We built Protocall five years ago, used it internally every day since. But when we decided to launch, we knew there were still plenty of things to fix and add. So we had two options:
Don't launch and spend another year making it great on our own, going only off internal team and client feedback.
Find people who'd actually share their feedback and help us get there much, much faster.
One decision I went back and forth on for a long time: whether to add rewards for testing and feedback, or just ask people nicely.
Since testing a product properly, reporting a bug that's actually reproducible, or writing up an idea that's usable looks like real work. It's literally someone's job internally, our product owner and QA engineers get paid to do exactly this. Asking strangers to do the same thing for free felt like asking a favor we wouldn't ask of our own team without paying them. So we set up a small pool: $10 to $200 per contribution.
We've built a messenger for small remote teams, with only what you need: video meeting rooms inside your group chats, a calendar for scheduling calls, and invites by username or email — even if the other person doesn't have the app.
