a product, right?
A lot of people have a lot of ideas but to productize, but it
out in the market, even to consumers, or to users, that's a
skill. And you have a great example of
how you did that in an app that you've created.
But let's start with the idea. What was the idea and how to get
you. Yeah, that's true.
So it's Really something that I experienced during the
development of this application. And I think that in this
instance that works worked well, I don't think it always works.
Well, if you have an ID to get it actually as a successful
product. Yeah.
In at least a workable product, this idea comes from researcher
dr. Klein from Leiden University and
our company Dry Fork has relations with them.
And they came to us because they go ahead, the grant to develop,
Basically a digital instrument for treating anxiety in
children. Yeah, and anxiety in children is
something that what happens, kind of a lot and it's also
something that can limit you later on in life.
So, for instance, if you are like scared of dogs, you do, you
don't do anything with it. Something that later on, you
will notice that it can give you problems and it's really
unfortunate because it's very easy to treat.
So, And we do have to mention that, it's about specific
anxiety. So, a fear of spiders, fear of
dogs, we are flying and not not force.
Appreciate like a social anxiety or generic anxiety.
Those are harder to treat. Yeah, but really something
specific where you are afraid of, and anxieties, actually
irrational because of course, some dogs are dangerous.
But in general, you shouldn't be super scared of dogs.
Exactly. And basically, there's a There's
a program in the United States which is called one session
treatment. Okay?
And it's a it's a treatment where you have one session with
a therapist. Yeah.
And they help you set up with this treatment and then you go
practice by yourself. So you can practice, basically
exposure for, for instance, for for dogs.
And it's really important that you do this practicing by
yourself and it helps you. And if you compare that, for
instance, to the Netherlands, you can also do a treatment but
you have Go visit the therapist lots of times.
So thanks a lot of time, but it also cost money.
It Insurance have to pay this. So they want to bring over this
one session treatment, basically, to Europe the
Netherlands. A juror, we do it with together
with Germany. Yeah.
But they got the idea that they can support is for instance,
with an app. So with a digital instruments
and of course, everybody has a phone or an iPad so we can we
can build an app to do this and that's what I got the grant for.
So they got money from if these organizations that give money as
to researchers. Yeah.
And that's what they want to use to build the app.
So they come to us with this ID. And basically, the ID was just
this, we want to build an app that's going to help anxiety
treatment, which is like, really, really rough and for us
as a developer's. Yeah, you don't know what to
work with. Exactly.
Usually, when you start a project, there's more
information that you know but roughly what people want or What
you see on your phone and and this was this was basically
okay. We want to build an app and
that's it. That's the start of the start.
Yeah. Started to start and of course
different universities are involved or light and also both
in Germany and one day or were talking to get together.
They also had problems visualizing what what it was
they were talking about, so, okay, they want to build an app,
but what does the app do? And the really rough idea was
was actually quite funny. It's basically an alarm clock
with a chat app. Okay?
Because what you want to do with application is you want to help
children practice. Hmm.
So for instance, you could say, okay, then you want to give a
reminder that they should practice every day.
Yeah, or multiple times a week and at the same time, there's
already an existing treatment with a therapist.
So you think, okay, we need a link with the therapy.
So you need to be able to chat with therapist.
So maybe you can ask a question or they can give you
instructions. Yeah, so that was really the
rough idea where we went from you.
Look at the end result. It's Nothing.
So basically what we started out as we said, okay we need to have
something and it doesn't matter what it is but we need to look
at something and people need to be able to say, okay this
doesn't work or I like this, maybe we can export it so we
just made very rough mock-ups. Yeah, which we already gave to
the Target. Groups are two children and also
the other researchers and also to therapists, okay.
And that already Helped a lot because then you have something
to talk about. So there was indeed mock-ups of
chat screen mock-ups of a notification screen that's
before building anything right before building anything?
This was just, I don't know, PDF on paper or we had it so as
well. Yeah, that was just it and we
did this actually with the development team.
So accompany thought this is a good idea.
We want to help building this. There was not a lot of money
available for the development. They got the grant but But
research is also expensive and you have to do the whole
research project. And so we did the app with two
students which is for us really nice because we usually hire
students to do their internship and then we want them to either
join an existing project or build something.
Yeah, but it's always hard to think.
Okay. What should they built?
It should be something usable, but should also be not a lot of
risk, but yeah, sometimes they don't succeed.
So for us it was a very good opportunity could say, okay, we
can provide Vide resources, we can have if you the students but
they're sure of course, a risk that needs to be finished after
the students are done. Yeah.
And we had these two software. Engineers students were really
nice guys, and me, and that was literally the first thing they
did. They made those mock-ups and
went with them to to all the people involved and that's
awesome. Yeah, then we got caught the
feedback so I think that that was the first thing is If you
don't know how to start. Yeah.
Doesn't matter make something. Yeah, it's complete crap.
If you throw it away? Well, at least you have a
reference, right. I love that because it's don't.
Don't wait until you know how to start.
I just start and get feedback on that and then you'll know which
direction to go. Yeah, I always have problems if
I start with the blank screen. Yeah.
Like I have to make a presentation and then you open
it and yeah. Okay.
Now it's an empty paper. What are you writing down?
Exactly. But then, when you start, you
can direct and be like, no, this doesn't Oh, I think this might
work and just keep testing your assumptions.
Yeah, it does mean that you should be able to throw stuff
away, which is also if you invest time, especially if you
invest. Well, if you build something
technical, thanks a lot of effort.
You should be able to throw it away.
That's hard for you, but you guys, you guys threw away then
that initial idea with the alarm clock in the chat.
Yeah. So basically, well, I can
briefly explain what it does now and yeah, we'll see.
The contrast. Basically, it's still an
application, on your phone and your login, and basically, it's
a list of exercises. The exercises are all personal.
So something that you think of for yourself with your
therapist, and then you put them in the application.
Yeah. And then the app helps you to do
these exercises. So you can choose the level of
the exercise. So for instance, if you have to
pet a dog, you can bet one dog or pet it for 5 minutes, better
to 10 minutes, but it for 15 minutes there's Levels in which
you can do the task where? Yeah, and you can complete the
exercise successfully or unsuccessfully just a little bit
of a questionnaire and you get rewards for the exercises and we
wash can then be spent in store, and basically, you can buy
real-world products, okay? So, apparently, at one of the
things we had to learn this as well, because we are software
engineers, and this is anxiety treatment, which is not my
field. So we really had to learn how
that works from the researchers. Yeah, but There's literature
that says if you want to get rid of your fears, you have to do
it. You have to approach it in a
personal way. So basically we can both be
afraid of dogs but in a completely different way, okay?
It's, it's not that if you are afraid of dogs and your walk, a
dog every day, then after a month, you're done.
It's it depends completely on the person.
Yeah, but also, in the level of exposure, you want to do some
people will immediately be able to walk a dog and some people
even need to look at pictures of dogs, okay?
Able to walk a dog. So that's why the exercise the
personal but also the rewards are personal.
Yeah and and like I said, they're real world of rewards
because we really want to give them something that they feel.
They they are rewards. If you give like a digital
picture of a sticker it's not really that exactly doesn't stay
valuable. Yeah, so it's going to be a can
be really simple things. It can be a book if they were
like certain book, they can say, okay, if I walk the dog for a
week and I can buy a book Nice. The parents then have to buy the
book of course. Oh yeah, you need the parents to
be involved. Yeah.
But yeah, that that worked because they they own the
process. They can think of.
Okay, what do you think is valuable for me if I did
something? Yeah, they learned that if you
do something that's hard that you can reward yourself, but you
can also choose how you to reward yourself.
Yeah, for me, that was really good inside because it works.
I think that For other things as well.
Yeah. If I have something that I want
to do, or I have to do and it's hard for me, but if I reward
myself with it, it becomes easier.
Yeah. It's that incentive.
That, that didn't even exist in the initial idea.
Now, Justice does not there. Yeah, and the exercises were not
there and the store was so the service.
Also to the and also one aspect is they they take videos and
pictures of kind of a Diaries. There's a diary function that
was also bleeding. Not there.
Yeah, because it also helps if you watch back the experience if
it was a positive experience. Yeah.
So there's multiple ways that you can conquer fear.
One of the things is basically habituation.
So if you fear of giving presentations, yeah, on a stage.
But if you do it really often and you watch back and you see
that you did well. Okay.
The fear goes away. Yeah.
So they're watching back a video of you walking a dog helps with
your fear. It helps better than Welcome to
duck. So that's also one component
that came up. Yeah.
During yeah, during the whole process, basically.
So that's for me, the, the initial ID and the end result
it's night and day completely. But how do you get?
Because you reference some part from literature right in in
getting personal Rewards or gradually going through all the
difficulties in either petting, a dog for a short duration or
longer one but you didn't start out with that knowledge.
Did you go to? For example, the more literal R2
part of your stakeholders, instead of the kit side and
figure out that way I have to get that knowledge.
That was really a combination of all these things.
We because at one at one side, we are building an application
for kids. So we have to make sure that we
build something they like, yeah, it in the other end.
The gold initially idea is that there's a theory that must be
validated by using the app. Yeah, host.
They are now going to use the app in an experiment and there
will be a comparison to groups and then they were actually
Whether the app works or not. So normally you build something
for an end user for the end, and that's it, right?
The end user will use the app and now you tell something for
science exactly going to do an experience, but they're still
uses so it's that was more complicated.
So, that's true. We we had the children involved,
but we also had the researchers involved from Leiden University
from Boston University, and the original guy who thought of the
one session treatment in the u.s.
American professor. Sir.
Yeah. And they all got the application
on their device. So they were able to go through
the application or the version we had at that moment.
And I were also be able to give the feedback and guide us to
what we have to do. Or and what what we can do those
as a developer, you sometimes think over a user.
It would be easier to not have two similar questions.
Yes, that was one of the things that came up there was one
question. Ian, they both asked about the
anxiety level you experienced, but one asked during and one
asked after, and these questions were just after each other.
So I said, if you get those questions and they're almost the
same, how can you make a distinguish between them?
But the researchers told us we have to put that in there
because we want to validate the difference between the anxiety
during the exercise and the anxiety after exercise because
apparently, there's a theory that there is some client
Decline and like the speed of decline has to go up.
The more you practice this the sooner faster has to go down.
Yeah, something like that. So it's really was important to
if you think about something or if a child comes up with an ID
to take that ID and go to the researchers and say okay we have
this idea. Yeah.
Does it work or does it? Is it fell it according to your
the thing you want to experience everything you want to research
or the existing literature? Yeah so that's that was a
balancing act. Yeah.
And the third thing was we also went into the literature
ourselves but more in our field. So for instance, important
aspect of the application is that we need to motivate the
children to do the exercises but also to keep using the app.
Yes. If they get bored or what's the
point? Yeah.
What's the point doesn't work? So there's an interesting
website called psychology of games and they do like articles
where they basically refuel bunch of scientific literature
and make it more accessible because I'm a software developer
and I have a University degree but I don't like reading papers.
That's really abstract and yeah, really specific.
So I really like to read this overviews where people were at a
couple of papers and a explain, what happened?
And on psychology of games, there's a website and our page
and basically the explain why batches and achievements work.
Yeah. And that's really was really
interesting for me because it's something that that you see a
lot. Play video games.
Yeah, it's in there. I think the last 10 years it's
become a really standard. Yeah like the skin or acquired
by your skin and I get so much events and show it on your
profile. Yeah.
I got platinum in this game. This kind of thing.
Yeah. But also in learning apps like
Duolingo. Hmm.
They also have a really a big achievement scheme going on and
depending on what kind of achievements you will lock.
You can do order order exercises in order to us.
And that website or that, that article that I reference really
explains how it works. And it works on different
levels, which I didn't expect. I thought it was more like
superficial, like you get an achievement and you're happy
that you got it, you show it to someone and that's basically it.
Yeah, but there's, there's also details like, for instance, we
want to children to do exercises, but if you tell a
child do exercises, how many is they are they going to do one or
two or three? And for us, the goal was that
they finished the game. So it's basically I think like
something like 20 exercises as a minion.
Yeah. So if you make an achievement
that says due to any exercises, the chances that they are going
to do. Those 2nd exercise has become
much higher than if you make an achievement itself.
Do exercise. Exactly.
And it's so simple if you read it like this.
Oh yeah. But yeah before and we had no
idea. How are we going to use these
mechanisms? Yeah so that really helped us
and I really learned from this. Yeah.
Basically this I can imagine like you really sound like you
own the domain now, like the way you explain the reward system,
the point system, even the the literature in kind of conquering
those fears. And that the kids need to go
through both personalized, right, because standardized for
some reason, doesn't work not every few years the same, you
really own that domain and in other organizations, there's a
lot more stakeholders and layers involved for the developers to
interact with their end users. In that way, it's completely
different. Current and it sounds like you
kind of found The Sweet Spot in in dealing with your
stakeholders. Getting that information and
implementing in the app in such a way that you can get that fast
feedback. That's something that when I
start a project and of course, every time you start a project,
you want to make it better than the last one.
Yeah, you always want to do it in a way that you're really
attached to the user and preferably get the feedback from
the actual user. Yeah but somehow in practice I
have I think like 15 years of development.
Yeah, I only experience that a couple of times.
Yeah, in practice it seems to be harder to.
There's always a layer in between you're just like the
client who doesn't want you to talk to the user or your secret.
They build something and they want to keep it a secret for the
competitor. Yeah.
And in this specific instance, we were yeah we had we basically
did it completely, we did for free.
We can say that we did for free, but that also meant we could
say. OK, if We do it like this.
We want to try stuff out. Yeah I have that ownership.
Yeah. After ownership of the process
do it in a way that we think that this is going to be
helpful. Yeah.
And they the people that wanted us to build the app were
completely fine with that. They really wanted to get the
app in the hands of the children.
Yeah and they actually became part of the development team
which is also funny to see if so if you if you are able to build
a quick feedback cycle and of course Tonight, but it's
probably easier than with water system systems are just too
complex to do that if you build an app.
You can really just make something use Frameworks that
you can build something quickly and also get it in a like a test
app store or a test flight. For instance, for Apple.
Yeah, you can just give them the phone and they got the latest
version of the app. And yeah, they have it, they can
use it and we yeah, we emulated the environment in which they
were using it but of course we didn't use children with that
actual fear. So they did it for household
chores which is kind of funny. So they put in They have to do
the dishes, for instance, as a task, and then they got a
reward. And then they, I think they went
to the movie theater and a nice. We gave them some books as well,
those kind of things. So the children were they really
liked it. They saw this, they actually
told us, I wish I had to fear for something that could use it
in the actual way, which is, it's kind of funny, but so, but
because we so, we did like, two-week Sprints, I think, and
not every two weeks, we At least the version but quite frequently
and they automatically get this version and they use it and then
we did interviews with them. So we actually just put the
phone on the table. What I put on the table and went
through it with them and they're really good.
Say it like, okay, for instance, in the beginning, they set these
notifications, don't make any sense to me.
Okay, got a couple of motivate notifications a day, but I click
on them. I just see a list of
notifications. It's very much noise for us, so
we completely abandoned it. Okay, so modification ID based
on that and we thought okay we have to make a structure.
Hmm, the apps should basically give the structure which the
child has in its hat. It should not be like a bunch of
notifications. It should really be like
exercise. Want to reform and medal bronze
medal, gold or reversed the road.
Yeah, should be. Yeah, you should take them
through to the back, basically, through the therapy.
Yes, I did know where to begin and they know where it ends.
Yeah, so that was something that We learned from from working
with them, but they also sometimes thought of things and
we didn't know for sure if that was allowed by the literature by
the researchers, or that was with the program.
But it was really hard to get feedback.
If you are part of a process, you know, the initial ideas, you
work with the children and then they help you develop the app.
But it also means that they owned the features basically
they, okay. I want this page to be there.
And if you then don't do it and they get the next version.
Hey, I told you to that screen. Not a page, what happened?
Yeah, so that meant, we had another group of children.
Okay, where we did Pilots with. So do these were not, they
didn't get frequent updates. We Run The the yeah.
Basically the same as we would use it in treatment but then
shorter like for a week for instance.
Yeah. And they were able to use an app
that I didn't know. Yeah.
Just a friend. Perspective.
We got a fresh perspective X. Love that.
Yeah, so completely different to kind of feedback and you can
actually, then validate if the choice or original choice was
okay. Yeah.
That helped a lot but it's something that we didn't realize
in the beginning, in the beginning with just thought,
okay, we need to involve these user but then when you involve
them and what then what how do you how do you know?
Yeah, but you produce is still valid.
I get that you've mentioned. Sometimes you didn't know that
in the beginning but you did Make these steps and take these
steps to integrate into kind of shift.
Either your process or the product that you were building.
Did you make those decisions as a group, or did someone just be
like, well, I think we need this and try things out and see if
they go. Yeah, I think that was we were
really flat as a group. Yeah, which is, it is funny
because I work with two students and, of course, I have a lot of
experience and they just start out.
And then you have these researchers which are basically
experts their domain. So I'm not the person that going
to tell you something about anxiety.
I'm so right. And you know, exactly but still,
if you're working together closely, I think and you deal
with this product together, it becomes easier to discuss things
even if you have different experience, levels or different
backgrounds. Yeah, so definitely wanted Putin
said that yeah, it would be nice if he can I don't know if
validated with the with another group of people or maybe we
should make some more mock-ups. Yeah, that was definitely
appreciated and that happened a lot.
And that actually is something that I also took to my current
project. Okay, I'm not building an app
right now, but I do think we have a relation where where we
can equally discuss the impending if you're a junior
software engineer or your product owner, or your CTO even,
yeah, it's nice. If you have that environment.
Yeah, if everybody just can and can speak their mind.
And I like it. When, when students or Junior
Engineers, join a project that they come with this fresh fresh
set of eyes because they come from University now, or college,
and it has changed and the time, and they completely have a
different approach to life. Even, I don't want to say I'm
old, but there's definitely a different perspective for people
who start out on. Working now depending if you
compare it like 15 years ago yeah there's not there's not a
right or a wrong perspective, right?
It's just an opinion. And at some point you say well
we think this is the best one. We're going to test it.
See if it works. If yes.
Great doesn't matter who it comes from because it's still a
group, right? And as a group as a team you go
towards that goal, I love that you say, quote, hierarchy wise
doesn't matter really who you are what your level of expertise
is because we're doing this together, and it's kind of a
team setting in that way. That also explains why in an
organization where there is a bit more hierarchy and a lot
more communication, a lot more people involved.
It's harder to do that. Yeah for me it depends really on
the project if it's if it's possible at all and whether it
will work. Yeah.
So if you gave you have done multiple projects, you always
have these ups and downs and sometimes it works very well to
work in a hierarchical way. But yeah if you experience it
that everybody is able to provide input for me that it
feels better. Yeah, that makes sense and also
a lot of times because we work in a complex field a lot of
times we just don't know what to do.
We have a problem or you want to make something or build
something, and there's different options and people, sometimes
people are more religiously like take a programming language.
Some people say you have to build it in this order, Billy.
I have to build in that and in the end, it does not really
matter. No.
So I don't know where I got it from.
But it wasn't some kind of someone's presentation
conference talk. And he said, if you have a
problem you discuss it and you discuss the pros and cons.
Yeah. And then you can make a decision
but sometimes it keeps being a discussion so you keep going in
circles. Yeah, and done.
It doesn't matter which one you choose because probably because
there's so much discussion both are valid or not.
Yeah. So you can choose either one You
just have to be prepared to switch to the other one, if it
doesn't work. So you can just say, we don't
know. We have a discussion.
We don't know which one is good. We check a randomly.
Yeah, but we evaluated for maybe one Sprint now, if it doesn't
work, we have to switch to the other.
Yeah. And that makes it far easier to
make decisions. Yeah, because sometimes it's
just a matter of going in circles and depending on who you
talk to there will be a good answer.
Yeah. But it's not really, you don't
really have to Feeling that. Okay, we have to do a Sounds
really easy, right? If you can just say.
Okay, let's pick one. Yeah, that's so relatable.
In a lot of discussions, you might just be going on in
circles and because of that, you're stuck, right?
Unless someone actually picks one of the two and as you lay it
out, when our discussion happens, like that probably both
of them. You could pick just check and
make sure that what you pick is good for the cause that you need
it. In other words, pivot to the
other one and test if that one works.
Yeah. I think you have to be aware of
that one. Yeah, but it also means that
there An environment of failure, right?
Well, failure as possible at least.
Yeah, that makes sense. Also something that's hard but
you it comes up more and more than people say you should be
able to fail because otherwise you cannot learn.
Yeah. And of course if you have a
project and it takes a lot of money and you want to be there
first, you cannot say we build something for a year and and
then notice we built around things.
So yeah, I don't think you can say, Okay, failure is always an
option. You can, you can, like make may
be compacted right? If you set the boundaries and
say okay, We spent two weeks on it and then if you notice, it's
the wrong team. Yeah, then it was only two
weeks. Yeah.
So then I think it definitely works, but be aware that the
yeah, throw away again. Like you said in the beginning,
you should be able to throw away stuff.
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, when you mentioned all
the way in the beginning, when the researchers came to you,
with this idea, did you already have this kind of structure idea
of how you want to approach this?
Or did you also try things along the way and see what worked
process wise, for example, you mentioned having kids Kind of
the involved in the process of developing the app or getting
the app as soon as possible in their hands, did you already
have an idea of how you wanted to do that?
Or did you try things out? So I cannot completely say that
from the beginning. I had this planned out.
Yeah I get that just too much credit.
Actually I was kind of a little bit worried in the beginning.
Yeah because I always find it hard if people don't know what I
want, if I want to build stuff but I want to know what I should
be. And I'm also not really a person
of like a An interpreter ship or something?
This. Yeah.
So for me it's also bit hard to imagine what it should be.
So in the beginning I really struggled.
Okay? A lot wit with okay, we need a
nap and it helps treating anxiety.
Yeah, yeah, I really, really struggled with that.
The good thing is that the principal investigator?
So the one person with the idea that the got, the grant already
had tidy to involve the children.
So, yeah, came from them, which is really good.
And they also basically, They have to write the project
structure before they got the grant.
So you have to kind of indeed already tell that the ground to
the ground provider and that you're going to use children to
help you. And what I just and big groups
are. Yeah, so that came from them.
So that already helped. And going from there, it was
like, okay, if we have two children that help us, what are
we going to do? How are we going to involve
them? So we thought, okay, we have to
do a workshop at what's a workshop.
If you do a workshop with adults it gets sticky notes, right?
Yeah. Some kind of format where you
write something, but only one put down.
People follow them. Take that.
Ya got that approach but children don't really at least,
I think it's 11:53. Okay.
That's kind of a big age range because 7 is Young.
Yeah, but 12 is almost at all in some cases so that was all that
was also something that we had to work with.
Yeah. So then we thought, okay, we
have to there's only one option we have to give them The thing
that we are building and then they can provide feedback.
So yeah. Yeah.
It gradually came from from that angle and that we combined of
course with yeah. Did the way we used to work is
small iterations and what are you doing, scrum or something?
That look like it. Some small iterations, where you
preferably have something finished after for instance, two
weeks. Yeah.
I'm not like a half products but really something that you can
use. Yeah.
And Paper. That story sounds like a good
idea practice. Again, if you have a big project
and there's lots of features and then it's always a little bit
harder because you build something, but then, you know.
Okay, I have to log in and you need to database and we need to
test environment. Oh yeah.
All these things come together and then two weeks becomes a
three months. Yeah, and with these children,
we really were forced. Okay, we have to do something.
Okay, that's start bit more cups.
It's easiest. Yeah, just yeah.
Something as soon as possible. Yeah.
And then the second step was. Okay, let's get an app framework
that we can use to build an app quickly without a without a back
end. You just have the app show that
and it was also people talk about multiple viable product,
for instance, which is something that you can take really far
once a word phrase years ago. Who said, if you want to build a
web store, just have a list with list of products and Or email
address? Yeah, it's enough.
That's a web show. I can't eat anymore.
And of course that's like a raging, but you can still do it.
We could still could still have a successful app.
If the only thing it did was give a daily reminder.
That said, you now have to do exercise one and you have to do
extra has two and then the exercises would just be in
paper. Yeah, so that was basically our
fallback, right? So nice.
And we thought if it doesn't work the product, the the app
development because It's a complicated or we work with
students. We get done, cat is working.
Okay, we just do this thing daily reminders with the number
which exercise and we just give it to them on paper and that's
actually what our client proposed and that really gave us
a sense of relief because that means that whatever you do the
thing that you have to deliver is worth maybe one or two weeks
and that means if you have that full pack, you can then take
more risks, you can then go on and go in a direction and say,
okay, now we need to Backtrack a bit.
Yeah. So that gave us a big sense of
relief if you have that full back and it of course it sounds
really stupid because it's just actually the 99% of the a piece
of paper and up dust only a little bit of.
Yeah, start with it. The ID helped us.
Yeah, I can imagine that. It's it's probably such a relief
in the way that things that you're doing and also in the
decision-making, right? Because I don't know if this is
true. So correct me if I'm wrong but
there was probably a time frame in which you needed to deliver
the app that was agreed upon. On with the people that gave the
Grant in, which there was some kind of time pressure in
delivering, what needed to deliver.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's definitely true. There's from from the grant
perspective, there's a time frame but also because you make
agreements with other universities and the people that
do the therapy need to be trained.
So there's actual therapists using this app and they need to
be trained with the app and that's all part of the bigger
project. Yeah.
So definitely there was an end it I think we did it.
We did here or something roughly, OK, monster a year.
Something that was the time frame.
Yeah. And that's also kind of lines up
with an internship. Most internships are like nine
months. That's nice.
Yeah. Went for the students.
I was also yeah that's an amazing project to work on as a
student and as well yeah they liked it a lot that we used it
as like in the job advertisement or we're going to build this app
and it will be used by a real real children with real research
and yeah, That's what I really liked and it's good to build
something for a specific group. So yeah gives more.
How do you say most makes more concrete?
Yeah, if you know that it has to be for a child that has a
specific fear and it's between this and this age.
Yeah, it's kind of gives you a purpose or what you're doing.
Yeah, and sometimes that is lacking if you're doing it for
an End, customer who you don't even speak to face to face in
the end. Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, and the way you did it to me like, as an engineer, it kind
of sounds like the Holy Grail. Of how the process should be
right. Getting the product, as fast as
possible live in the hands of the user, even though it's not
even finished. It's just an MVP and getting
that feedback testing the assumptions iterating new
version and just go as you go. So I love hearing that.
Yeah. I think from that perspective,
it was definitely something that that was very good to
experience. Yeah.
Thank you want to build it in this certain way and if you
involve the people it was still for me.
It was like the first time I really did it like this.
And you also notice, then that your, you have to cut Corners a
little bit on other things that you normally do.
Like, for instance, normally I would spend more time on quality
assurance. Yeah.
Yeah, if you do like continues, deliveries stuff like that.
That you really have an automatic test set and it's
really hard and it's secure and reliable.
Yeah. And I think we spent a lot of
effort getting building the thing that we wanted for the
children. Yeah.
But then in the end we still had a lot of bucks left.
Not like not like an extreme amount but she still needed some
work like shit behind your computer and just fix those box
which is yeah it's good. Learn.
It's good to see that you can do stuff in a certain way and it's
not perfected. It's hard to get things.
Perfect. Exactly.
There's lots of aspects and you want to make something that's
reliable and secure our videos way?
You want to give it to the user soon?
Yeah, and yeah, it's a balancing act and I think you learn from
both kind of way. So I learned from the projects,
I do where I make something super reliable, but takes a bit
more time. And you also learn from the
projects where you get something to the user fast, but you cut
some corners and then probably you have to do something in
between for the next. Project.
Yeah. So you're always learning from
these things and I can definitely do not say this was
the most perfect project, but in terms of user involvement, I
would say. Yeah.
This was a good experience. Yeah, I love hearing that.
There's always a scale in which you operate, right?
Can either be cutting corners and getting it as fast as
possible? And maybe this might have been
the project in which that was necessary giving the time frame
and it's still a proof of concept that they're going to
test. So cutting Corners in quality.
Might then be pretty okay because it's not We used maybe
five years down the line. Might have a completely new
version or a new iteration, which doesn't involve the
initial proof of concept that definitely fine.
Yeah, it's also that something some things you just have to ask
because we were like, okay, if this is used by a lot of users
and then we need to make sure that the back end is able to
handle it that because we have it, how many children are going
to participate and how many are going to be in the app condition
and then turned out that it was only a handful.
Yeah. And then it's like okay but then
you don't have to bake super scalable backend and even if
Something goes wrong. You can manually fix it.
Yes, of just a handful of users. It's completely different than.
If you have thousands transactions per minute, when
something fails in Thousand protection for permanent.
You still, you end up with lots of data?
Yeah, corruption. But if something fails with only
five users, yeah, that's a great point.
Just make sure in what scope they're gonna.
So you have to check this. Yes.
Yeah. How shoot you basically scale
the app for that and sometimes, yeah, it's not needed at all.
You can make it yeah. Cut your Madeira, where it's
less pain. Yes.
Yeah the completely makes sense. So now you've developed this
idea into a product and then I'm going to test it kind of A/B
test with. So the that's now the plan
there. So they are now recruiting
actual children with an anxiety. Yeah.
And then they're going to make two groups and basically one
with one without. Yeah.
And then run run the run.
The project also do the whole thing, probably.
I think it will take around five weeks or so.
Okay, please the whole thing a little bit.
Depending how much you do of course.
Yeah. And then they are, they have to
analyze and write everything down and it will take of course
a while because research this works with a different time for.
Yeah laughter. Yeah.
That's to be processed. Have to submit it and then you
can publish it. Hopefully, if it's good and
that's actually that's actually funny because all the people
involved say, okay, where can we download it?
Oh yeah, especially therapist I did this.
Good instrument, that want to have it.
And it's it is in the App Store, but you cannot really use it
because it has to be with the therapist.
Yeah, can download it with. The name is Kiba, you can find
it but it's not unique really useful.
But of course the idea is the eventual goal was to build
something that can be used by people, but it has to be
validated first, but exactly. So the world around the app is
really excited to use it, but need a little bit of time to.
Yeah, validate of that, which is good.
I think as well. Yeah.
I mean That's that's the only way, right?
Even in start-up, you build an MVP and you validate your
product before you throw some more money at it and do the
whole shebang. Yeah.
In personalizing both the rewards and the things that kids
do that's still the the initial conversation you have right with
the therapist. Yeah, yeah.
That's part of the the first session.
Yeah, they said basically sit down together and have to write
it down the exercise? Yeah, the mess that the also
influenced, how many exercises? Because in the beginning we had
lots of Exercise has been thinking of all these exercise
writing them out Downs, just takes some time.
Yeah, but I was actually one of the things that was validated
during the feedback sessions. If they have to think of all the
exercises, how can we make sure we have enough content in a
short amount of time? That's where we came up with.
That idea is if you think of a task you can you can basically
do it in three levels. Now you only have to think of
the task once but you already have three exercises.
So, you triple the exercises only for free?
Which is the other, I really like that, that that those
things that those details that you cannot imagine how it would
work or how to twerk. Yeah.
But if you if you do it, that's been an expert is there as well.
And they can say okay. But if we say OK, we do 5
minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Yeah, we have three exercises in
that direction. Yeah, I was, I was wondering
what kind of final question. I have is so you've laid out the
things you've learned on a process level also on a
practicality level, right? It went in that conversation in
robustness. Where's the speed of delivery
and a bit of stakeholder Management in kind of testing
assumptions and validating and in dealing with kids and
researchers? At the same time, what do you
think is the the most important takeaway you've had in that last
year of the app development? Or is it hard to choose?
Because I can imagine that as a really hard question, but I
definitely think that working with the tangible thing.
Yeah, helped us the most so it's something that I Try to take in.
Yeah, in my the rest of my work that if you have a discussion
about something is really helps if you can look at the thing you
discussing. Yeah.
Just hold it. Touch it.
Yeah. Yeah.
I don't know. I did you pansies to is it the
process or is the mock-up or is it an app or is the website?
There's always a possibility to yeah, to make something, get
something together and then and it can even be flow him stick
his own. A wall is still.
I think that you can point out With the mock-ups you started
initially with. Yeah.
And, and 44 program or process things is things.
We did not indeed this project in other projects where we
basically had a similar problem. We don't know what people want.
A different people want different things.
What happens a lot is that there is money.
There's a problem. Yeah.
People think oh we have to spend this money on that problem and
that's that's the only thing you have.
Yeah something that's called event storming by about oh
Brenda Leigh. Any is basically people just
stick things that happen in the world on the wall and everything
is allowed. That's really what I like.
Everyone can put things that you don't have to be technical, you
don't have to be CEO. Everyone can contribute.
And then once these things are on the wall, people can just
point at it and say, okay, we don't do it like that or we
should do it like that or I would like different and because
you see them hanging on the wall, it gives you something to
look at. And it doesn't basically doesn't
matter what this. Yeah.
As long as you have a point of reference that you can go from.
I love that answer. Then we're not just talking
about concept, but then you can actually see what's happening.
Instead of it just being in your head, you can point on it and be
like, well this is actually not the way but this is the right
way. I've done this workshop at
clients and it happened that after 2 hours which I thought,
okay, we are not going to do this project.
We are completely clear about how it should work.
And yeah, it doesn't make any sense to spend any money, and,
and they were happy. Yeah, it's only Two hours.
Instead of, I don't know a year or two years.
Yeah, basically help awesome. I love it, man.
Aaron, thank you for coming on. Thank you very much.
I love your story. Love it a lot.
So that's that's rounded off there.
Then cool air in the feed, everyone.
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