Fresh Meat Protocol (FMP) 

An engineer adds a button to link your reddit account and post directly to Reddit.

He rolls it out to everyone.

Everyone gets banned.

We rip it out.

Creating something new is fun.

But it won’t be used.

Unless you test it manually first.

If you want your feature, your idea, to actually be used by real people

Follow the Fresh Meat Potocol.

What

• FMP (Fresh Meat Protocol): Only add features when you’ve proven it works manually. 

• DMF (Do It Manually First): Before coding, solve it manually for 1–3 people to prove it works.

• Don’t Worsen Product (DWP): Once it passes the manual approach, replicate it in your code to the T. Do not add any additional “things.” These “things” can fuck up what’s already working.

How:

1. Manual Test (DMF)

   • Solve the problem for 1–3 people manually.

2. Fresh Meat Rollout (FMP)

   • If it works manually → roll it out to new users (“fresh meat”).

   • If it works for new users → roll it out to old users

   • If stable → announce by email and allow everyone to use it.

3. Replicate the manual approach (DWP)

   •  Replicate the what’s working, as close as you can. Do not add anything new.

Example

• An engineer creates a Reddit auto-post feature, we test on his account first

• Then mine

• Then 1 client.

• Then if it works, we test it on new users

• Then if it works, we email announce to old users

BAD:

• We code it and roll it out to everyone.

• Everyone gets banned by reddit. 

Caveats / Exceptions

• Do NOT use FMP when the solution is 100% obvious and critical.
  Example: Password reset (you have clear customer complaints, and it must be fixed for everyone at once).

• Use FMP when the feature might help, but you’re not sure. Examples:

  • New keyword generation flow

  • New subreddit/competitor generation flow

  • “Reddit last leg” feature