Private Beta of FDCareer.com launched…..ON TIME!
Since conceptualizing the FD World idea the March of 2007 (during that time, it was not a very intuitive concept), it has been close to a year and a half now! During that time, we spent more than half a year finding the best people who could be on the team, discussing our concepts, and pretty much plain out learning by our own or other peoples' mistakes. Getting to this point without income is a tough for all our awesome teammates who bought into our vision and would seek to accomplish extraordinary things with us. And at this point, we have finally put out a product. The website product FDCareer.com is a tool to learn and share about companies that you want to work at, as well as converting peoples' real lives into a RPG game where they can level up and become a strong player in their fields. What's really special about our launch, is that almost all, no I mean, ALL products that I have seen from a startup or even small team of a large firm don't meet their deadlines. When a company says they will release something in 2 months, they usually take 3 months; when it is something that should to be finished "tomorrow," it probably will be finished 1-2 days after that. FDCareer.com launched on time! We made a commitment to complete it on July 1st, and even when there were not any external deadlines pressing, all our programmers took things very seriously and busted out sleepless nights to make it on time. Now we have invited some FD relatives – people who have helped us along the way and are interested in our success – to test out the site. It seems to be getting really positive feedback, and even though our website product is just a prelude to the big-scaled FD World, I can see it becoming a big success independently. What lies ahead is very exciting. These 2-3 months are most critical to FD, as we have launched a product, have full-time people to support financially, and are looking to raise our $150K seed funding. Even though we say seed funding, it is probably closer to a series A round in the sense that we already have the team, we have a product, and we have 20 campus cmo across the US to help promote our vision. We'll see what happens with this cool company! Happy Independence Day everyone!
Since conceptualizing the FD World idea the March of 2007 (during that time, it was not a very intuitive concept), it has been close to a year and a half now! During that time, we spent more than half a year finding the best people who could be on the team, discussing our concepts, and pretty much plain out learning by our own or other peoples’ mistakes. Getting to this point without income is a tough for all our awesome teammates who bought into our vision and would seek to accomplish extraordinary things with us. And at this point, we have finally put out a product.
About the Creator of the Octalysis Framework
Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.
Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.
His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Google Scholar — with 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.
FDCareer.com: The Product
The website product FDCareer.com is a tool to learn and share about companies that you want to work at, as well as converting peoples’ real lives into a RPG game where they can level up and become a strong player in their fields. This kind of progression mechanic — where users earn status and advance through meaningful milestones — draws directly on Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment, one of the most powerful motivators in behavioral design.
Launching On Time
What’s really special about our launch, is that almost all, no I mean, ALL products that I have seen from a startup or even small team of a large firm don’t meet their deadlines. When a company says they will release something in 2 months, they usually take 3 months; when it is something that should to be finished “tomorrow,” it probably will be finished 1-2 days after that. FDCareer.com launched on time! We made a commitment to complete it on July 1st, and even when there were not any external deadlines pressing, all our programmers took things very seriously and busted out sleepless nights to make it on time.
Now we have invited some FD relatives – people who have helped us along the way and are interested in our success – to test out the site. It seems to be getting really positive feedback, and even though our website product is just a prelude to the big-scaled FD World, I can see it becoming a big success independently. The early community dynamic — where trusted insiders get exclusive first access — is a textbook application of Core Drive 6: Scarcity & Impatience, generating urgency and perceived value.
What Lies Ahead
What lies ahead is very exciting. These 2-3 months are most critical to FD, as we have launched a product, have full-time people to support financially, and are looking to raise our $150K seed funding. Even though we say seed funding, it is probably closer to a series A round in the sense that we already have the team, we have a product, and we have 20 campus cmo across the US to help promote our vision. For those interested in understanding how behavioral design shapes products like FDCareer, the Octalysis Framework offers a comprehensive lens for analyzing user motivation.
We’ll see what happens with this cool company! Happy Independence Day everyone!