There have been three patterns with TheFormTool over the past year that have been particularly surprising to those of us in the middle of this amazing experience.
Our customers
FIrst, is the explosive enthusiasm among its users for their own innovation.
People from around the world, from scores of industries, are developing uses for TheFormTool that we never envisioned. Almost daily they push TheFormTool beyond the limits of our imaginations in ways both simple and complex. It’s a process, an evolution that is stunning to watch.
The software
Then, there’s the software’s own incredible experience of invention and innovation.
We’ve just completed the rollout of TheFormTool PRO v2.6. During development, it’s codename was STRETCH because of its ability to reach out from the desks of form authors to others in search of answers, bring back data to drive an intelligent document’s decisioning. Already, after just ten days, we’ve had dozens of comments from customers about their expectations that “this will change the way my company does business.”
To remember TFT’s more humble beginnings requires a bit of thought, and there are only seven customer who were there 18 months ago when the newly introduced TheFormTool PRO came to market without
| math | tables | logical comparators | robust master lists |
| date offsets | movable rows | conditions | blank lines |
| robust lists & sublists | Q&AT sections | compound conditions | GRID answers |
| derived answers | color | true Boolean logic | shareable Q&A Tables |
Ah, to consider the bargain those shoppers received in terms of upgrades since for their $89!
And, oh, what a bargain today’s buyers are getting for the same money. Our approach reminds me a little of the Costco hotdog, at $1.50 a bargain that Costco has made every effort to hold at the same price for more than a decade. We’re making a similar effort with what will be our entry-level professional software, TheFormTool PRO.
The infrastructure
We’ve built from scratch three different websites, two stores and a brand new service center in those 18 months. The current website counts its weekly visitors in the thousands. The Service Center opened just two weeks ago to rave reviews. Talk about dedication; at least one visitor took the better part of a day to read every article and watch every video in the new center.
It’s impossible to tell which of these three patterns is the most influential but not at all difficult to recognize the effect each has on the others. The end result has been a tremendous acceleration in terms of product development, an amazingly rapid spread or breadth of uses, and the development of a culture surrounding our customers, product and staff that supports, in fact demands, more.
