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Comment RSSThe Value of Iterating
June 9, 2010 # 8:02 am # JibJab, Polaris Venture Partners, pepsico, stickybits # One CommentOne of the most exciting things about working with early stage companies is having the conversation about iterating on the product and/or pivoting on the business model. In the Polaris Venture Partners portfolio we have had a number of companies successfully go through this process. Notably was JibJib which started out as a “portal” for humor and as mentioned in a previous post now has a very successful ecommerce business.
This week another one of our companies stickybits announced their recent product and business model enhancements which will enable the company to work more closely with brands. Headlining this was the signing of pepsico 
as the first strategic partner who will attach “official bits” to their products. learn more here. Billy Chasen and Seth Goldstein the founders of stickybits originally thought that the “secret sauce” was enabling consumers to purchase packets of stickybits and attach them to any physical object. Soon after launch it became evident that the consumer was more interested in scanning existing bar codes on CPG items and attaching photos and comments. The brands also responded saying that they wanted tools to promote their own content and interact directly with users scanning their products.
Yesterday stickybits released its latest version which incorporates this feedback. There are three key improvements:
- official bits: now the owners of bar codes can dynamically pin their most important content to the top. Using the code manager, the owner can choose different content such as videos and games to promote to users scanning their products.
- voting: users can now vote up or down the content that other users have attached to codes, so that the best content rises to the top. This provides a social incentive for people to add great content.
- threading: stickybit content is now threaded, which means that users can communicate with other users and respond to their attachments. This turns stickybits from a bulletin board of sequential attachments into a threaded conversation.
Successful companies are always listening and observing the actions of their customers. Especially in the earliest stages of a products life cycle it is critical to have a culture that can embrace the need to iterate and evolve.
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