To Build, or Not to Build - Jane Portman of Userlist

Episode details

While Ben’s on vacation, Derrick welcomes another podcast host who can commiserate with him about email automation. Jane Portman is a UI/UX expert and consultant who hosts the UI Breakfast Podcast and co-founded Userlist.io. She describes what it takes to create a customer messaging tool. Today’s Topics Include: Product Priorities: Slow, steady, and quality Lifestyle Business: Overall goal is to replace consulting with SaaS recurring revenue Challenges: Limited development time and resources; slow growth rate to adopt mission-critical product To Build, or Not to Build: Avoid feature creep by focusing on what to add or improve Playbook Post: 10 steps to successfully position a product Launch Process: People are waiting for the right time for the right tool for their business Customer Conversations: Pre-product interviews about problem to be solved; followed by product demos to grant access to beta version for feedback Finding Customers: Landing page, updates, stories, sign-ups, mailing list, and more We’re out of Beta! Simple and straight-forward product launch plan and strategy Generic Illustrations: Product design trend that has to end Email Experiences: Educate people on how to ethically use email to serve their business Links and resources: UI Breakfast Podcast (https://uibreakfast.com) Userlist.io (http://userlist.io/) UI Breakfast on Twitter (https://twitter.com/uibreakfast) Userlist.io on Twitter (https://www.twitter.com/Userlistio) Behind the Scenes of Our Upcoming Public Launch (https://userlist.io/launch-strategy/) How We Used April Dunford’s 10-Step Method to Overhaul Positioning at Userlist (https://userlist.io/positioning-overhaul/) AoP Episode 91: Feeling Superhuman with Rahul Vohra (https://artofproductpodcast.com/episode-91) Product Hunt (https://www.producthunt.com/) Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) MailChimp (https://mailchimp.com/) Humans of Flat Design on Twitter (https://twitter.com/humansofflat?lang=en)  Paul Jarvis (https://pjrvs.com/) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide (https://tuple.app/pair-programming-guide) StaticKit (https://www.statickit.com/) Level (https://level.app/) Level Retrospective (https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/17/im-walking-away-from-the-product-i-spent-a-year-building.html) Level Manifesto (https://level.app/manifesto)