Developer Spotlight: Eric Katerman of Forecast
Eric is the CTO and co-founder of Forecast. He is a lifelong hacker, licensed mathematician, and lean startup fanboy. Warning: only ask him about lean startups if you have a couple of hours to spare. You can follow him on twitter @geometrid and on facebook.
Tell us a little about forecast:
Forecast is the best way to meetup with your friends! Checkout all the cool places your friends are going, or create your own forecast to share where you’ll be later today. Queue up multiple forecasts and then check-in with one touch when you arrive. Whether you’re going out for coffee or a wild night on the town Forecast helps you meetup with your real friends out in the real world. It’s social networking that’s actually social.
Where did the idea come from?
A check-in tells your friends where you are now. A forecast tells friends where you will be later. This simple change from present tense to future tense changes everything. It's the difference between a serendipitous connection and a missed opportunity.
Check-in apps are built partly on the myth of the serendipitous connection, the idea that when someone checks-in a nearby friend will decide to join them. But in practice this is an extremely rare occurrence. There are just too many hurdles. Let's say I check-in to a coffee shop. First, there needs to be a nearby friend. Second, that nearby friend has to be available and interested in hanging out. And finally, that same friend has to be reasonably confident that I'll still be there when they get to the coffee shop. But my friend has no reliable way of knowing how long I plan to be at the coffee shop or whether I checked in as I got there or on my way out the door. So even if I have a friend who is nearby, available, and who wants to hangout there is still a good chance that our serendipitous connection won't happen.
Forecast solves these problems and delivers on the promise of the serendipitous connection. First, because a forecast is in the future, it minimizes the need for my friend to be nearby. My friend now has the time to jump in a car and drive across town to meet me. Second, the more lead time I give my friend the more likely they will be able to make themselves available. And finally, because a forecast gives the anticipated time of arrival my friend can be reasonably confident that we'll both be at the same location at the same time.
What are the biggest lessons you’ve learned so far while working on forecast?
Talk to your users more and build less. It’s exceptionally easy to be wasteful when building a product, but if you’re more in tune with how your users are using your product and what they say about the experience, you’ll be less wasteful. We’ve used Ash Maurya’s “Running Lean” as a framework for applying lean startup ideas to our process, and it’s great. I recommend that book to almost every entrepreneur that I meet.
What’s the most exciting technology announcement you’ve seen this year?
OS X Mountain Lion. Looking forward to better iCloud integration, and I can’t wait for my mac to feel more like an iPad.
What kind of phone are you currently using?
iPhone 4
What apps do you use most?
messages, maps, settings, clock, tweetdeck, facebook, pair, clear, calendar, notes, phone, mail, yelp, safari, music, camera, forecast, twist, localmind
If you had one piece of advice for your fellow developers, what would it be?
Talk more, build less.