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
   

   View Slide

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
   

   View Slide

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”
   

   View Slide

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
   

   View Slide

5. Finding the balance
   3 steps to perfect product harmony
   

   View Slide

6. ARTICULATE
   CORE VALUE
   MAP USER
   JOURNEYS
   BALANCED
   SCORECARD
   1 2 3
   The playbook
   

   View Slide

7. RESTRICTED
   AREA
   NO UNAUTHORISED
   PERSONNEL
   BEYOND THIS POINT
   SEARCH
   

   View Slide

8. Articulate core value
   How do we help customers succeed?
   

   View Slide

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
   

   View Slide

10. Map user journeys
    How can we help customers quickly ‘get it’?
    

    View Slide

11. Growth: a hypothesis
    We drive growth by engaging users with core value
    as quickly and as frequently as possible.
    SEARCH: Chamath Palihapitiya growth
    

    View Slide

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
    

    View Slide

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!”
    

    View Slide

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!”
    

    View Slide

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!”
    

    View Slide

16. Create a balanced scorecard
    How do we prioritise effectively?
    

    View Slide

17. H
    E
    A
    R
    T
    APPINESS
    NGAGEMENT
    DOPTION
    ETENTION
    ASK SUCCESS
    SEARCH: Google heart framework
    

    View Slide

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
    

    View Slide

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%
    

    View Slide

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
    

    View Slide

21. ARTICULATE
    CORE VALUE
    MAP USER
    JOURNEYS
    BALANCED
    SCORECARD
    1 2 3
    The playbook
    

    View Slide

22. That’s it!
    Get in touch @roanlavery
    

    View Slide