Appcues

appcues

There’s a popular user experience quote: “A user interface is like a joke. If you have to explain it, it’s not that good.” While clever, that statement is far from the truth. We agree that user interfaces shouldn’t be complicated. On the other hand, you can’t expect a new user to understand a new interface without any direction. That’s where user onboarding flows come into play. This also stands true for the existing users who need directions to understand an updated interface or a new feature. In this article, we will discuss those onboarding UIs that will help both new and existing users understand features – breaking the myth at the same time that user onboarding begins and ends with the first experience. We’ll be discussing UI patterns like tooltips, hotspots, modals, etc. that have roots in specific types of “popup” window situations and are popularly used interchangeably in general web conversation. Each of them offers some common purpose: Offer helpful hints and support in the context of your product. Contextual help: Draw attention to a new feature without interrupting a user’s workflow. New feature Announcement: Gently nudge users to explore, learn, or take action. Influence User behavior: When used correctly, they can be powerfully engaging. But when used the wrong way, they can feel like spammy popups that disrupt the user experience – ultimately causing users to churn. It’s important to find the right balance between communicating with your users and just letting them do their thing. With that in mind, let’s discuss what they are. In-context Tooltips As opposed to a ‘first look’ experience, these tips appear as the user explores the product that can either explain the value of that feature/section or explain how to use it. This technique waits for the user to take an action and presents the value right then and there. Similar to the tour, it is usually implemented as an overlay. Pros: The tooltips are in-context, so it solidifies the feature-value pairing, reducing cognitive load. This can also be created with 3rd parties like Appcues or Chameleon. Cons: Some might never get discovered. Popup Modal Window/Lightbox A modal popup is great for announcements and situations where an action is encouraged, but not required. As with every customer communication, the information should be valuable and timely. While some users may be in the habit of avoiding anything that pops up, embedded UX patterns could be something users look forward to when used the right way. It’s similar to a lightbox that is used as a generic term for any popup that darkens the website and displays a dialog containing an image or other content. Often used to display galleries or content that should temporarily take complete focus from the rest of the page. Generally, they can be dismissed with a cross button or by clicking anywhere in the darkened part of the page. Gmail’s simple onboarding flow offers a good example of an effective modal window that creates delight, rather than frustration. Pros: Immediately requires a CTA, the intended action is clear and direct. Cons: Can often be a little intrusive. Hotspots They work similarly to tooltips. Some apps skip product tours and welcome screens and opt to show people tooltips and hot spots instead. The goal of this user onboarding technique is to point out to users the certain features that play a key role in the user environment, even without noticeable warnings. Pros: Allowing customers to explore functionality at their own pace and when they need to use different parts of the app makes this an excellent onboarding strategy. Especially for users switching from a different platform for the same product. Cons: Users might get annoyed if you are using more than 3 hotspots on a screen. Blank Slate Tips Think of every not-yet-populated section/view of your product as space to nudge the user to create content. Use that space to educate the user on what type of content goes there, how to add it, how long it might take, and what value it will add. Pros: It’s a great use of negative space. It’s persistent until they replace it with content. There’s nothing more daunting than a blank piece of paper! It leverages people’s completionist tendencies. Cons: It might not be enough on its own. Conclusion: It’s important to find the right balance between communicating with your users and just letting them do their thing. Put careful consideration into the “when” and “why” of your mobile tooltip design. Remember, tooltips are annotations – they should add value to the user experience, not overpower it. There is no “right” or “perfect” user onboarding flow. What works for one site/product/app might not work for another. What works for one user might not work for another. For example, you might need to onboard a developer vs. an average user. Designing a user onboarding flow that works is complicated. It involves a lot of research, testing, and optimization. ---------------------------------------------- Also Published at: https://blog.galaxyweblinks.com/a-walk-through-of-different-user-onboarding-ui-patterns/

Essential Guide to User Onboarding UI Patterns

Why is eliminating friction so important? The short answer is that it’s important because eliminating friction will grow your business, the long answer is more complicated. The world has become more and more accustomed to having instant access to whatever they want. Here are a few examples: I can order something on Amazon and get it delivered to my door the same day We carry around mini computers in our pockets that are faster and more powerful than laptops from 3 or 4 years agoServices like Hulu and Spotify provide us with instant and nearly unlimited access to tv shows, movies, and music Technology has enabled us to purchase and consume products and services at our leisure. We’ve become spoiled. Slow internet, or loss of cell service ruins our day, and if we’re unable to get 2-day shipping from Amazon … well what’s the point, I’ll just go to the store. How is this relevant to eliminating friction in your SaaS business? Well, humans have been trained to get things now! The bar has been set extremely high and as a result, your customers enter your product experience with equally high expectations. This is the first factor that you need to take into consideration when building your product experience. Instant access has become the norm.​ The second thing you need to be aware of has to do with the power of choice. The rise of cloud services and SaaS has reduced the barrier to entry, resulting in a more competitive and product-rich landscape … in other words, people have more choice than ever. In addition to SaaS reducing the barrier to entry for new products and services, it has also made it significantly easier for consumers to “change their mind” once they have made a decision. Winning a deal is no longer good enough, the changing landscape demands that businesses work to continuously keep their customers engaged and productive. What is friction and where does it come from? Friction is anything that gets in the way of your customer accomplishing their goals. It could be a tiny speed bump, a toll booth, or full on traffic jam; all of these obstacles have an effect on your customer experience. To understand where friction comes from we need to circle back to understanding your customer. The better you understand your customer, the more efficiently you can get them from point A to point B.​ We design products to solve problems for our target audience (not the whole world) but as you might imagine even our target audience has varying goals and objectives. Every assumption you make about your customer impacts the experience they will have with your product which is why understanding their intent is so important. Getting this wrong results in friction. Humans also have a tendency to over complicate problems and solutions, and in doing so unintentionally introduce friction into product experiences. This can happen when we try to please existing customers by building custom features, it can happen when we lose sight of the overall objective, and it can happen when we have varying opinions on how to solve a particular problem. Ok, now that we’ve identified some of the ways friction gets introduced to our product, let’s explore some techniques for identifying and eliminating friction. What are some of the techniques used to eliminate friction in my customer experience? Keep it simple – solve your customers problem in the most efficient way possible. Remove unneeded features and have a rigorous process for getting new features added to your product that includes customer feedback. Be wary of using the same friendlies over and over, it’s best to include new customers and have variety when vetting new features. Measure the time it takes customers to activate, record user sessions and review the ones that get stuck for opportunities to improve customer experience. Measure the time it takes customers to achieve value, record user sessions and review the ones that get stuck for opportunities to improve customer experience. Measure feature usage and consider ways to improve adoption and/or remove the features that get little or no use. Be deliberate about onboarding and what you want your customers to accomplish and then help them get there. Test different techniques such as email programs, in-app messaging, live customer support, guided tours, webinars, etc. What are some of the tools I can use for eliminating friction in my customer experience? There are a number of tools in this category, too many to name so I’ll run through a few of the tools I’m most familiar with and whenever possible name some of the alternatives. – when it comes to product analytics this is a great place to start. MixPanel has a number of features, but the core value is in-app event tracking. You can use MixPanel to add event tracking for the key moments in your customer experience (e.g. activation, value, key feature usage, paid upgrade, etc). MixPanel Some alternatives to MixPanel would be Google Tag Manager, HeapAnalytics, or Segment. – they brand themselves as the product led growth platform, as bold claim that has some truth to it. Their product is a leader when it comes to personalized onboarding, driving feature adoption, and collecting in-app feedback. Appcues Some alternatives here would be , and . WalkMe Pendo – record user sessions and collect a lot of engagement data using FullStory. This is a powerful tool for really digging in and analyzing user experience. Recorded sessions deliver tons of insights into areas of confusion and friction, providing much more color than typical conversion metrics. Record sessions, define funnels, build segments, filter by device, etc. It’s a powerful tool, check it out. FullStory Other tools that are similar include , , and . HotJar CrazyEgg MouseFlow These tools provide a wealth of data and a strong foundation for understanding and improving your customer experience. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list. Every SaaS business is going to have unique requirements and priorities. The 3 categories above will provide you with enough intelligence to operate with confidence and as your growth stack matures you can fill in the gaps to meet your specific needs. ​​What are the key metrics I should be tracking to measure friction in my app and my ability to improve my customer experience? The first thing you need to do is define your funnel and some of the key metrics associated with your customer experience. The main things to focus on here are activation, value, and key feature usage. Activation Rate In order for your customers to begin using your product there is a certain amount of setup required – this is referred to as activation. This is going to be different for every product, so it’s up to you to define what constitutes the bare minimum required to begin using your product. Once you define that moment in your app, trigger an event using (mixpanel, segment, or google tag manager) when customers reach that milestone. Once you have the event firing you’ll then want to pay attention to: = the % of your customers that reach activation Activation Rate (Total Activated Accounts / Total Accounts Created) = how long does it take for your customers to reach activation. Time to Activate (Activation TimeStamp – Account Creation TimeStamp) Value Once you’ve gone through the process of defining what value looks like in your app, take the same steps you did with activation and fire off an event when customers reach your defined threshold for value. Once you’ve defined value and have the event firing you’ll then want to pay attention to: = the % of your customers that reach value Value Rate (Total Accounts Achieved Value / Total Accounts Created) = how long does it take for your customers to reach value Time to Value (Value TimeStamp – Account Creation TimeStamp)​ Key Feature Usage Understanding key feature usage can help you understand a range of things about your customers and your product. The data can help you understand if you are attracting the right customers, if you’re prioritizing the right development work, if your approach to onboarding is working, and what features are more likely to result in paid accounts, to name a few. The key here is to tag your key features (maybe all features depending on the number) with event tracking so you have the data to analyze as questions arise. Once you define your key events and have the event(s) firing you’ll want to pay attention to: – % of total accounts using each feature Key Feature Usage = Overall Key Feature Usage (Total Accounts Using Feature X / Total Accounts Created) – this one requires you to define an active user. Your definition should include some level of key feature usage so you can be sure the activity is value driven and not simply a login. One word of advice, creating a soft measure for value will cause the remainder of your funnel to suffer. Don’t cheat, hold your product accountable. Active Users = (Active users per your definition (daily, weekly, monthly))​​​ Active Users Using this guide you should provide the information you need to put in place a plan to identify friction within your customer experience, measure the key customers touch points and interactions, and track your progress towards eliminating friction. Eliminating friction is a key component to building a successful SaaS business. To learn more techniques read The Beginners Guide to Product Led Growth and learn how to plan, execute and measure a product led growth strategy for your SaaS business. Previously published at https://saasplg.com/guide-eliminate-saas-friction/

Eliminate Friction In Your SaaS Customer Experience With This Simple Guide

Selecting the right tools to enable your SaaS PLG growth strategy can be challenging. There are hundreds of tools out there and they all claim to be the magic wand you need to understand your users and drive growth. In this article I outline the top 4 tools to enable and give you the information you need to understand the features and benefits each has to offer. product led growth 1. Google Analytics This one is obvious. has been the go to source for web analytics for 20+ years now. It’s free, easy to use, and provides a wealth of information for websites and apps. Google Analytics Key Features: – Not much more to say. You get access to comprehensive web analytics, for free. Free – Just create an account and add a simple JS Snippet to your website and you’ll start collecting usage data. Ease of use – You can pretty much google anything you’re trying to do in google analytics and you’ll find someone has published a tutorial explaining it. Tons of free help online – Because Google Analytics is so widely used there is a robust ecosystem of integration partners. Robust ecosystem How Google Analytics Enables Product Led Growth: In order to successfully implement a Product Led Growth model you need to attract people to your website, and get them excited about your product. Google Analytics provides visibility into a ton of information that can help you optimize the top of funnel, understand acquisition channels and user behavior, measure key events, and more. When to Add Google Analytics to Your Product Led Growth Stack: Don’t waste any time adding Google Analytics to your website and app. The sooner you start collecting usage data the sooner you can start improving your user experience. 2. MixPanel is a customer experience platform that is useful in understanding how your users are interacting with you app, or website. With MixPanel you instrument events that are important to your user experience, and then use this data to improve your user experience. MixPanel enables more advanced analysis and segmentation, and the ability to send messages and run experiments targeting specific segments of users. MixPanel Key Features: – MixPanel makes it easy to gain access to and analyze user behavior. Behavior Analytics – Conduct analysis on different groups of users that are important to your business. Cohort Analysis – Instrument events for key feature usage, and/or engagements points. Event Tracking – Setup alerts and be notified when key metrics change suddenly. Alerts – a free version of the tool makes it easy to get started. Free Version How MixPanel Enables Product Led Growth: MixPanel enable you to continuously improve your user experience, which is a critical component to achieving . product led growth When to Add MixPanel to Your Product Led Growth Stack: Add MixPanel to your app as soon as you start testing your product with real users. 3. HotJar is a suite of tools that offers a number of different growth capabilities. You can use HotJar for everything from heat maps and funnel visualization to onsite polls and surveys. Because this tool includes features that impact every stage of the funnel it makes it ideal for early stage businesses, and for those looking to minimize the number of tools that need to be managed. HotJar Key Features: – generate heat maps for key landing pages. Heat Maps – present surveys and/or polls to users that visit your website or app. Surveys and Polls – build out and visualize funnels. Funnels – build forms and embed them on your website to collect feedback and leads Forms – having all of these capabilities in a single subscription is perhaps the HotJars most valuable feature. Many Tools, One Subscription – a free version of the tool makes it easy to get started. Free Version How HotJar Enables Product Led Growth: HotJar contains tools to help you optimize your digital properties, conduct research, generate leads, and visualize funnels. When to Add HotJar to Your Product Led Growth Stack: Add HotJar to your website right away. The free tier allows you to gain access to a lot of functionality that can help you learn and iterate more quickly. 4. AppCues presents themselves as . And there is some truth to that statement. They have created a very powerful tool that can help you both understand and impact user behavior. Appcues the product led growth platform Key Features: – create personalized onboarding experiences to help deliver positive experiences that lead to more engaged users. On-boarding – collect user data in app while they are “in the moment”. Collect In-app feedback – deliver timely, in-app announcements to users. In-app Announcements How Appcues Enables Product Led Growth: Appcues can help improve onboarding and feature adoption, this is the products core value. They are focused on helping businesses improve product experience to drive growth . When to Add Appcues to Your Product Led Growth Stack: Appcues can be expensive depending on how many monthly active users you have, and it requires upfront investment and ongoing management, so be sure you are ready to leverage the platform before jumping in. That said … onboarding, activating, and getting new users to value is critical so get this up and running as soon as you have an internal champion to own it. Are There Other Tools? Of course there are other tools. Some compete directly with the tools listed above and others are focused on completely different areas. I believe in a minimalist approach to data collection, and tooling. Have too much of either of these can be more paralyzing than having none at all. My advice … check out these tools and if you don’t like them, try their competitors until you find a set of tools to do the things YOU believe will enable you to consistently deliver amazing customer experiences. Learn about driving product led growth for your SaaS business, read The Beginners Guide to Product Led Growth . Previously published at https://saasplg.com/4-tools-grow-your-saas-business/

4 Tools To Help You Grow Your SaaS Business

We bet you have your own “gone customers’ cemetery” of those who once were with you, but have gone and are not planning to return. It’s sad, but you can’t give up: almost half of them are sure to be returned. If a person has interacted with you, they are at least a little interested. Your task is to identify what has affected their trust, make an effort and find out how to get former customers back. Based on our ( ) experience, we prepared a list of tipson how to return customers. Dashly.io How do you know when it’s time for action? There are two key indicators that provide insights into how you are doing with your current customers. They are interrelated and we have talked a lot about them; they are Churn and Retention rates. Churn is those users who have stopped any interaction with you. Retention is your ability to maintain a long-term relationship with your customers. You need to understand that no one is perfect; there will always be users who have not obtained the benefits and left you. This indicator needs to be monitored and acted upon when it gets out of control. This is how the churn rate is calculated: It’s hard to say what churn rate can be considered acceptable. Much depends on the age of the company: in startups, for example, the churn rate is the main issue as it can reach 15%. Gradually, the product finds its audience and the churn rate decreases. It is commonly considered that for SaaS services, the churn rate should not exceed 3%. If you have been working for a long time, and the churn rate is large or even worse, if it’s growing period by period, it’s time to take urgent action. The work on customer retention is also a very important process. It is known that existing customers are ready to spend 67% more than new ones. According to the research conducted by , a 1% increase in the retention rate leads to a 7% increase in profits. There are many ways to retain customers; the most effective for you can only be determined through experience. You should always keep an eye on that metric. Price Intelligently What customers should be returned? It will not be possible to return the client in the snap of a finger: it takes strength, time, and budget. It may happen that you spend a lot, but get a little; the returned client will not pay off themselves. In order not to waste resources, you need to understand who to return, and whom to say goodbye once and for all. The team has conducted research to find out which customers should be returned. To do this, they divided all of the churn customers into two groups: quick-churn and late-churn. MarketingProfs The first group included users who had only been working with the service for a short time and had never become regular customers. The second group was those who actively interacted (extended the subscription, contacted customer support, opted in for additional functions). The results have shown that newcomers are more difficult to return than users who were active in the past: 29% of the first group returned, whereas 53% of the second group got back. Among those who returned, the “old” are 51% more active than the “newcomers”. It turns out that you make the same effort to return both categories, but the results are different. It makes sense to group lost customers by their activity and the duration of interaction with you and build a return campaign depending on it. Figuring out the reasons Before taking action to get the customer back, you need to understand why they left. If they decide that they no longer need your service, trying to sell the same instruments for less is unlikely to work. There are several ways to determine the user’s motive. is a service that allows you to look at your website through the eyes of the user. You can completely track their actions: what sections they look at, where they stop, even how they move the mouse. With its help, you can easily understand what on the website gets your customers interested and where they have difficulties. Fullstory Fullstory also allows you to determine where on the website something broke down or what a customer didn’t like. For example, you can see the buttons that drove the user crazy (they quickly clicked many times on the same place). The report looks like this: are a good way with one very serious flaw. In an email, you can explain the situation, pose a question, start a dialogue, but only in the most daring fantasies of marketers it is opened by absolutely all recipients. In fact, the open rate of about 20% is already fine, although it turns out that the letter was read by only a fifth of the users. Emails is a good way to get in touch with a user who hasn’t visited you in a while and returned. Everybody is used to seeing this standard “Hello, how can I help you?” message in the chat window, so something new is likely to attract attention. An automatic message in a website chat To make your messages more personalized, you can set up user segmentation in the Dashly . For example, you can only start a dialogue with those who haven’t visited you in 2 days, or those who have added things to the shopping cart. online chat A is probably the most effective way, though expensive. By phone, you can find out what did not fit the customer, what they wanted to change, to make them an offer. In the course of the conversation, you will understand the mood of your interlocutor in general, learn about their problems, and offer a personalized solution. phone call Gather responses of your customers and analyze them. If several customers confess they lack a certain function, it is worth implementing it. How to Get back Lost Customers Finally, the fun part. You know it’s time to take action, but it’s not clear which one. There are many different ways to restore the love of the customers; we will discuss the most effective of them in our opinion. Apologize sincerely A small percentage of users go away for no reason; there’s usually a good reason for that, and you might have screwed up somewhere. Try a proven remedy – apologize sincerely. For example, you can describe the situation in an email or discuss it over the phone. This method works well with those customers who have been with you for a long time, and especially if you know each other personally. AppcuesBlog In the email, they offer recipes based on previous orders of this user. Adding an invitation to dialogue here will make it a great return email. Make a present Sometimes a user needs to be “bribed” to come back to you. Offer a promo code, a gift, free delivery, or anything else valuable. But be careful with discounts. , the expert from Price Intelligently, too high discounts devalue your product in the eyes of the customer and also have a tangible negative impact on LTV. According to Patrick Campbell If you find out that a customer lacks some feature they found in a competitor, implement it. Of course, not everyone will like it, but if you noticed that several users need something at once, it makes sense to make an effort and create this function. And one more thing: don’t promise something you can’t or won’t do. Otherwise, you’ll bury yourself even deeper. Offer something new If you’ve released some cool updates, don’t be silent about it in any way. Write an article, set up a webinar or tell about it in an email, and try to attract as many former customers as possible. It is likely that they will be interested in your changes, perhaps they were just waiting for them! It’s definitely worth testing this method. Remind about important things This is rather a preventative measure, but it’s better to overdo something than to not do enough. Set up notifications to let users know when they need to top up their balance, about features that are not connected, and about updates that have been released. Sometimes customers forget and score: the subscription ends, they do not get a hand to extend it, then they somehow distracted and do not come back at all. It is a shame to lose a user just because of inattention, so be sure to inform him that the time of payment is close Sometimes customers forget and skip out on things: their subscription ends, they don’t have time to extend it; then, they get distracted and do not get back at all. It’s a shame to lose a user just because of their inattention, so be sure to inform them that the payment time is close. For example, we have done this pop-up in the : it reminds users that they are about to lose their access to the platform. constructor Make great content I’m sure you still have your customer’s contacts; keep sending emails to them. It is important not to become annoying: one email per week is definitely enough. Here’s another rule: allocate the minimum amount of email space for advertising; your current task is not to sell faster, but to return the attention of a departed customer. Offer them interesting articles, entertain them with hilarious and appropriate (!) stories, share the news with them, and delicately direct them to your website. Getting gone customers back: learning by examples has made a great chain of emails. If one day you decide to download a trial of one of their services, and then do not buy a subscription, here’s what awaits you. Netpeak First, the charming girl wonders why you stopped using the service. Let’s say you’re not taking this email seriously and you’re not responding to it. In 2 weeks, Julia writes again. You start feeling awkward not answering Julia and you write her that the tool was needed for a certain task, now it has been solved and the need has disappeared, but maybe after a while, it will appear again. Julia is glad you finally showed the signs of life, and she writes: The email refers to the service we mentioned in the reply. It turns out that you are first brought into a dialogue, then told more about yourself and offered value (help). The best part is that the letters look personal as if the company manager is really writing to you. Of course, all e-mails prior to your first response are sent automatically, but you have to admit that this is not obvious. service sends such an email to users who have not renewed their subscription: SE Ranking You are reminded that your subscription has expired and all indispensable features of the service are no longer available. Then they offer you a promotional code for a 20% discount and lead back to the website. The friendly tone of the email and the author photo convert a user to return to the website. Social networks taught us 10 years ago: “If you love it, let it go”, but it doesn’t always work. You can and should return gone users; the main thing is to do it correctly. Determine who should be returned, contact them and don’t be intrusive. And then you will get back what is truly yours. (Originally published ) here

How To Prevent Your Customers From Leaving And Win Back The Ones Who Left

Okta’s 7 year path to IPO (source: Equityzen) In and we explored the different types of startups (consumer, enterprise, SMB etc.) and the various marketing roles. In part 3 I want to address the stage of a company. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that working at Facebook is very different from working at , or . part 1 part 2 Strava After School Appcues What kind of startup is right for you? Startups tend to be broken into four stages that correspond to their financing: Early stage: No funding to series AMid stage: series B and CLate stage/Pre-IPO: Usually series D and abovePublic: I’m combining Public and Pre-IPO here to simplify By now I’ve worked at all stages from founding to IPO (via 4 different companies)in marketing and product growth roles. They all have their pros & cons so I developed this simple framework in the familiar pick 2 triangle: Impact, Money, and Experience to help you think through your career choices. The company stage tradeoff — 3 pick 2 Let’s explain the three pillars Impact Your ability to come in the office every day and do something that helps the company survive, reach its full potential and in general wouldn’t get done without you. You also very likely care about the mission of the company. Impact usually results in a meaningful and satisfying role. Experience Your ability to develop your skills, knowledge (best practices) and a of mentors and peers. The company you work for will also be recognizable and help further your career. network Money: The amount of money you will earn. There is no golden rule but if you adjust for risk, Pre-IPO and publicly traded companies are best. Non-risk adjusted: early stage can be very rewarding but those are rare cases. are where you go when you want to have a material impact on a company and you want to play the lottery. You might know a lot, but it’s much more likely that you have plenty of energy to get stuff done around the clock. Your equity grant won’t be worth a lot of money, but will be much larger than a mid stage startup on a % basis. Imagine when your 10 person company becomes a 100 person one. You now have 90 more people contributing to the growth of your company: that’s massive leverage (note: this is why employee growth is a very important metric). Early stage startups startup are still small enough that you can have a material impact on several aspects of the business early on in your career and enjoy a broad role. Most importantly, you will be surrounded by other people (mentors, peers, managers) who will help you grow. The hardest thing I experienced while running the business side at my startup was that I couldn’t validate what I was doing or sanity check my results against historical results. Only when I joined Facebook did my startup experience receive validation. The downside, is usually the companies are sufficiently advanced that the equity grants aren’t very sizable (especially at the entry level) and while the risk of a complete write down are much lower, the chances that they become one of the famed unicorn remain low. This is a great place to be if money isn’t your top priority but want some level of financial stability. Mid stage startups are great for many reasons — they are: Pre-IPO and public companies Recognizable: Recruiters and hiring managers love that — and so do your parents.Experienced: Functions are developed across and the talent is strong. If you are curious you’ll get the chance to learn how other functions run and in general how to run a great tech company.Liquid (or close): Tech companies take 7–10 years to go public, after which the shares are subjected to a 6–12 months lock up period. That’s a very long time to wait. Public companies are liquid on day 1. And most private companies simply are not. (I’m ignoring secondary markets on purpose). The special case of high growth startups Every once in a while, there’s a startup out there that defies gravity. Dropbox, Stripe, Segment, Slack. When you see a company like this, just get in. “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, You don’t ask what seat. You just get on.” — Sheryl Sandberg If you need some inspiration, head over to the to find interesting companies. breakout list This wraps up my three part series. Let me know what you thought here or hit me up on Twitter @hlth

So you want to do marketing for a tech company… (part 3)

Interview with Nichole Elizabeth DeMeré B2B SaaS Consultant I am the self-appointed family travel agent. Though if you ask my partner and the rest of my family members they’d agree that I am the best person for the job. Why? Because over the years I have become adept at making sure I don’t overlook the details when planning a vacation — you know where the devil hides! And who wants the devil to turn up on their vacation?! Unless of course, it’s a blue devil ;) #marchmadness #goduke I take the time to read through ALL the descriptions and fine print, talk to customer support agents to find out if there are any additional fees, and make sure that family members who have accessibility needs like my 10-month-old baby and 82-year-old grandma will be taken care of. Once I’ve done all this planning, I know I have truly earned my vacation ;) Despite all my effort, there have been times when things didn’t turn out as planned. Like the time I booked a home in India only to find out that the address was incorrect. The host mixed the street name with the city name. We would have had to drive 3 hours after 24+ hours of travel, but I called customer support and they resolved the issue for us quickly. It was a positive customer support experience: responsive, seamless, and efficient. As a result, I continued using that service to book my travel, knowing that if something screwy happened I could count on them next time. But there are other companies whose customer support agents place me on hold — for more than a few minutes. When the agent returns, they tell me that I’ve reached the wrong department. Then they transfer me to the “correct” department. Once the transfer is complete, I have to repeat what I told the first support person to the second support person, all the while hoping that they can help me resolve the issue. They can’t. When I look at how much time I’ve spent, and the exorbitant fee or unreconcilable charge, I am frustrated and vow to never do business with them again! I know I’m not alone. No one likes being at the receiving end of a bad customer support experience. It’s easy to place blame on customer support, but it’s not their fault because the problem originated somewhere else — when the product or service’s feature was being created. Someone designed the experience in a way that wasn’t particularly customer friendly, and then it became a challenge to change the experience because of the silos that formed in the company between teams: sales, marketing, product, engineering, and customer support. At the start of a company, teams are usually flat and highly collaborative, but over time, silos start to form, slowing things down, making it hard to innovate, and distancing teams from their customers. Is it even possible to slow or stop them from forming? And to enable everyone across teams a chance to interact with customers? Well in today’s episode of Build we’re going to answer these questions and more, We’ll show how silos form of overtime, some best practices for keeping silos at bay, and what to do once they have formed to break them down. To help us out I’ve invited who is a B2B SaaS Consultant with 20+ years of experience in online marketing, and a champion for customer success. Nichole Elizabeth DeMeré As you tune into today’s episode you’ll learn the following from Nichole Elizabeth: Why everyone on a team including software developers and engineers should have a chance to interact with customers, not just people who are on the customer support, sales, and marketing teams How to empower teams to break down silos, and a framework for evaluating experiments and features that factor in constraints When to automate and when to interact with customers How silos form over time, how to avoid them, and what to do once they’ve formed Why when building B2B products it’s important to focus on making your customers successful not happy Why you need to rethink off-boarding customers and make it easy for them to leave “When everyone on the team is aware of the voice of the customer, everyone is super excited about what is going on (with the product). DeMeré If you really want to stand out right now it isn’t pricing, it’s team alignment and customer experience.” — Nichole Elizabeth Prefer to listen to the episode? or . Listen on iTunes here listen on Stitcher here In the episode, Nichole Elizabeth mentions a number of resources, here are links to them: Net promoter score (NPS) How Transparency In SaaS Offboarding Reduces Churn by Shayla Price SaaS Growth Playbook with Trevor Hatfield Appcues Segment.io Wootric Help Nichole Elizabeth suggest a topic for her upcoming podcast Build is brought to you by Femgineer an education company dedicated to helping techies build companies, products, and level-up in their careers

Why Everyone Working On A Product Needs To Be Aware Of The Voice Of The Customer

How to build an effective user onboarding flow into your product. User retention happens via activation and , not notification spam or of new features that eventually leads to feature fatigue. How do you introduce your product to a new user for the first time? You use onboarding. Fairly self-explanatory, really. onboarding addition But there is more to onboarding than just an introduction. If you are meeting a new person for the first, it’s okay to just stop at the “hi’s and hello’s” or even what they do for a living. But with digital product, it’s different. Customers want to know how your product is going to change their lives, deliver value and guarantee a return on investment and oh you have a very short window to inform your customers that your product can certainly live up to their expectations. Consider you had a minute to explain “quantum computing” to a toddler, well before you go on with the explanation you might want to consider these common traits: toddlers have limited attention span, the current situation of the toddler (other activities around them), and cognitive load (comprehension). Prioritizing customer satisfaction over delight When thinking about the best way to implement an onboarding flow into your product, it’s best to focus on the core experience and value you are delivering and not the delighters. In essence, your onboarding should be lightweight as much as possible. The is a practical framework to leverage when prioritizing features that will help your customers get any sort of meaningful benefit on the first try. Kano model Applying the Kano model focuses on your user’s basic expectations first. These features can either make or break your retention model, they make up the baseline that every product in the category offers. However, these features do not equally translate to customer satisfaction. It makes sense to couple performative features with basic features when implementing an onboarding flow. Threshold/Basic features — features are the most straightforward to position when implementing onboarding. They are the ones where customers . Building an effective retention model with your onboarding flow means your product is able to deliver value that meets a customers expectation in the shortest of time. Not too simple and not too complex. Strip away all the extra fancy stuff and make sure not to mix up excitement features with performance features. Performance features vs benefits features — Performance like having them and dislike not having In general, performance features combined together with basic features have a linear effect on customer satisfaction. They will bring satisfaction to end-users when present, and dissatisfaction when missing or unfulfilled. Kano Model Applied to Features by Aleksandra Bis _How to delight our users and exceed their expectations?_uxdesign.cc Choosing the Right Features with Kano Model The case of Duolingo (Basic/Performance vs delighter features) Duolingo does this so well with its . Of course, the total experience of a product covers much more than its usability or performance. It extends aesthetics, amusements, utility, and business goals which all play a critical role. Try as much as possible not to overcomplicate the onboarding journey with unnecessary feature delights. Your user preemptively holds an expectation and does not have all the time in the world to analyze your extravaganza’s. Duolingo focuses on one essential experience and makes everything around it the best. onboarding Classifying Duolingo’s features into performance features and delighters. The rest of the fancy delighter(s) are attributes that provide satisfaction when achieved fully but do not cause dissatisfaction when not fulfilled. In a 2015 by Andrew Chen and Quettra, the average app on android play store loses 77% of its DAUs within the first 3 days after installation. Within 30 days, it lost 90% of DAUs. Within 90 days, it’s over 95%. report The most effective solutions recommended by Chen to leverage in improving retention happen to be; user-friendly product description, better , and what triggers user set up to drive ongoing retention. onboarding flow So how do you provide value in your onboarding flow? Guides to follow to build the perfect onboarding into your product Leverage your user persona’s emotional state to design your onboarding flow. A practical way to go about this is by carrying out extensive user research to identify simple and complex nuances that influence the way users interact with your product. In recent times, product teams have pushed more for the integration of field research into product development. This is because that can easily be identified by talking to the user are not causation, attributes do not cause users to do things. It’s context like physical, emotional, and social in which people engage with a product that triggers causality. So before implementing an onboarding mechanism, it’s important that you bring into perspective these different contexts and identify the best way to create a common workaround to fill in the gaps of different users workflow. Learning about your users beyond desktop research: This resource from Google explains how to plan, execute, and share insights from the field. Understanding the user — attributes _Learn to plan, execute, and share insights from the field_design.google Beyond Desktop Research: The Immersion Trip — Library — Google Design — How does your product deliver value to your customers? and what category does your product belong?. These defining question should be identified and answers matched with your product’s unique use case. 2. Identify your product category Regardless of the specifics of the onboarding flow implemented in-app, if users can’t find your product with a simple search within a certain category or your product description does not effectively explain what your product does then your onboarding is broken. Onboarding starts when a user searches for your product by name or within a category. An example is “Duolingo”, at the first search the user is presented with the product and a succinct description of what the value the product provides “Learn Languages for Free”. It’s simple and it effectively describes what Duolingo does. Apple and Google make this easy by allowing you to match predefined categories with your product when uploading to the app store and if your product is browser-based a simple web search should describe what your product does and how it delivers value. _The categories you assign to your app help users discover it on the App Store. Learn how to choose the most accurate…_developer.apple.com Categories and Discoverability — App Store — Apple Developer _Using the Play Console, you can choose a category for your apps. Users can browse for apps by category using a computer…_support.google.com Select a category for your app or game — Play Console Help — perhaps this is the most critical aspect of building an onboarding flow, before even designing or building you should identify the best onboarding technique that fits your product category or what techniques should be combined together. 3. Identify an onboarding technique that fits your product These onboarding techniques include the following: this technique is classified into static and dynamic onboarding. Dynamic walkthroughs are effective to walk users through your product’s features by providing a completely integrated and contextual experience. Static walkthroughs present a slideshow or static instruction before users get started and are non-interactive. Product categories like education, communication, travel, and photography often use such technique. Walkthroughs and tutorials — Slack App Walkthrough Technique Tutorial Technique From Duolingo Visual hints is an onboarding technique that assists users to better understand how to interact with a product’s interface. This technique is especially needed for designs that contain a lot of interactive objects, or a unique navigation method. Visual hints When used irresponsibly, this technique can have adverse effects on users understanding of what your product does. There are do’s and don’t that are applicable to this technique. Visual hints or visual cues — cater to a users emotion and Visual hints and cue technique This technique is more suitable for a product that is heavy on user-generated content to create interaction and deliver value to users. Empty states onboarding create an experience where a user might not have created content yet. This could be because the user has just signed up, or the user has deleted their data themselves. In this case, an empty state is a natural point to inject the use of onboarding into your product and to continue guiding users along. Product categories like productivity, social network, and communication make use of this kind of onboarding. Using empty states and sample data — Empty state and sample data onboarding technique Your product’s onboarding journey map should certainly be different from a typical customer journey map that entails a customers entire lifecycle. Your product’s onboarding flow is a subset of your full user journey map. It starts by identifying a huge, painful problem to solve then proceed to identify a simple solution to the user’s problem and effectively how your product can help achieve the user’s goal (the task). By identifying a simple path to onboard your users you will, in turn, create an effective onboarding flow that welcomes users, introduce them to your product and encourages retention. 4. Identify the fastest journey for delivering value to your users. — Conclusion Building an onboarding flow that is simple and intuitive is tasking and it is very easy to miss your one important chance to show a customer that your product can deliver value and help them solve a major hurdle. In essence, treat your onboarding flow as a major point of customer activation and retention. Resources to leverage to help you build better onboarding flows Onboarding techniques: The do’s and don’ts when designing an onboarding flow from Shopify. _To ensure users don’t delete your app after the first use, you should teach them how to complete key tasks, making them…_www.shopify.com.ng Mobile App Onboarding: The Do’s and the Don’ts — Shopify 2. Appcues, a user onboarding software that allows you to experiment and Improve your user onboarding. _User onboarding is hard to build and maintain. With Appcues you can publish in-app messages and walkthroughs to…_www.appcues.com User Onboarding 3. Create multiple immersive onboarding flows with Pageflows and view onboarding flows for other products. _User flow patterns and design inspiration to help you get unstuck_pageflows.com Page Flows — user flow patterns Sending a shitload of spammy email notifications with the subject line “We Miss You” is unlikely to bend your low retention curve significantly but with a better onboarding flow you can meet your customers half-way.

User onboarding is product management

You don’t need to know coding to launch or market your . startup How many times it has happened with you that you have got an app idea and you know it can be amazing and can potentially make you a millionaire? I bet multiple times. And having that itch that what if you can build a tech startup on the idea that you have is kind of troubling. Isn’t it? Let me tell you that you are not the only one… At , we have spoken with over 600+ non-tech founders. We have also helped 100+ non-tech founders to build applications which went on and raised millions of dollars in funding. All of them had the same itch! Indiez So if you are a non-tech person thinking of building a tech startup, you don’t have to be . In fact few of the most successful entrepreneurs like Brian Chesky (Airbnb), Michael Dell (Dell), Steve Jobs (Apple) are non-technical. afraid of the tech world tech So not having knowledge of tech should not stop you from building a startup. The only thing that matters is your persistence and belief to build something incredible. If you work hard and smart, you can build the next billion dollar tech company. The best part is that these days there are tons of SaaS available which can help you launch your startup without knowing tech at all! tools We have listed a few of the products that you can use to launch and market your startup: Launching/Testing In this section, we will cover incredible that can help you at the beginning of setting up your business and your own website. tools #1 Instapage is a powerful all-in-one landing page solution. Boasting world famous clients such as eBay and Hello Fresh, Instapage is the landing page platform that was built to work with Google. As a result, this is the easiest solution with finding a landing page that fully integrates with AdWords and Analytics. Instapage only Pros: Easy to use solution Near to perfect user experience Flexible with regards to your needs Great templates to work with Full integration with Google Areas to Improve: Some small glitches that prevent a perfect user experience Limited images available in their free library How should I use this tool? Instapage is a tool that allows you to build a website with value in only a few hours. You can use the tool to play around and see what people want from your website. This will allow you to target the right audience and test the right elements to your site. For example, if you are building a community, you can quickly build a landing page for them and ask for their email addresses. then you can invite potential users to your community with a click of a button. You can then reach out to these people who have you email and ask them what are their needs and wants are. Result — a better product. #2 Launchrock is a beautiful site building platform that is dedicated to the early stages of your business. It is an incredible tool that allows you to build your own website/application in minutes and thus gives you the ability to go straight into acquiring those first customers. Launchrock Pros: User-friendly Step by step guidance — perfect for the non-techies! Live previews Quick and fast process Concentrates on customer acquisition Areas to Improve: No Multiple Site Support Limited functionality How should I use this tool? Launchrock is all about launching your product. Like Instapage, you can use email lists to increase the interest in your site. The best thing about Launchrock is how adapt it is for entrepreuneurs. The features on this easy tool allows you to potentially generate traction before you launch your product. Final Thoughts Launchrock is perfect for anyone who needs a platform created quickly. It’s user experience is so brilliant that even someone with the most limited knowledge can be talked through with their guidance. #3 Wix is a website builder that gives you the freedom to create anything you want. This is a handy tool for both the website building experts and the non-tech founders building for the first time without any knowledge of code. Wix Pros: Excellent Templates Flexible Allows you to add animations Automatic Site Back — Instantly saves your progress One of the first ‘big players’ in website creation Areas To Improve: Templates not easy to change Adverts on free version How should I use this tool? Wix has been around for a while, it is a great simple tool to build your own website. From there, you can market it through different techniques and gain the traction. Like others, this is a fantastic tool to play around with, test your audience and see what will work for you. A quick and simple solution for you to build pages and apps without the need to learn code or hire a software developer. Final Thoughts Wix has changed a lot in the last few years. They are regularly making improvements with their designs and user-experience and it is simply breathtaking to see the development speeds achieved by Wix. Non-tech founders should start with the free package to ensure it is the right tool for them. Building your MVP This section provides you with some tools to help you build your MVP from scratch. We have also included a solution as this can be a section too difficult for the ‘non-tech’ founders. #4 Marvel is the all-in-one platform powering design tool. Deliveroo, Buzzfeed and Cabify are just some of the many clients that have used it to bring ideas to life and create beautiful digital products. Marvel Pros: Free package is super useful to start process Web based platform No learning or coding required Everything you need in one solution Aesthetics are beautiful Areas to Improve: Limited library for free templates Unable to use animations How should I use this tool? Marvel is the perfect tool if you want to design your app, create it quickly and move it straight to testing. Using Marvel will allow you to get your app idea out there at fast speed without the need of external assistance. You can build anything quickly and send it out to users to gain feedback. This is a great tool to build your prototype and decipher any early changes needed. Final Thoughts Marvel can be a true staple for anyone who is founding a business without having a techie mind. The platform is so easy that it could be recommended to anyone who is studying or learning how to create mobile apps. It is easy, intuitive, friendly and most importantly — reliable. #5 Proto.io is a tool that allows you to create fully interactive, high-fidelity prototypes that look and work the way you want it to. Past clients include Amazon, Disney and ESPN who have used proto.io to transform an initial idea into a functioning product. Proto.io Pros: Swift and easy to use All the features needed to create a great app Quick process No coding required Animated and beautiful applications Areas to improve: Some users have feedbacked a difference in their product in the web app and mobile app Not enough features for free users How should I use this tool? Proto.io allows you to build an app yourself. It feels awesome and brings your idea to life in super speed. You will have your own app without learning any code at all. You can build the prototypes really quickly and get your feedback from potential users at the same great pace. Final Thoughts Proto.io is a great tool for a non-tech founder because there is no coding required. It is a much more simple and quick procedure that trying to learn the elements needed with React.js and React Native. They are currently offering a 15 day free trial to get started on building your product with proto.io. When it comes to building a MVP, Non-tech founders are going to face their biggest struggle. We have included the solution to this problem. #6 Indiez *Not A Tool, A Solution* is a 100% remote working community that helps you build software like the best Silicon Valley companies. World-famous customers such as and are on a list of 250+ businesses that trusted Indiez to deliver on creating a perfect solution to the hurdles they were facing with their applications. Indiez Uber Domino’s Pros: Work very closely with their clients to ensure needs are met Tight deadlines are always achieved Large community from 30+ countries around the world Community members are put through a stern interview process to ensure they are the best of the best worldwide Teams working on your project are assembled based on who is perfect for the project. Areas to improve: Indiez is currently working on improving their own content and brand Indiez is committed to building an even bigger community based on quality instead of quantity to ensure perfection all round. How should I use this solution? Contact us and find out via ! You can use Indiez as a perfect solution to bringing your product to life within the deadlines you are hoping for. We are up for a challenge and our 100% remote working team allows us to manage our deadlines and ensure that they are hit. Just have a look at our case studies from major organizations. indiez.io here is in the process of really creating something special. Things seemed to be a bit quiet in recent months but it was ‘the calm before the storm’. The list of clients is regularly growing and external reviews are . Indiez has a special connection with non-tech founders and therefore it would be impossible to not include on this list. to get the Indiez experience and see your product created beautifully and quickly. Indiez incredibly positive Apply today Growth and Communication Tools This final section covers the tools you will need to grow your startup as well as the tools that are perfect for your everyday organisational and business uses. #7 Tour My App is a tool that helps you create in-application tutorials that will help guide your users to a perfect web experience. It makes your web application come to life with tours and demo’s suited to your user’s needs. TourMyApp Pros: Great way to engage your customers No coding required No need for documentation Complete customisation Metrics reporting available Areas to Improve: Timely process Support only available for higher priced packages How should I use this tool? This tool will be crucial to driving your conversation. You can guide your customers towards the steps you want and ensure a brilliant experience by your users. The metrics are so clear and you can follow these to see what is working for you and what is not. From there, you will be able to know the right way for you to perfectly interact with your customer. Final Thoughts TourMyApp is a great tool for non-tech founders as it allows you to create a unique experience for your users without the need to learn code or anything too technological. The opportunities for growing your business starts with the happiness of the users on your website — this is a great tool to take advantage of creating quality service for everyday users. #8 Appcues is a great tool that allows you to add an experience layer to your product so that you can build user onboarding. Over 800 companies worldwide trust Appcues to improve their user engagement. Appcues Pros: No code required Easy to use Time efficient Great tool for your own app marketing Capture the perfect feedback Areas to Improve: Limited designs available Basic reporting How should I use this tool? Appcues is another tool that focuses on conversation and interactions with your customers. Use this tool and its features to create a perfect marketing platform based on the feedback you are receiving. Adding the experience layer of onboarding gives you an opportunity for instant feedback and also learning what future customers will want. Final Thoughts Appcues will help you truly engage with your customers. The best ways to improve your business and your product is via the feedback you receive from your customers daily. Using Appcues is perfect tool for a non-tech founder who wants to help their business grow without needing to learn or understand any code. #9 Slack is where all your work happens. If you are kicking off a new project, hiring a new employee or even planning a meetup. Slack is the best way to communicate and share every element of your working day. Slack Pros: Communication tool for mobile and desktop Ability to create channels for different departments Can build a community of external members who you can share information with As the #futureofwork is 100% remote — it allows total communication Fast to download, fast to use Areas to improve: Currently a tool much better for internal use than for sharing information to users Notifications are better on a mobile app than the desktop How should I use this tool? So many startups use Slack as it is a perfect tool for clear communication. You can use it in so many ways: Create channels, On board customers to IM with, Create your own community, Team management etc. You can easily and instantly chat with other users and send files, images or anything that you may need to within your company. The future of work is remote working and this is an essential tool to communication for colleagues based in different continents. Final Thoughts We had to include Slack! Everyday, Indiez community members can contact each other with ease due to this tool. It allows team members in Spain to chat instantly to colleagues in India in a painless simple way. #10 MailChimp is a marketing platform that allows you to send emails/postcards/newsletters to your marketing mail list. You can create beautiful content that can be sent to 1000’s of people with the touch of a button. Mailchimp Pros: Can send multiple emails to multiple customers Really easy templates Anyone can design and use their tools to create beautiful marketing material Thorough reporting — track success rates Available via desktop and by mobile app Areas to Improve: Limited automation Can be expensive if you need to email more than 12k people How should I use this tool? Mailchimp is the marketing solution that will help you deliver multiple brilliant campaigns. You can implement the lists that you have built up by sending them different types of newsletters and emails. You can even design a beautiful template to add to your campaigns which will speed up a process and allow you send daily or weekly updates to your email lists. You should be using Mailchimp before you have even launched….build your community. Final Thoughts Overall, Mailchimp is incredible. It is a great way for a non-tech founder to create and design their own email marketing campaigns. The reporting will help you test what works for your campaigns and allow you to know what you can change to ensure success with your emails. #11 Typeform is a versatile data collection tool for professionals. It provides an easy and refreshing solution for asking and answering questions. It’s easy and uses a motivational tone to invite the best answers to your questions Typeform Pros: Create beautiful looking surveys Works great regardless of platform Easy to brand Easy to create Clean interface with excellent customisation Areas to improve: Customer support not 24/7 Typeform branding on every form How should I use this tool? Typeform allows you to create surveys in rapid speed. You can use the tool for anything that requires a form being filled in. Job applications, Customer feedback, Signing up to newsletters, the list is endless! You can find out so much from your typeforms that it becomes a research tool as well. If you use Typeform wisely, you can build your own database that you can market to with Mailchimp. Final Thoughts Typeform is phenomenal tool for any non-tech founder to use. It allows you to create surveys for any need. You can perfectly align your brand with all the surveys and easily implement it with any form you may have on your website. #12 Airtable is a smart organization and collaboration tool that offers any sized team a single and centralised platform to manage projects, customers and ideas. Airtable is a flexible tool that enables users to organize everything and anything. Airtable Pros: A refreshing new alternative to a spreadsheet Simple data driven layout Allows a great tracking tool for the whole team Fantastic communication tool Easy to use — no learning required Areas to improve: Lack of restrictive access — everyone can see everything A lot of manual input — not a lot of automation How should I use this tool? Airtable is not just a spreadsheet, it is a handy organizational tool. You can use this to organize your work and your teams. There are so many different ways to use Airtable that I advise you to and find out for yourself. This is a must have tool for every entrepreneur! click here Final Thoughts Airtable is a fantastic tool that non-tech founders need when we are facing a professional future of remote workers. It allows everyone to track and keep up with what people are doing and allows input from all members of the team. A great way to completely organize your remote team. #13 Asana is a task and project management solution that facilitates team collaboration and communication. It allows you to create projects and tasks within those projects to ensure a truly organised workflow. Asana Pros: Easy to use Aesthetically engaging Allows the most disorganised person to become organised Easily accessible via desktop and mobile application Notifications to ensure full communication Areas to improve: Once you choose your format, it cannot be changed You can’t see all the tasks in one place How should I use this tool? You will use Asana daily! This is the best way to communicate and ensure delivery on your projects. You are able to organize your days perfectly while also tracking what you are doing as well as colleagues. You can create different calendars which will be transparent across your business. You are able to tick off anything you have completed and you will never ever be able to forget to do a task again! Final Thoughts Asana is going to be essential to your growth as a business. It will allow your team to interact and collaborate with each other in a very simplistic nature. You are able to track your projects progress and fully understand how much work your employees are completing. It is the most simple and effective organisation tool for even the least technological person. These are just some of the ‘must-have’ tools that we believe will help you flourish when founding your own business. Without some of these tools, we would not have been able to create a successful remote community with the top 1% of startup talent. will be here for you when you need something building. Our remote community will help you on your way and build you a product very fast. We have the top 1% startup talent in the world and we will guarantee to hit your deadlines. Need help building your product? Indiez Let’s build awesome. 🙌 Starting up? Do it right! Join 100+ amazing founders who built successful products with Indiez. Know more about us here — Indiez.io

13 Essential Tools that ALL non-tech founders NEED.

Look at the final one. Image Source: Re:scam There’ll never be the doomsday for app creators, product builders, and the hustling marketers. It already seems like they’re onto building something , , and all the time. Perhaps, the kind of quality they’re up to will potentially beat out the other saturated brands. engaging sassy pain solving stuff Quite soon, I bet. Remember the day, four years ago, when launched a that slain the messaging dragon ? There are many equivalent products, devised mindfully, which are truly making our lives facile enough. Slack revolutionary real-time messaging app Hipchat Teams working from their respective tables is no more a requisite. have become way too simple and straightforward with tools like , , and similar. Whereas, app like lets us associate with our colleagues and others through video calls. Team collaborations Slack Trello Zoom Duck-soup! How easier can it get than this? That most of the products nowadays come with which executes all kind of , from to inbuilt native bots automation email auto responding ticket booking! Stuff like this let us focus on creating more while the bots take care of to our potential users. pressing content/features reciprocating relevant content Distinctly, most of the redundant tasks are taken care by the legendary bots. Let’s see such that were competing for spots on 5 raving products last month. Product Hunt Really Good UX Image Source: Really Goood UX Friends from have done a phenomenal job stacking they took of . Appcues screenshots wonderful UX flows Collectively, they built it with . They are out in the form of a blog at for UX aficionados and experts for inspiration and for further UX research. 1000+ UX flows ReallyGoodUX.io GEIO Image Source: GEIO is a powered by algorithm and a great deal of artistry. GEIO first-person shooter robot AI It is one of a kind or could be the . Its built-in AI chip and & help identify the enemy robots and triggers auto-tracking. This ability sticks to the top of any other outlandish expertise that GEIO has. first ever advanced fighting robot auto-scanning recognition system More similar to the tech used in auto-driving cars. Unlike the usual , with GEIO can look at our home from a unique perspective. Mechas FPV functionality, Escape Team Image Source: Escape Team is a gripping that lets you and your friends solve real-world puzzles. Escape team digital-physical game You got to fiddle with pen and paper to crack this game. While also having in mind the you committed to. A co-operative pen and paper escape game is available for both and . countdown iOS Android users The Startup Way Image Source: The Startup Way Those who are influenced by must have read , written by , one of the best selling . entrepreneurial culture The Lean Startup Eric Ries New York Times author Decrypting the comprehensive strategies applied by successful startups and how others who’re trying to swim across the dicey storm must pull it off in this . 21st century Precisely, this book takes us through how must implement tried and proven strategies and why and must act like one. businesses of any size all of us are entrepreneurs Well now, We all wish we were returned all the time we squandered in our past so that we could do something valuable now. Don’t we? Speaking of, here is a if not a time traveling machine yet. time-saving machine Re:scam Image Source: Re:scam have never been so cool until popped in recently. Fighting scammers Re:scam Will you still fright bots that businesses are coming up with concrete useful models like this? Don’t 😺 Re:scam is an helping humans save their time by with never-ending conversation and anecdotes. Automatically adapts to a (which the scammer will identify as you) and . intelligent service tackling scammers unique character builds incessant conversations This will be the better way to fight back scammers while also saving others their time as you don’t just block those emails but assign it to an intelligent bot. Let’s wind up with these amazing services for you to try out. And if you’d stumbled upon any recently, drop a word about them here. groundbreaking product I’m all 👂 👂 👂

5 Coolest #1 Products of The Day On ProductHunt [Oct-Nov 2017]

Custom hooks are an amazing thing that happened with React. It brings to us the ability to create beautiful components and move a lot of business logic to hooks. Here is the list of the 3 most used custom hooks in my everyday work during the last month. useDelay We’re using this hook in form inputs, where we need to take the user’s inputs with some delay. It can be used for example for cases when we want to send a search request for autosuggestions in fields, but we don’t want to send requests on every input change. Instead of this, we take the input’s value with a little delay. As usual, we started by creating an empty hook. Hook work with generics as we can work with different data types. Hook takes 2 arguments: initial value and delay in milliseconds. And we return delayValue export const useDelay = <T>(value: T, delay: number): T => {
    const [delayValue, setDelayValue] = useState<T>(value);


    return delayValue;
}; Then we will add to wrap timeout logic. It will execute on every value or delay change and return the delayed value in the target timeout useEffect useEffect(() => {
    const handler = setTimeout(() => {
        setDelayValue(value);
    }, delay);

    return (): void => {
        clearTimeout(handler);
    };
}, [value, delay]); Full solution: export const useDelay = <T>(value: T, delay: number): T => {
    const [delayValue, setDelayValue] = useState<T>(value);

    useEffect(() => {
        const handler = setTimeout(() => {
            setDelayValue(value);
        }, delay);

        return () => {
            clearTimeout(handler);
        };
    }, [value, delay]);

    return delayValue;
}; useCustomEvent In the current project, we use many Custom Events. Such events help us to share data between components in cases when we don’t need to put it in the Redux store for example or even to share data between separate applications. Hook is very small and simple: export const useCustomEvent = (
    event: AppCustomEvents,
    listener: EventListenerOrEventListenerObject
): void => {
    useEffect(() => {
        window.addEventListener(event, listener);

        return () => {
            window.removeEventListener(event, listener);
        };
    }, []);
}; We use useEffect hook with empty array as a dependency to execute it on component mount. It ads eventListener to window, and in return function we remove listener to avoid memory leaks. Than we can just call this hook when we need it: useCustomEvent(‘user-click‘, handleUserClick) useFetchAPI The last hook is a general solution to work with API requests. I think that many developers use it in variations, but maybe it still will be useful for someone A simple variant can look something like this: export function useAPI((options): APIOptions{
    const [loading, setLoading] = useState<boolean>(true);
    const [data, setData] = useState<T>();

    const getData = (): void => {
        httpService
            .sendRequest<T>({
                url: options.url,
                data: options.data
            })
            .then((response) => {
                if (response?.data) {
                    setData(response.data);
                }
            })
            .finally(() => {
                setLoading(false);
            });
    };

    useEffect(() => {
        getData();
    }, []);

    return { loading, data };
}); We use our custom to work with requests, but there can be any other solution: custom variant, fetch, Axios. So, by component mount our hook will call API, save data and set flag to false. Once again I want to notice that this is a very basic solution and in our app, it’s more complex. The idea is that we can create any business logic we need and then easily use it in our application httpService loading

Stories, News & Mentions about APPCUES

Appcues’s Stories on HackerNoon