Driving growth vs building core value

Presented at Mind the Product in October 2018. Balancing building the core value of products against needing to drive short-term revenue growth is one of the central challenges facing many product teams today. In this presentation I discuss tools and frameworks to help balance these sometimes competing priorities.

Transcript

1. Driving growth vs building core value Roan Lavery, co-founder & CPO
2. Accounting software for freelancers and micro-businesses in the UK FOUNDED TEAM SIZE P & E REVENUE ACQUIRED 2007 2018 £10M 150 70 CUSTOMERS 70K
3. Sound familiar? “These bugs need to be fixed” “Why don’t you have this feature?” “We need to increase revenue” “We want to test a price change” “The product is too slow” “We’d win more deals if we had this feature” “Customers are complaining” “We need to up engagement” “We need upgrade our analytics and tracking”
4. Streamline onboarding Landing pages Supporting sales Price/packaging changes New features Improving performance Fixing bugs Addressing UX issues A balancing act GROWTH CORE VALUE
5. Finding the balance 3 steps to perfect product harmony
6. ARTICULATE CORE VALUE MAP USER JOURNEYS BALANCED SCORECARD 1 2 3 The playbook
7. RESTRICTED AREA NO UNAUTHORISED PERSONNEL BEYOND THIS POINT SEARCH
8. Articulate core value How do we help customers succeed?
9. Core value map VISION USER NEEDS JOBS TO BE DONE FEATURES Nail the daily admin Make better decisions Relax about tax Make businesses happier and more successful by putting them in control of their finances Get Paid Health 
 checking Track Cashflow Planning for future File taxes Stay legal Foreign currency Track expenses Invoicing Online payments Banking Bank feeds Dashboard Tax timeline Project profitability Insights Forecasting Benchmarking VAT Audit trail Self- assessment Payroll Final accounts Payment reminders Track bills SEARCH: Jobs to be done
10. Map user journeys How can we help customers quickly ‘get it’?
11. Growth: a hypothesis We drive growth by engaging users with core value as quickly and as frequently as possible. SEARCH: Chamath Palihapitiya growth
12. Reduce time to wow Building habits Engagement loops Resurrect from the dead ONBOARDING EARLY USAGE ESTABLISHED USE DISENGAGED/CHURNED Lifecycyle growth SEARCH: Brian Balfour optimizing retention CORE VALUE
13. Time to wow Arrive on website “Quick and easy form to complete” Complete sign up form Activate account SIGNUP APP ONBOARDING EXPLORING CORE VALUE Get activation email “I just want to get going!” “This looks great” Explore site Success Find banking area Account set up “I don’t have all the info now. I’ll do it later.” “Ok, let’s do this!” Land on dashboard “Great, but what do I do now?” “This looks really useful” Bank feed set up “More forms?” “Praise be!”
14. Time to wow Arrive on website “Quick and easy form to complete” Complete sign up form Activate account SIGNUP APP ONBOARDING EXPLORING CORE VALUE “This looks great” Explore site Success Find banking area Account set up “I don’t have all the info now. I’ll do it later.” “Ok, let’s do this!” Land on dashboard “Great, but what do I do now?” “This looks really useful” Bank feed set up “More forms?” “Praise be!”
15. Time to wow Arrive on website “Quick and easy form to complete” Complete sign up form Activate account SIGNUP APP ONBOARDING EXPLORING CORE VALUE “This looks great” Explore site Success Account set up “I don’t have all the info now. I’ll do it later.” “Ok, let’s do this!” Bank feed set up “More forms?” “Praise be!”
16. Create a balanced scorecard How do we prioritise effectively?
17. H E A R T APPINESS NGAGEMENT DOPTION ETENTION ASK SUCCESS SEARCH: Google heart framework
18. GOALS SIGNALS METRICS H E T We want our customers to enjoy using our product We want our app to be free of bugs We want our customers to regularly use the product New customers are connecting FreeAgent to their bank Customers are recommending the product Customers are not reporting bugs Customers are logging in and using the product frequently A high proportion of customers set up a bank feed during their trial Quarterly NPS Open bug count Monthly active users % of customers who enable bank feed in the first 14 days
19. HAPPINESS ENGAGEMENT ADOPTION TASK SUCCESS 70 RETENTION Net Promoter Score App store reviews 4.5 Setup completion Monthly active users Mobile active users 1.1K Free trial conversion Mobile downloads Customer churn Open bugs Balanced scorecard 20% 3% 35 Bank feed setup 52% 76% 85% 32%
20. GREEN AMBER RED We’re happy with this KPI, and don’t need to apply any additional effort to keep it green. We’re not happy with this KPI and need to divert effort to get this KPI green. We’re concerned about this KPI and may need to divert effort to get this KPI green. KPI status
21. ARTICULATE CORE VALUE MAP USER JOURNEYS BALANCED SCORECARD 1 2 3 The playbook
22. That’s it! Get in touch @roanlavery