Booth Beam - Month 3

One-Line Summary #

Made Booth Beam more production-ready by onboarding the first users, building onboarding documentation, and establishing the infrastructure for future growth.

Highlights #

This month focused on building the foundations required for growth: establishing the public website, creating onboarding documentation, preparing monetization infrastructure, onboarding the first users, and setting up a repeatable content creation process.

• Updated the Booth Beam website with new landing, Privacy Policy, and Terms of Use pages, along with dark mode improvements and stronger marketing messaging.
• Prepared the backend infrastructure for future paid plans and subscriptions.
• Launched the admin section with user and workspace management capabilities.
• Launched the Help Center and published core onboarding documentation, including Android TV setup guides and the “Create Your First Channel” tutorial.
• Onboarded the first Booth Beam users.
• Built a thumbnail generation tool and established a complete video production workflow using OBS Studio, an HDMI capture device, and DaVinci Resolve.
• Developed video recording and editing skills to support future educational, support, and marketing content.

Goals Grades #

At the start of each month, I declare what I’d like to accomplish. Here’s how I did against those goals:

Make the app usable without my direct involvement (self-serve onboarding)

• Result: Help Center was created on the website, and a minimal onboarding playlist was added inside the app.
• Grade: B

The initial goal of enabling self-serve onboarding is partially achieved. The Help Center now serves as the primary entry point for new users and significantly reduces the need for direct support during setup. It provides structured guidance for getting started and resolving common issues.

The in-app onboarding playlist exists, but it is still too limited in scope. It should be expanded with clearer step-by-step guidance, use cases, and possibly short contextual explanations inside the app itself. This would further reduce friction for first-time users and improve activation rates.

Find more prospects and run at least 10 demos

• Result: 2 prospects identified and contacted.
• Grade: D

This target was not met. The main issue is not execution alone, but incorrect expectation setting around the volume of outreach required to generate 10 qualified demo opportunities.

To reach the goal of 10 demos, the top-of-funnel activity needs to be significantly increased. That includes a higher number of initial contacts, clearer qualification criteria, and a more systematic outreach process (e.g., defined weekly outreach targets and consistent follow-ups). Without increasing input volume, the desired output (10 demos) is not realistic.

Set up a basic homepage that clearly explains the product

• Result: Landing page hero section has been updated.
• Grade: B

The hero section now communicates the product value more clearly and gives users a better understanding of what the app does and what they can expect.

However, this is still an early version and needs validation. The messaging should be tested with real users to confirm whether it improves comprehension and conversion. Further improvements may be required based on feedback and analytics.

Booth Beam #

Metrics #

Current product state #

This month I onboarded two companies exhibiting at the International Agricultural Fair in Novi Sad. The main focus was getting them successfully set up in Booth Beam.

The biggest friction point was not the app itself, but the lack of guidance. Both companies had never used a digital signage system before, so the entire concept was new to them. Once I gave them a short walkthrough, they were able to configure everything on their own.

Most support issues came from hardware setup (Android TV configuration). As a direct response, I created detailed setup documentation for Android TV devices to reduce onboarding dependency on me.

Product development slowed down this month because focus shifted toward onboarding and early marketing. However, user feedback revealed several UX issues. A frontend refactoring is now planned to address these problems and improve overall usability.

Everybody has plans until… #

Everybody has plans until they get hit for the first time

I assumed I had prioritized correctly before real users started using the product. That assumption quickly broke.

Once actual users entered the system, issues I considered “minor” became top priorities. Things I thought were irrelevant turned out to have a much higher impact on user experience than features like templates or additional configuration options.

This first real-world usage phase reshaped priorities significantly.

Dark mode is more important than expected #

Dark mode turned out to be a high-impact UX detail.

Many users actively use dark mode by default. When they open the app and see that it respects dark mode properly, their reaction is noticeably positive. In several cases, this was their first impression of the product. That first impression matters more than expected. It sets the tone for whether users continue exploring the app or drop off early.

As a result, dark mode support must be treated as a core requirement, not a cosmetic feature. It needs to be consistently implemented across all screens and future features. It is now a higher priority item in UI development.

App design must be mobile-first #

I am not a heavy mobile user. Most of my testing and development was done on desktop, which naturally shaped my design assumptions.

That led to a critical gap: the mobile experience was not properly designed. At this point, the app is effectively not usable on a phone, which is a major issue.

In practice, mobile is the primary context for this type of product. At events like conferences or trade shows, users will not open a laptop to make changes. They need to quickly pull out their phone and adjust what is displayed in real time.

This makes mobile-first design not optional, but essential for the product to be viable.

Mobile UX is now one of the top priorities, and the current interface needs a full redesign focused on speed, simplicity, and real-world usage scenarios.

Wrap up #

What got done? #

• Onboarded the first Booth Beam users and completed the first real-world deployments
• Launched the Help Center with core onboarding and Android TV setup documentation
• Built a complete video content creation workflow, from recording to editing and thumbnail generation

Lessons learned #

• Dark mode is more important than expected
• App design must be mobile-first
• I need a structured and high-volume outreach process with clear weekly targets, because occasional or low-volume prospecting is not enough to consistently generate demos.

Goals for next month #

• Refactor the frontend UX to reduce confusion and improve overall usability for users.
• Implement clear separation and functionality for different plan types within the app.