by Antoni Olendzki

At Quesma, our mission is to revolutionize how applications are designed and connected to their databases. This helps, among other things, in data migrations by seamlessly connecting existing applications front end tiers with new, modern, cost-effective database platforms without requiring extensive query refactoring. As we innovate and refine our value proposition, engaging with design partners is crucial in ensuring our product meets market needs and delivers real benefits for the end users.

Why design partners matter

Design partners are early adopters of the product prototype who collaborate closely with us to shape our software's functionality, user experience, and overall value. They provide critical feedback that helps us fine-tune our product, ensuring it effectively addresses real-world challenges. By involving design partners, we aim to accelerate our journey to product-market fit, making our solution robust and ready for a broader audience.

Criteria for selecting design partners

To maximize the impact of our design partnerships, we focus on three key criteria (borrowed from a16z):

1. Representativeness: the design partner should closely mirror the broader market we aim to serve. This includes having similar needs and systems as other potential customers and ensuring the feedback we receive is broadly applicable and not overly specific to one unique use case.

2. Urgency: ideal design partners have a pressing need for our solution. They should actively seek ways to solve the problems our product addresses, which often means they’ve tried other solutions or created makeshift alternatives. Their urgency drives meaningful engagement and swift feedback cycles.

3. Capacity: a good design partner has the technical capability to integrate our product and the organizational capacity to provide regular, actionable feedback. This includes having dedicated personnel champion our product internally and facilitate its implementation.

How design partners benefit

Engaging as a design partner with Quesma comes with several benefits:

• Influence product development: partners directly impact the features and functionalities we prioritize, ensuring the product evolves to meet their needs. One of the partners we are working with helped us understand how they organize data in their database, and we ensured that Quesma queries were optimized for this kind of schema. Another helped us expand our product to various data sources and coverage for proactive event-driven queries.

• Early access to innovations: design partners get to use cutting-edge solutions before they hit the broader market, gaining a competitive edge.

• Dedicated “white-glove” support: we work closely with our design partners, offering tailored support and direct communication with our development team. If you encounter any troubles during the installation or integration with your environment, we are here to help. We are available at any time and are immediately available. One partner had trouble running the correct command in Docker (it was a new experience for him). We jumped on a quick video call and helped him with the correct syntax. Another struggled with SSL connection setup to the database; we helped him find the solution and simplified our configuration to be universal and bulletproof in such situations.

Design partnership with Quesma — how it works 

We start the journey by familiarizing ourselves with the problems our potential partners have and cross-referencing them to our current product roadmap. If there is a match, we share a working prototype that can be installed in a limited, controlled environment. Together with our partners, we try to make it work and prove it can solve the problem. Spoiler: it rarely does at the first attempt. 

That’s why we need time, patience, and hard work from both sides to achieve this goal over a few iterations. Then, we mature the solution to be ready for production and agree with the partner on how much value it brings to the table and how long they want to use it for free as a gesture of gratitude from our side.

Getting started as a design partner

We are currently working with a manageable number (5-10) of design partners. This ensures we maintain close, productive relationships and iterate quickly based on their feedback. We still have a few free spots left, so if you’re interested in becoming a design partner, please reach out through our website or connect with us on social media. 

At Quesma, we believe that collaboration with engaged and capable design partners is key to building a solution that truly transforms database migrations. Join us in this exciting journey and help shape the future of data management!

For more information, visit Quesma and check our blog for updates and insights.