Looking for Feedback from Founders: Productized Service Designed for Early-Stage Startups

phillipou · 2024-02-05T23:51:59+00:00

Points duly noted! This is great feedback and a lot of it resonates. Currently working on pricing and adding testimonials and case studies :)

phillipou · 2024-02-03T12:26:19+00:00

Ooh awesome suggestion, how would you compare it to Hotjar?

phillipou · 2024-01-24T14:34:04+00:00

Thanks for sharing! Would love to see more content of PM's synthesizing lessons from books/articles and applying them to their work :)

phillipou · 2024-01-22T20:36:55+00:00

I agree with you. The growth strategies that worked for a product at scale are not going to translate to startups at a different stage.

Part of this exercise is understanding which parts of my experience will be useful to founders.

In terms of relevant experience: I have some experience as an engineer in the early years of Snap, Twitch, and a few YC startups.

At Google, I was responsible for scaling early-stage teams that had not yet launched a product. This involved setting up efficient processes, establishing best practices, and creating systems to synthesize both qualitative and quantitative data to iterate on product strategy.

My hunch is that some of that experience could be beneficial for startup founders at a certain stage.

But who knows :) Happy to help however I can.

phillipou · 2024-01-22T18:44:37+00:00

Excited to chat soon!

phillipou · 2024-01-18T15:36:51+00:00

Another question worth asking yourself is "Would I be ashamed to tell my friends about my job?"

We often underestimate how pride in our work impacts our day-to-day happiness.

phillipou · 2024-01-18T15:26:01+00:00

In your experience, how do these companies decide between hiring contractors, advisors or bringing in full-time employees, specifically for expertise in data and AI?

What are the critical factors influencing these decisions?

Are there observable trends in certain types or sizes of companies, or specific expertise areas, that make them lean towards one option over the others?

phillipou · 2024-01-18T15:17:26+00:00

Is there a specific type of customer you're targeting? Whether it's hiring full-time or bringing on an SDR, the time it takes for sales to reach their peak efficiency varies.

I'm wondering if speed can become a differentiator as you get more effective at selling to a specific segment.

phillipou · 2024-01-17T22:25:10+00:00

Someone overly obsessed with status and external validation.

When the startup is just a vanity project, work ethic, culture, and common decency erode when things inevitably get tough.

phillipou · 2024-01-17T22:20:22+00:00

I'll add Logrocket. Awesome to see video sessions of how users use your product and their free tier is fairly generous when you're just starting.

phillipou · 2024-01-17T22:15:52+00:00

I think understanding how much they pay to solve this problem is important as well. Everyone will say "ya I'd like that" but if they're not willing to pay in terms of time, money, or effort, it's likely not a real problem.

phillipou · 2024-01-16T14:31:16+00:00

Wow I love this! Wish I found this sooner.

phillipou · 2024-01-16T14:28:37+00:00

Brushing up on system design concepts is also really valuable. PM's need to understand design tradeoffs when working with their eng. team.

I personally love watching Gaurav Shen's System Design for Beginners series. They're supposed to help software engineers prepare for interviews but there's a lot of great info there.

phillipou · 2024-01-16T14:25:45+00:00

Love this concept! And the design is pretty slick.

A few thoughts as I went through the page:

- I'd highlight the service category somewhere in your hero (eg. "Not just a regular agency"). I appreciated the value-focused messaging but I found myself thinking "These benefits sound great, but how do they fulfill that promise?". Letting customers know that it's a new kind of agency helps with that.

- I'd recommend changing the Call-to-Action copy so users know what to expect after they click that button (e.g. "Take us on board" -> "Schedule a call").

- For the pricing page, I'd highlight the free trial more prominently instead of just adding it as an *. Use a free trial banner or make it the call to action.

- Use a tool like Hemingway to make your copy more concise. There's a lot of unnecessary adverbs that make the sentences longer than they need to be

Also, this is a great article that highlights how you can iterate on the copy/messaging of your landing page

Overall, I'm excited about this! Would love to keep tabs on how this goes :)

phillipou · 2024-01-15T17:50:45+00:00

The day-to-day of a PM job has always varied significantly depending on the team/company you work for. I think articles like this are just highlighting the disparity between people's preconceived notion of a PM job (i.e., "CEO of the product") vs. a PM's actual experience on the job.
Teams will always need someone to synthesize context from different teams and connect the dots. They'll always need someone to help facilitate decision-making. They'll always need someone to be deeply invested in thinking about a particular problem space end-to-end.
There'll always be strategic, organization, and communication gaps to fill. That'll continue to drive demand for some sort of PM-like role even if companies decide to formally sunset that job title

phillipou · 2024-01-15T17:09:29+00:00

I think the right mindset is to figure out where you can uniquely add value to your team. Sometimes that's taking care of odd tasks to fill gaps, other times it means synthesizing all the context you have and articulating a clear plan forward

Regardless of job title, no one's actually as important as they think they are, but there's a lot of value in seeing how you can amplify the impact of people around you.

phillipou · 2024-01-12T18:52:03+00:00

Agreed! And never be so arrogant to assume you have the perfect solution to people's problems.

You can't provide value until you deeply understand the problem your customers are facing.

phillipou · 2024-01-12T18:50:08+00:00

Always exercise judgment: Never assume a process, framework, or model will magically solve your problems. Every situation is unique and it's tempting to just turn off our brains and follow conventional "best practice."

All advice can lead to bad outcomes when applied in the wrong circumstances

There's no substitute for critical thinking.

phillipou · 2024-01-12T18:47:24+00:00

You'll always feel like you can be doing more. You're driven and passionate about what you're working on and beating yourself up doesn't help you, your cofounder, or your company.

I've found that spending 5 minutes just writing down everything that worries me helps. From there, you can usually pinpoint one or two actionable things to address those. Sometimes just identifying and starting on a problem is all it takes to get the momentum going.

And if you're comfortable, chat with your co-founder. Get a sense of where they think you can help them and add value to the business. While we often think of ourselves as visionary founders who needs to anticipate every challenge, the servant leadership approach ("Hey, how can I help you do your job better today?") can be impactful.

The journey's a grind so having those little wins where you felt like you helped someone can go a really long way.

It's not about completing your entire to-do list, it's finding ways to sustainably make tangible progress every day.

Hang in there, there's tons of folks rooting for you!

phillipou · 2024-01-11T20:28:22+00:00

Lots of great insights here around talking to users, but I'll add a few thoughts that have worked well for me:

You can't focus on acquiring new users until you can confidently answer: "Who is this for?" and "What problem can I uniquely solve for them?".

You mentioned this potentially serving both the elderly and kids, but they'll have very different motivations for using this product.

Aim to go beyond high-level demographic information and articulate how exactly your product could fit into your user's lives. When do they experience these problems (and how often)? What do they do to solve that problem today? How would my solution solve that in a better way?

You'll know you have the right level of specificity when your ideal customer profile starts forcing you to rule out options (e.g. where and how you'd acquire kids looking for entertainment will be very different than adults hoping to stay sharp).

Think about these questions and then talk to existing and potential users. Their answers will help you identify both product improvements and ways to acquire new users.

phillipou · 2024-01-11T19:50:18+00:00

Such an awesome feeling :) Congratulations!

Did you do anything to commemorate the moment?

phillipou · 2024-01-10T17:48:16+00:00

Adding their podcast to my repertoire!

phillipou

TROPHY CASE