5 builders who never spoke to each other

Instrument the product before you add to it

Put analytics in early enough to know who your committed users are, then find the step where signups stall by watching real sessions rather than aggregate counts. Interviews describe the shape of the problem, but only usage data says which part of the product to build, and mapping the journey as discrete stages tells you which one is the leading indicator.

The method

1. 01

   Track how many people who sign up ever reach the first meaningful action, and find which step loses them.

2. 02

   Instrument which parts of the product get used most before you optimise anything, either through anonymised counts of component usage or behaviour analytics, and make session recording tools opt in because people dislike being watched.

3. 03

   Instrument the product before you ship extra features. Customer interviews give you the shape of the problem but only usage data tells you what to build.

4. 04

   Put an analytics tool that tracks user attributes and every touchpoint in place early, or you will not know who your loyal users actually are when you need to.

5. 05

   Add session recording so you can watch where individual users stall, since aggregate numbers will not tell you which step of the interface lost them.

What it returned

• 28%

  Only 28% of MDX.one signups completed a blog: 29% never started, 45% abandoned mid flow, and 28% of those who submitted the form hit an error.

• Hotjar and CrazyEgg named for session recording and heat maps, Amplitude, Heap and Pendo for usage counts

• Standuply ran many interviews that clarified pain points and workflows but did not yield useful features. They had no internal statistics at first, which the founder compares to flying with no radar.

• Habitify held off on proper analytics and the growth lead credits that for their weak understanding of their own repeat users.

Sources

• July 2021: Retrospective & Income ReportBhanu Teja · bhanuteja.dev · What happened in July · undated
• The Bootstrapped Founder Newsletter Episode 25 – May 1st 2020 – The Bootstrapped FounderArvid Kahl · thebootstrappedfounder.com · Maximal Qualitative Impact · 2020-05-01
• Habitify: From $0 in 6 months to 1M downloads and $21K/monthAlan Nguyen · failory.com · If you had the chance to do things differently, what would you do? · undated
• Making $80K a month with a problem-solving Slack-first AppAlex Kistenev · failory.com · What were the biggest challenges you faced and obstacles you overcame? · undated
• Signups ShmainupsGreg Kogan · gkogan.co · 2. Signups are too far removed from business goals · 2022-01-29
• How I grew my Shopify micro SaaS to 2000+ users in 40 daysPreetam Nath · preetamnath.com · Analytics for Shopify apps · 2019-12-29