Prioritize User Happiness and Profits Will Follow
A simplified way to look at Dave McClure's Pirate Metrics
Welcome to the first edition of Happy Users!
If you’re here unexpectedly, that means I added you to my mailing list without your permission. (sorry, not sorry).
This is a place for me to send an endless stream of consciousness out to the internet. Essentially, this is the beginning of me losing my mind.
What are happy users?
Over the past two years, I’ve used Dave McClure’s Pirate Metrics as a guiding light for evaluating product adoption and prioritizing growth roadmap features. The ability to narrow down endless data points into five key categories has been instrumental in identifying a business’s biggest growth constraints.
As a Growth leader, it’s my job to look at these constraints and recognize how to fix them. While each product is different, I noticed a common thread: make a user happy and profits will follow.
Throughout this article, I’ll outline how user happiness pushes users down your funnel -- taking them from new users to brand advocates.
Acquisition
You’ve got new users signing up; let’s set some expectations, give them an opportunity to try the product risk-free, and only ask for sensitive info if absolutely necessary.
Self-Serve w/ Clear Pricing Model
There’s nothing more infuriating than unnecessarily talking to a salesperson. I know; I used to be in sales. (And for that, I’ll never forgive myself...)
When users come across a product that interests them, there are a couple ways to eliminate friction and frustration:
Ability to sign up for the product on their own. No need to talk to sales, no need to schedule a demo.
Clear understanding of price. Don’t make users waste their time. It doesn’t matter how great the product is, there are some things that are certainly out of a person’s price range.
Try Before You Buy
I get anxious when I make a non-refundable purchase decision. In today’s tech space, there’s no reason users shouldn’t get an extensive free trial before making a buying decision.
Happy users get to try before they buy. I’m talking no-credit-card-required free trials; I don’t want to see a surprise bill in 30 days.
Seamless Signup Flow w/ Minimal Requests for PII
Once a user decides they want to give this a shot, signup should be fluid. One of the biggest headaches I’ve gone up against was serving mobile ads without a mobile experience; we spent a lot of money and got very few superusers.
You’ll also want to limit your requests for sensitive or personally identifiable information. You haven’t earned a user’s trust yet -- don’t ask for their phone number or social security number unless absolutely necessary. (And if it is necessary, make it clear why.)
Activation
Users signed up; now let’s give them a path to success by providing a great onboarding experience.
Clear User Journey w/ an Escape Hatch
Activation is all about getting users to that aha! moment. To do so, you’ve gotta have a quality onboarding experience with a simple user interface.
Clear user journeys emphasize:
Navigation
Flow state
Engagement
Minimal friction
As for the escape hatch: no matter how beautiful your onboarding experience is, some users will want to skip it. Let them. Usually, it’s for the better -- they’re probably either a referral (and thus already know what the software has to offer) or an early-adopter who wants to learn on their own.
Value of Solution
If I’m investing my time into learning a platform, I should quickly see the value it provides.
Retention
Users understand the value of your platform; now, you’ve gotta keep them around through product performance, a great product roadmap, and high-quality support.
Good Product Performance
Product performance is the silent killer. Slow load times, bugs, or inconsistent experiences are death by a thousand cuts. The worst part? Users typically won’t tell you the problem; they’ll simply bounce.
Prioritize User Problems
Your product roadmap should always be centered around user problems. Best way to identify them? Speak to your users regularly through support, user research interviews, prototypes, and more.
Building a product roadmap is complex; simplify it by evaluating each user problem based on quantity of user requests, effort for implementation, and value for the end user.
High-Quality Customer Support
If I have a problem and I can’t get in touch with support, I’m done.
Product Improves w/ Usage
The more time and energy I put into the product, the better it should get.
Minimal, Helpful User [Re-Engagement] Messaging
Users should never know that you’re trying to drive them back into the product. Rather, the user should feel like your messaging has their best interest at heart. All re-engagement strategies should fall into three categories:
A reminder
An update (something has changed)
There’s more information
Revenue
Users are coming back to your product time and again; now, it’s time to get paid in a way that’s beneficial to both parties.
Pricing Model Tied to User Success
When your pricing is tied to users being successful on your platform, users see a clear correlation between the price they’re paying and the value they’re receiving. Here are some great examples of user success tied to price:
Zapier: usage-based pricing model that charges you pennies for each “zap”, which is an automation that saves you time. Well worth it.
Slack: per seat model that only charges you for active users.
Stripe: payment processing that charges you a percentage of each transaction. Yes, that percentage might be high -- but you just got paid!
Referrals
Users are shelling out dollars for your services; let’s get them to talk to their friends.
Surprise and Delight
Go above and beyond for your superusers, turning them into brand advocates. Some ways to do this include:
Featuring them in your marketing materials
Introduce them to valuable contacts
Send them swag
Provide an unexpected discount
Celebrate their personal wins
Clear Return on Investment
You should aim to be 5-10x as valuable as the revenue you capture. Let me give you an example.
Superhuman:
Cost: $30 per month
Time Savings: At least one hour per week.
Headache Savings: Endless.
Cost-Benefit: I bill my clients $100 per hour.
Conclusion: Superhuman helps me make $370 per month.
I can bill my clients for four more hours ($400 total) and it costs me $30.
I’ll recommend Superhuman to anyone who spends a lot of time in email and is tech-savvy around a keyboard. It just makes good financial sense. (Reply to this email and I’ll send you a referral code for a free month.)
A Cautionary Tale: Headway’s User Communications
Here’s what happens when you disregard user happiness and solely focus on product metrics.
Headway (do NOT sign up) is an app similar to Blinkist or Sparknotes; it takes self-improvement books and gives you a 10-15min summary.
It sounds appealing, as I find that most self-improvement books are extremely repetitive. To me, the primary user benefits were straightforward: save time and learn when it’s convenient for me.
Headway views itself in a similar fashion; the main header on its website is “Bite-sized learning that fits into your busy life.”
You know who’s making my life busier? Headway! Their user communications are so atrocious that I told a group of coworkers to avoid the app at all costs. Headway’s abusive user comms just cost them six potential customers.
In the 10 days since I’ve signed up, Headway has sent me:
52 emails
37 push notifications
I’ve got 89 problems, and all of them are Headway.
Final Words & A Note
If I had to reduce this article to one sentence, it’s this: when faced with two choices, pick the one that will make your users happy; profits will follow.
Quick note: I hope you enjoyed this first edition! Please don’t hesitate to provide feedback or any topics you’d like me to cover in upcoming weeks. And if you know someone in a growth or product role, I’d appreciate you forwarding this along!
-Zac