I want to personally thank everyone who answered ❤️ There were 18 respondents, with 14 using Avo.
I think we did well in 2022 in support and features, and we could work more on our documentation. But, all in all, you mostly believe this product brings you value, and you like being a part of its journey.
I'll go one by one for each section, but you can find the full results on avohq.io/survey/2022.
When we asked about onboarding and documentation, the gist was that we could work a bit on our onboarding process (4.6 out of 5); the documentation is sufficient but not perfect. So we should spend more time fixing that as well, with "more code examples" being one of the pieces of feedback received.
The CRUD feature and fields API receive 4.45 out of 5 stars with feedback regarding more advanced file management and missing creating associated items when creating a parent record, multi-select field, and the DSL is inconsistent in some areas (we're fixing that in Avo 3).
The UI gets 4.4 stars, with theming pretty much covering the users' needs. We had a few users needing more options.
Feedback:
- auto-save functionality for forms (we heard you)
- "visual appearance from Avo v1 to v2 was a regression"
- "custom content on the show view". We support that, so get in touch with us.
- "the ability to customize color schemes". We support that too.
The Dashboards received 4.4 stars with feedback along the lines of:
- more examples
- clickable counters
- inconsistent styling at times
- dynamic
chart_options - declare metrics inline
Most users are pretty much happy with the level of support we provide. Some of you watch the videos, and some don't, but you're pretty pleased with the frequency of the release process.
When we asked if we should ship fast and break things, most of you said yes, which makes us happy because we'd like to continue being lean and shipping good features fast.
It seems that when you have an issue with Avo, you check the docs first, then Discord, then GitHub, and lastly, you send in an email.
We don't prefer the email way because any support we provide is private, and others can't benefit from it. Instead, we prefer posting technical issues and questions on GitHub issues or discussions. We prefer GitHub over Discord because some of you don't have a Discord account, so those conversations are hidden from you.
The most important thing for us is to have transparency and provide the means to self-help as much as possible, and having those answers as public as possible helps you and future users more than our ability to answer a "quick Discord question" which most of the times becomes a larger conversation.
Thank you for understanding and helping to make this community awesome.
Some of you contributed to the repo, and the onboarding experience there was somewhat easy, which makes us glad.
We then asked the difficult questions: "Does Avo costs too much for the value it brings?" and other price and value-related questions. Most answers were around the fact that it is the right price for the value. There were a few "it's too expensive" answers and a few "it's too cheap" ones.
We had feedback that it's very cheap ("the cost is peanuts") for companies but expensive for side-projects that some of you would pay a one-time fee for some projects instead of a subscription; an agency tier and bulk licenses for a flat rate would be desired; usage-based pricing or solo dev ($100 one time) tier should exist.
This is a very intricate problem, and most "simple" ideas regarding pricing usually get debunked when you go in deeper. For example, the one-time $100 rate is not sustainable. We couldn't build a business around that, and pretty soon, Avo will stop being maintained for lack of resources, and we (and I guess you do either) don't want that but would like a well-maintained product that helps us to build better apps and help you earn more money with it or save more time.
The one-time cost vs. subscription is something we're considering for Avo 3. That would work very well for "client work" apps. However, I don't know how usage-based pricing would work with this project.
I'll stop with the pricing talk because it requires more thought and context. Maybe I'll write an article to flush out more things.
We're slowly sliding to Avo 3, and I see most of the items we posted as incoming are exciting for you guys. I invite you to check out the results for more details.
When we asked you if Avo should have a starter kit, the answers were so and so. We'll probably introduce some starter repo this year, but just a light layer with authentication, accounts and a few more things already set up for you to enjoy Avo and lower the setup time.
The Net promoter score is 79, which is ok for our relatively low amount of resources and the small time frame we got to this level. However, we want to score higher next year.
One of the most pleasant sections of this survey was the "other feedback" section where you sent us the most warming encouragements and thank you's like "You do an absolutely amazing job", "Keep up the good work!", and "This is by far the most amazing project I’ve found in the past 5 years within the rails ecosystem.".
We are humbled by your messages, and they make us work even harder.
You can find the full results on avohq.io/survey/2022.
Thank you for participating in this year's survey, for using Avo, and for making this an incredible community.
Adrian & Paul
