Learning from SXSW

Wow. That was a blast. Our team just got back from Austin, where we had quite the weekend hanging out at South by Southwest.

Over a few short days, we gave away thousands of grilled cheese sandwiches, cups of beer, VIP tickets to parties, t-shirts, temporary tattoos, stickers, buttons, lighters, and hats to GroupMe users… and in return, we got your feedback. We wanted to hear about what you liked and didn’t like, and figure out what we can do to make it better.

Today, we’re going to talk about some of the most common pain points we heard, and tell you about what we’re going to do about them.

Here’s what you want from us:

• A better onramp for users receiving SMS invites. This is really important to us. It’s hard to communicate to new users what GroupMe is, how it works, and how to use it in just 160 characters at a time, but this is one of our highest priorities. If you have specific suggestions, send them our way!
• International support. We’re working to make this happen as quickly as possible… and we’ll be ready to release it very soon. If you’re interested in helping us test, send an email to international@groupme.com and we’ll keep you updated on what we’re doing. 
• Easier ways to start a group from the app. Lots of you like the process of starting a group in the app, but wish it was a little faster. We’re playing a lot with the user interface of the apps as we speak, and hope to make this the easiest process possible. Stay tuned!
• A web interface for chatting. This is also something we’re interested in doing sooner rather than later. One thing we’re worried about, though, is that people tend to type messages on a computer much faster than people receiving text messages will want to receive them. We’re testing a few different things, but would love your input: catch us on Twitter or send an email. 

We’d like to thank everyone who came by, talked to us, and gave us this invaluable advice and feedback.

But… we want more!

If you used GroupMe at SXSW, we’d really appreciate it if you filled out this brief survey to tell us about your experience with it. It’ll make future versions of the product so much better. Thank you in advance!