have more pride in the product [editorial]

[roambotics_scott]

I saw this on the FB page https://www.facebook.com/events/1076590405693694/

I do get that you're trying to recruit SW users, but this still struck a sour note for me.

F360 should (and easily could) replace SW for most users if it were reliable and just a bit more polished.

It's much more usable, and so very nearly a better product. It's been so close for so long and I have complete confidence and no doubt that all it would take is the right focus and push to get it there.

My suggestions to get there: 

(A-X) Zero tolerance for crashing / data loss bugs. 

It doesn't matter how great and usable the product is, if I can't run it [OS X 10.11], or if the thing feels buggy, crashes, or otherwise gets in the way of being productive, people will hate it.

There are no minor crashes. Every crash report should be looked at as a show-stopper and no new development should take place until the cause is diagnosed and it's fixed.

As soon as that's done, roll out a hotfix so the users don't hear things like «that thing that's wasting your time is fixed in the next release [that's coming out in order of months]»

I get that that's hard and that will mean you have to stop moving forward entirely for a little bit - but I don't care how amazing and cool the next feature you're building is, even your biggest fans will be annoyed by crashes, and most sensible people will just silently stop using the product if it doesn't work reliably.

It doesn't matter how amazing the turbocharger you're building is if the car is on blocks and undrivable.

(Y) Guide yourselves

This Ideastation / voting thing is cute and may give some users warm-fuzzies, but to me it just screams lack of direction.

Know where you're heading and have a compass. 

Taking suggestions from users is definitely a good thing, and I'm not suggesting that you stop it, but that should be more like measuring the wind than blowing you around.

With all due respect, this «10 vote» thing is just silly. Some things have zero votes but are huge no-brainers, and others have many votes but they're obviously extremely nontrivial to implement and probably not going to give much bang for the buck.

There are way too many unfinished / «90% of the way to amazing» things in the product. Find those, triage, and one-by-one take them to 100%.

Finally

(Z) Don't be defensive and make no excuses

Yes - it's a complicated thing with lots of moving parts. Yes lots of people are working hard on it and have been for years and years.

I know that it can feel like someone is saying your baby is ugly if they complain about the product, but the thing is that here you can actually fix that.

Even if it feels mean or hurtful, take anything people say about the product and think «maybe this person is a d-head, but I can't do anything about that. What can I learn from what they're saying and how can I improve the things that are within my power to change?». 

I can't count the number of times when I've said something is broken and then been told that it's just me or that I'm being unreasonable. There seems to be a general culture of that around the product.

It's not healthy, makes people feel like they're being brushed aside, and doesn't move the ball forward.

You can't control what other people do or how they react to the team or the product, but you can use whatever they say to improve both.

Do that.

Don't let people push you around, but if lots of people are saying something like «the product is unstable», don't come back with «it's not that bad» - think about why they're saying that, find the underlying issue(s) and fix them.

This product has been so close to game changingly amazing for so long, and so many people have worked so hard on it. Don't waste their (/your) time and effort.

Crush it.

[burnandreturn]

You are wasting your time.  Whoever is making the decisions on what to fix or what direction to go is not interested in fixing the things that don't work.  They are interested in the glitz and glamour of new ideas.  I posted about this when I first discovered Fusion.  They are taking a gamble on getting people hooked with the promise of big things to come at a very low price.  Of course this is just my opinion and only face as I see it maybe but I don't think I am alone.   I think one day Fusion might be a great program but no serious business is going to have it as their only or even main system.  At this point a real business has to have a more stable and local storage only for some projects.  Bug fixes aren't glamourous so don't hold your breath waiting for them.  The economics dictate that most people shop on price point first and then quality.  I am an early adoptor with the $300 a year offer.   For my real work I use SpaceClaim and GeoMagic.

[roambotics_scott]

I may well be wasting my time (though I hope not) but you're only half right about the economics. 

Paying a few k$ for something like SW or Altium sounds insane but it gets easy to justify when you think «I'm paying someone D$/hour to do X, if program P takes them T times as long, how long does it take for that to pay for program Q?».

If AD can get rid of the instability and general annoyances that waste the user's time, then F360 really does become a no-brainer even when compared with SW in the long run. It might take veterans longer to learn, but the new users will find it so much easier to use, and more useful. Their bosses will see that they're so much more productive. Add time and SW just attrophies over time while F360 grows.

 Sadly, though, in its current state / as long as it's crashy, even a no charge / «completely free» F360 gets very expensive very quickly.

[kb9ydn]

Sadly new features are what drive new sales.  Reliability only keeps your existing users around.  So it makes sense for a newer product to live a bit more on the edge as far as stability.  Then as time goes on and you gain customers you put more effort into stability.  The problem with sacrificing new feature development for bug fixing is that it slows down development so much that the program will take forever to get anywhere.  You really have to do both.

Being a SWX user myself, I can definitely see how Fusion could be a better alternative some time in the future.  But that time is quite aways off as I see it.  The instability is one thing, but there are also features in SWX that I use all the time that don't exist in Fusion.  Could I find ways to work around that?  Probably, but that would slow me down and time is money, so it still makes sense to pay for more for SWX for general modelling.

The CAM in Fusion though is really quite good, especially for the price.  So it makes sense to use Fusion just for that and then maybe some day switch to Fusion for CAD as well when it's ready.

C|

[roambotics_scott]

Sadly new features are what drive new sales

I see why you think that but it's still BS.

New features are great compliments to a complete, finished product / solution, but for the most part, they just add to marketing fluff.

That'll get new people to download the thing, but if it is unstable, unusable, or just sufficiently incomplete, those new users will go away. Worse, they'll remember the experience so they're probably not coming back, and they'll tell something like 10x the people about their negative experience that they'd have told about a positive experience.

Driving new downloads that way is shortsighted and counterproductive. It's not much better than just coming out and lying about the product (actually / to me, charging even just one dollar for it and not calling it a beta is lying about it, whether intentional or not).

I guarantee that the vast majority of new users that this SolidWorks campagn generates see a slick demo, try F360, like parts of it but find it overall lacking and disappointing, and then get innoculated against it in the future no matter how great it becomes. 

The best advertising you can't buy.

It's word of mouth.

If the product is 10x better than anything else - even just in some small way, you don't need the marketing BS.

All you really need is a solid core of users who love the product - which are very nearly here.

I've had horrifically bad experiences with F360 that have made me waste weeks on things that should have taken hours - and I'm still telling people to try it for certain applications (albeit with a very strong caveat that it's unstable and will frustrate them and waste their time if they try to push it too far).

If there were zero features beyond what was there at the 1.0 launch but they were reliable, then lots of people using SW might actually start using it in their workflow.

From that fortified beachhead, new features are great because they'll start using F360 more and more and SW less and less, and then they'll happily tell their friends and colleagues about it. Before you know it, entire shops will switch over except for the decreasing number of things that can't be done in F360.

That's a workable / winning strategy that isn't terribly far from what the team seems to be doing.

The problem is that that solid base is perpetually over the horizon.

The core thing that could be amazing by itself is incomplete and unstable, but rather than taking 6 months to fortify that, we now have an unusably incomplete drawing tool too (and X, Y, and Z that look cool and demo well but still aren't actually useful).

There are a ton of things in SW that you couldn't do in F360, but I know plenty of people who use SW who don't use most of those things. There are already people here (myself included if I could actually launch the damned thing*) who already use F360 (warts and all) as their primary CAD.

The whole product is at present just an incoherent amalgum of great but half executed ideas. It's like it was designed by cats constantly chasing after the next shiny object before they're quite finished with the last. 

If you want to drive sales - make the thing complete and finished. Don't add any new features until the ones you have actually work. 

I know it sounds boring and tedious but I want to use the damned thing.

I want to tell people how great it is.

I'm a broken record here but it's so very nearly amazing. It's a real, usable CAD that works in OS X. A designer with no CAD experience can pick it up and start modeling things immediately. You don't have to go through the awful dance of getting in touch with a sales person just to get a demo or find out what it costs. 

If what's there now or even 2-3 years ago were actually stable and usable in a production environment, you could hand it to Jony Ive and know with confidence that he'd love it and integrate it deeply into Apple's workflow. You couldn't pay for that kind of advertising.

As it is now, if he, (or anyone serious about design without the constraints of a small shop or startup) is aware of it, it's, at best, a novelty, and if they've tried it, you can guarantee that they had an initially positive experience followed by a show-stoppery negative one that will color their perception of the product forever no matter how great it becomes.

.. and for the * -> I get that when OS X 10.11 beta 1 came out that the thing might not work. Don't get me wrong - it smells bad and is a bad sign that you're doing something fundamentally wrong and probably using undocumented / known deprecated APIs given that this is a mature 10.11 and not a nascent 10.2, but I get it.

But here we are months after the first beta was dropped and I still can't launch the bloody thing.

That's just infuriating and pathetic.

At present, I have zero confidence that that will change before 10.11 hits GM or even is released. 

SW couldn't pay for anti-F360 advertising that's that damning.

If I were a reasonable person, I'd have stopped using it years ago.

How many silent / reasonable people have you lost? I'd bet it's in the thousands, and because they're sure to share their experience, that probably accounts for tens if not hundreds of millions in potential ARR.

How many half-baked new features does it take to make that up ?

.. and yeah, I agree - the CAM is quite nice, the solid modeling is quite nice, and many other things.

That's what drives me insane.

So close to amazing and what's broken is totally fixable.

[kb9ydn]

Well, I didn't mean that new features driving new sales was a good thing, I just meant it tends to be the case.

In general I agree with everything you've said.  Would I have preferred if they took a more conservative approach and focused more on stability than new features?  Possibly.  Would I have added new features/functionality in a different order?  Definitely.  But I also know that software development is really difficult (my degree is actually computer science), especially with complex software like CAD.  So I'm not as quick to criticize their approach to development.  And then you have to figure in the whole marketing effort.  As much as we like to hate on marketing (and believe me, I'm VERY cynical when it comes to marketing), it is a necessary evil.

I should also say that it's easier for me to not be as concerned since I already have an established CAD system.  If I had to only use Fusion, I might have a different story.

Anyway, I also hope they keep pressing forward and make this thing into what we all think it can be.

C|

[roambotics_scott]

I'm not underestimating the complexity of software development here. I know in the abstract and from experience how hard it is, but I also know how much time and how many developers they've put into the program.

Also, I never said marketing wasn't necessary, just that it's counterproductive at this stage.

I'm sure they'll keep pushing forward, I just wish they'd pull over to the side of the road, and get their blown out tires fixed before trying to squeeze out another hundred horsepower on the high end.

[TrippyLighting]

I am wondering what magic market insight you have when making the statement that Fusion 360 coud easily replace SW for most users ?

[roambotics_scott]

There's no magic there.

I've talked with a lot of people who use SW and have seen what they do with it, and I know what I've managed to do with it even in its broken state.

To be fair, «most users» should be more along the lines of «most users most of the time» and with the very strong caveat that the thing absolutely has to work reliably without breaking / otherwise getting in the way and with no data loss.

If you're designing jet engines, you're probably not going to want to leave SW, but if you're doing end-user products, and someone else is designing your molds and tooling, you could easily use F360 for just about everything from concept to manufacture (though you will have to use other tools for PCB design/layout, routing, and nontrivial mechanisms).

[TrippyLighting]

I've worked in engineering for 25 years and 12 of those years with Solid Works. I've worked for two industry leading engineering organizations that together have several hundred seats of Solid Works and design and manufacture high end factor automation machinery. In my roles in these companies I was also able to get an overview over a lot of other industries.

In the companies that I've worked for and many of the industries that I've come in contact with SW is not replaceable with Fusion 360 in many years as it s part of a larger vertically integrated IT landscape from document management to inventory control, project control to accounting, often with custome programmed software to connect all the pieces.

Catia plays a similar role in the Automotive industry.

If your statement is limited to product design you may be correct.

But the machinery design abilities of SW are much, much older than the later added ( say patched on) added surfacing for consumer product design and machine design is still a rather large user base of Solid Works and SW is the industry standard in the Automation Industry. 

Having said all that, I truly appreciate your passion for Fusion 360. I feel the same way about it. I just don't want to compare it to SW. I want Fusion 360 to be a tool that makes no assumptions what problems I might want to solve with it and I think the team that works on it has the goods to make it into such a tool.

[roambotics_scott]

Fair enough.

I definitely believe the team has what they need (save, prehaps, for the right direction).

I'm not so much trying to compare it* as just saying with some minor improvements in the right places, it could be a very viable product - it's just constantly hamstrung.

* though I do wish that being better than SW for most users was their ambition.

[brianrepp]

Scott et al, I appreciate the suggestions and conversation in the thread; this kind of passion is what I love about the Fusion community.  The sentiment of your ideas are heard loud and clear by the team and something we're always keeping in mind as we balance new features against stability, performance, etc.  With that said, you'll be seeing a blog post from the team in the next week that's related to this discussion and think you'll like the nature of our approach.

[yoshimitsuspeed]

"There are no minor crashes. Every crash report should be looked at as a show-stopper and no new development should take place until the cause is diagnosed and it's fixed."
How about just a reliable crash reporter? I still only get a report on about one in 5 crashes. Makes it a lot of work on my end to report every damned crash that happens many times a week.

brianrepp
I hate to sound like an **** but I think I may here.
We have all been around long enough that words like yours sound like empty promises and really have no value or meaning to me anymore. It's like the parent who says "Maybe someday we can get you that toy". You hope and you pray that maybe some day it will be true but as you get older you realize your parent is just a dbag who would rather feed BS down your throat than sit down and have an honest conversation about how things really are.

I hope you are right but I keep hearing the same old stuff. Meanwhile old things that worked keep getting broken or made less effective. One improvement comes with 10 new problems that make you wonder how anyone could have decided this was the best way to go.
I can't leave F360 now as I can't afford it but at least I can give you my opinion since I have to stay for now.
As said the CAM is one of the best bang for the buck options out there but that doesn't mean it's good. There is still a lot of workflow hangups and issues that make using it take three times longer than it should.
So yeah. I'm still here but I'm not exactly happy with it. Especially seeing all this marketing hype that makes F360 sound like solid production ready software that professional users should be flocking to.

On the subject of the importance of word of mouth. I recommend F360 to friends who could use the free membership to play around or do personal stuff. I actively turn people away from F360 who are looking for something to use professionally because it's not there yet.

[yoshimitsuspeed]

"With all due respect, this «10 vote» thing is just silly. Some things have zero votes but are huge no-brainers,"
Oh yeah and X1000 on this. 
When a small percentage of your user base uses CAM and when there is an issue that effects a small percentage of them a very critical issue can get almost no votes. That doesn't mean that it's not important. It just means that the software isn't good enough yet for enough people to be using it in this manner. 
As I have said many times before I also think that people who pay for the software and or use it in a professional environment should have a little more swing to the vote. I am paying for this software and I am trying to use it in a commercial environment. That is if you want this to turn into software that people will actually pay for and use professionally. Otherwise focus on the free hobby users and their demands and needs and stop trying to compete with real CAD programs. 

[roambotics_scott]

Weird I posted something along the lines of «thanks @brianrepp, I'm looking forward to it but I'm pessimistic» but it's not there. 

How about just a reliable crash reporter?

Yeah seconding that. You can't fix things or even know there's a problem if you can't see them.

I hate to sound like an **** but I think I may here.

I hate it too and I feel like I come off like an a𝗌𝗌hole* often here.

This empty promise thing really strikes a chord with me.

Don't get me wrong - I totally get the impulse. If you don't separate yourself from the product, you can feel like you're being attacked by people who are critical of the product. That's natural and fine but it's also counter-productive. Much better to listen and respond honestly.

So I do hope things will improve, but I'm not quite holding my breath yet.  

*not a major thing and I know I should pick my battles but that the forum arbitrarily filters certain words bugs me. Is that really such a bad word and even if it were, does anyone's brain not automagically fill it in when they see «I hate to sound like an ****»?

[laughingcreek]

I completely agree with everything in the the OP says.  Particularly the "Guide Yourselves" section.  The motto of fusion is "design differently."  

However, A large number of Ideas in the idea station are a variation of "I want to be able to (do something) like I can do in (some other program)."  That's a formula for always playing catch up.

[roambotics_scott]

What ever happened to that blog post ?

[brianrepp]

@roambotics_scott The blog post by @promm is here:  http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/design-differently/fusion-360-september-and-november-modeling-focus/ba...

[roambotics_scott]

Ah.. I'm glad to see reliability at the top of the priorities.. I do have to say but that's a little underwhelming.. I guess the proof will be in the pudding though.

[lukepighetti]

I have a Fusion subscription because I don't want to lose my Ultimate at $300.

I use Onshape because I can crank out machines in a quarter of the time and with 1/10th of the aggrivation. Then I export STEP files and use Fusion for CAM. I'm pretty sure Prabakar hates me because I yelled at him on the phone over frustration with the product, and I believe he took it personally. I can't really blame him though, it wasn't very professional on my part, but telling me all my problems were my own problems wasn't really professional either, so there you have it.

I don't report bugs to Fusion anymore because it's a huge hassle.

I have told Fusion team a few times to copy Onshape's sketch environment and feedback environment, but I think they are all very sour over Onshape even existing in the first place to really take the request seriously. Meanwhile, Onshape just launched show stopping Drawings. I still wont' use Drawings in Fusion because the usability is completely awful.

So what it boils down to is Fusion is launching tons of features but using the program is like pulling teeth. Onshape works beautifully but is lacking features. I suppose you just have to decide which is more important to you. (I say that to Fusion team and users of Fusion)

[yoshimitsuspeed]

Hopefully it's not too off topic but lukepighetti I would love to hear your take on onshape and how it compares to F360.
I checked it out when they first dropped the pre release or whatever it was and I figured it would stay behind F360 in development for a while. Would be interested to hear how it's developing in comparison. I also have the cheap Ultimate which makes it hard to want to switch and the thought of $1200/year with no CAM is hard to swallow but if the capability justifies the price it could be worth it. Like you say just keep F360 for the CAM.