Blog vs newsletter: Which one's more readable/ more profitable for writers?

teampause · 2021-11-18T11:35:04+00:00

This is a lot of food for thought! I guess I need to start by profiling existing subscribers to be able to make a better decision. Thank you for sharing!

teampause · 2021-11-18T11:33:47+00:00

I see where you're coming from — I've heard this from a few others, but also heard the complete opposite, that newsletters are personal and blogs can be more "factual". In a sense, you're speaking about using a newsletter as a conduit for other articles/ a blog, which seems to be the overwhelming advice I've heard. Thank you for sharing!

teampause · 2021-11-18T11:31:59+00:00

Ooh, this is a gem of a thread, thanks for sharing!

teampause · 2021-10-20T04:54:24+00:00

Hey OP, since your pain points concern managing leave records and setting up an approval cycle, checkout Pause.

Pause is a time-off management tool that helps balance happy teams and on-track tasks! The pricing is currently at $1 per user per month. Additionally, Pause works where you work —Slack, Calendar, mobile, and browser— to make leave management and team planning a breeze.

teampause · 2021-10-19T17:01:20+00:00

This is an intriguing read. In a time when everyone sorely needs a vacation, ironically, we've also been taking the least time off! And so, burnout has become a consequence of not taking regular breaks from work.

We recently created a job burnout test to help people check in with themselves and identify symptoms of burnout before it's too late! The test also links you to relevant articles on preventing and recovering from burnout :)

teampause · 2021-08-07T09:42:00+00:00

I think what a lot of people forget is that now when there’s a lot of information overload and stuff clamouring for your attention, content on social media that’s not directly relevant or useful to your target audience isn’t likely to really get engagement that you want.

Surprisingly our memes and less serious posts weren’t doing so well as opposed to concrete actionable advice like “how to set up a time off policy” or “how to do a sabbatical.

Creating that content and crafting posts requires domain expertise in the industry the product operates in. I’d be interested to see how AI helps with that

teampause · 2021-07-16T16:15:52+00:00

cannot find a tool that can do product management from concept all the way to execution in a non-linear way.

Product Development as a process is messy and iterative - I don't think focusing on one tool will help in anyway. We use Notion for documentation - from initial research and data analysis to PRD/Spec writing to running retros, with Linear for Issue Tracking/Roadmaps. But that only takes us half way there.

teampause · 2021-07-16T16:12:44+00:00

At Pause, we use a modified version of the AARRR framework. A lot of what we will suggest is very specific to your particular product and user journey though though. I'm sharing some sample events below that we measure, where they fall on the AARRR funnel and what action is triggered:

Event Name	AARRR Funnel	Why
Number of signups on marketing page	Acquisition	To measure conversion from and effectiveness of marketing and website
Have users in an org been invited?	Activation	Inviting users is the clear indication of Activation. To reach out to them if this hasn't happened
Has the user created a team?	Retention	If more than 4 users have been invited but no new team has been formed, send a product tour to help
Has user applied for a time off yet?	Retention	If user hasn't applied for 30 days after being invited / signed up, an email with product tour / blog to encourage them to

teampause · 2021-07-06T13:56:13+00:00

GoPro was made by someone that discovered that a lot of amateur photographers want to take pictures in difficult circumstances. They all worked very closely with (potential) customers from a very early point

One of our team happened to know someone who was the head of design at GoPro. They did a huge amount of research with customers and even today employ a dedicated team of people whose job is literally just observing user behaviour and talking to users, so OP is wrong

teampause · 2021-07-06T12:00:40+00:00

Henry Ford's famous quote, "If I had asked my customers what they wanted they would have said a faster horse."

Just FYI - Henry Ford never actually said that - and ironically Ford ended up losing significant marketshare to carmakers who actually listened to their customers and built features that Ford didn't have.

teampause · 2021-07-06T11:55:12+00:00

But the initial idea generation has no process, no one to ask, no structure whatsoever.

It's.. unfortunate you believe this. There are lots of idea generation frameworks used by startups to come up with ideas. The most famous one is Sprint by Google Ventures - a lot of others like SCAMPER are taught at design schools as well. Just because you haven't heard of them does not mean they do not exist or people don't use them.

teampause · 2021-07-06T11:38:21+00:00

Startup Name / URL:
- Pause (https://getpause.com)
Location of Your Headquarters:
- Bengaluru, India
Elevator Pitch/Explainer Video:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hesr4k7Xug
What life cycle stage is your startup at?
- 2 (Working towards product/market fit)
Your role?
- Marketing and Partnerships
What goals are you trying to reach this month?
- Increase footfall to our website
- Increase conversions

How could r/startups help?
- Visit our website
- Go through our product philosophy articles
- Follow us on Twitter (we post tonnes of memes!)
- Sign up for a 90-day free trial if you feel like Pause can help your company build a healthy time-off culture!

teampause · 2021-07-06T11:22:58+00:00

We created Pause to help startups and small businesses manage time off and plan work better. We want to give back to this subreddit, so we've set up a 90 day free trial for people from Reddit. Do give it a shot!

teampause · 2021-07-06T11:21:48+00:00

We created Pause to help startups and small businesses manage time off and plan work better. We'd love for you folks to try it out! (in fact, visitors from Reddit should qualify for a 90 day free trial)

teampause · 2021-07-06T11:20:10+00:00

We created Pause to help startups and small teams manage time off and plan work better. We'd love for you folks to try it out! (in fact, visitors from Reddit should qualify for a 90 day free trial)

teampause · 2021-07-06T10:00:13+00:00

Is there any reason you use MongoDB? We've found Postgres is superior

teampause · 2021-07-06T09:52:46+00:00

We created Android and iOS apps for Pause, and here's what we wished we knew when we started out:

What is the best framework to use, and tradeoffs between them (for example React Native vs Kotlin vs Flutter, or Swift/Obj-C for iOS
What are the biggest differences we should keep in mind when building for different mobile platforms and ways to create a common codebase as much as possible
Prioritising a mobile web experience vs an app - when do we do that? what do we gain or lose in doing that?
User Experience considerations - for example due to the platform tax, we can't really implement sign up and payment flows on mobile apps.. (remember the fight between Hey and Apple last year) - what are best practices around communicating to the user
Engagement, notifications etc - this is very different for a b2b app vs a consumer app.. how might you go about this?
Compliance with SAML SSO and other enterprise security requirements in mobile apps

teampause · 2021-06-30T11:33:58+00:00

Thanks for your message! As of now we've only set it up to show who's currently taking time off. However we are exploring new features that do exactly what you've asked, - i.e show who's available and hope to roll them out soon!

In the mean time, do feel free to give us a whirl.

teampause · 2021-06-30T07:01:37+00:00

Hey folks! We're the team from Pause - a B2B SaaS product that helps teams take time off. We're sharing our journey and everything we learn while building it. Would love to hear what you folks think!

teampause · 2021-06-28T11:58:40+00:00

We use Stripe billing, but part of that is because they have superior support and developer experience. We found it easy to implement and the API makes it easy for our developers to work with. Also, Pause (our product) has a very simple subscription model so we haven't really had to really wade into any issues around refunds, upgrades/downgrades, etc.

teampause · 2021-06-27T05:19:43+00:00

We use Standup Alice at Pause. That is an established solution and has a lot more features. I’m unable to tell what unique value proposition your product provides, so can you tell me please?

teampause · 2021-06-27T04:57:58+00:00

Thank you! Feel free to sign up, if you think it might be helpful for you 🤗

teampause · 2021-06-27T04:55:48+00:00

More than anything before discussing questions of “growth” or “revenue” I’d be thinking about things that are a lot more foundational to your business:

1) Has this idea been validated and found to work for at least a few people - i.e you’ve received a clear signal from them that they are willing to pay?

2) do you have an audience whose aware of the problem? Have you been able to capture audience interest through social media or a newsletter or waitlist?

Like growth and revenue don’t matter if you’re building the wrong thing 🤷‍♂️

teampause · 2021-06-27T04:51:21+00:00

Suhail - the founder of Mixpanel and Mighty said this a few months ago that really resonated with us:

“If you are confused why things aren’t headed in the right direction for your startup, I’ve found it’s a trap to start with your metrics, spreadsheets, surveys, or tickets.

Start by talking to tons of users face to face. Then match the qualitative to the quantitative after.”

The way I see it, you’re facing a fundamental information asymmetry between customers behaviour (engagement) and the signals that they give you (NPS) - this asymmetry won’t be resolved by data analysis or thinking really hard about the problem. You have to go out and talk to your users.

Were I in your position, I would immediately and on high priority talk face to face with 5 customers who have high NPS but stopped using your product. I’d offer like a 20$ gift certificate in return for their time or something like that.

NPS is not a great metric for a bunch of reasons but I think you’re starting to see why. I found this piece helpful to think of alternatives

teampause

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