Product People

After having great success with books and courses, Nathan Barry has shifted his attention to his SaaS: a web application called ConvertKit.

In this episode he shares all his revenue numbers, and how his focus on his sales funnel lately has increased MRR.

Show notes

• Nathan Barry on Twitter
• ConvertKit’s public revenue stats
• Music: Lethal Force by Striker, visit them at  striker-metal.com

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
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Des Traynor is one of my favorite writers and speakers on the topic of SaaS businesses, and jobs-to-be-done.

Notable quotes

“I think not talking to your customers was always a pretty pathological thing to do” – Des Traynor

“Customer service is the new competitive edge. Everyone has SaaS businesses. We’re all using the same frameworks, copying the same design techniques. Most software being produced today is infinitely better than it was years ago. The competitive edge isn’t going to be who has the better bevel. I actually think it will move to things like: ‘Who has a better relationship with the customer?’” – Des Traynor

“There’s a ton of project management software. It’s hard to compete on features. But if you ask: ‘How do I make people really great at managing projects?’ The answers come to you a lot quicker.” – Des Traynor

“It’s the forgotten job of every single SaaS product. ‘Ok, you’ve sold me. Now help me sell it to the rest of the team.’ I can eat the $29, but getting me to spend my own social currency… that’s a big ask.” – Des Traynor

“The job of every dashboard and report is to get someone promoted” – Des Traynor

Show notes

• Intercom
• Inside Intercom Blog
• Des on Twitter

Note from Justin

This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Des, available on Product People Club. Go to  productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!

Want to help the show? If you could go to  iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you’re listening on  Stitcher, please leave a review on there!

Cheers,
 Justin Jackson
 @mijustin

Music: Lethal Force by Striker, visit them at  striker-metal.com

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

Samuel has become the internet’s authority on user onboarding. In this personal and open interview, Samuel talks about how he was able to discover his niche, build an audience, and launch his first product. He also talks about what to do after a dissapointing launch.

Near the end of this interview, Samuel and Justin get passionate about the idea of greeting our product users like human beings: “Hello, welcome! We’re glad you’re here; we’ve been waiting for you.”

Show notes

• Useronboard.com
• @samuelhulick
• Samuel’s onboarding book
• crazyegg.com
• Super Mario user onboarding
• Chase Reeve’s interview with the restauranteur

Note from Justin

This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Samuel, available on Product People Club. Go to  productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!

Want to help the show? If you could go to  iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you’re listening on  Stitcher, please leave a review on there!

Cheers,
 Justin Jackson
 @mijustin

Music: Lethal Force by Striker, visit them at  striker-metal.com

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

In June of 2013, I was introduced to Nir Eyal through Ryan Hoover. Nir had been blogging a lot about psychology and analyzing what makes a highly engaging product. Nir eventually published a book on that topic:  Hooked – How to Build Habit-Forming Products. Hooked is a guide to building habit-forming technology, written for product managers, designers, marketers, and startup founders.

In this episode we get into how you can design your products, especially the initial experience, to create traction. We also get into my addiction to iTunes.

Hooked comes out on hard-cover on November 4th.

Show notes

• Nir’s web page is:  www.nirandfar.com
• www.hookmodel.com
• He tweets at:  twitter.com/nireyal

Note from Justin

This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Nir, available on Product People Club. Go to  productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!

Want to help the show? If you could go to  iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you’re listening on  Stitcher, please leave a review on there!

Cheers,
 Justin Jackson
 @mijustin

Music: Lethal Force by Striker, visit them at  striker-metal.com

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

Brian Casel is a bootstrapper with a lot of projects: he has a podcast, a hosting platform called Restaurant Engine, and a new course called Productize.We talked about Brian’s story (from developing WordPress themes, to building an audience online) as well as what a productized service is.

Show notes

• Brian’s new course is:  http://casjam.com/productize/
• Brian is the host of: http://bootstrappedweb.com/
• He tweets at: https://twitter.com/CasJam
• His products are here: http://casjam.com/

Note from Justin

This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Brian, available on Product People Club. Go to  productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!

Want to help the show? If you could go to  iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you’re listening on  Stitcher, please leave a review on there!

Cheers,
 Justin Jackson
 @mijustin

Music: Lethal Force by Striker, visit them at  striker-metal.com

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

Mike Rohde is a designer and an author, but he’s probably best known for illustrating the 37signals books: Rework and Remote. Mike is now building his own products: The Sketchnote Handbook, and the Sketchnote Workbook. Both are unique books, which also include video. Mike has a secret agenda: to get more people drawing again.

Show notes

• XOXO Festival
• “Let’s make some stuff”
• Mike Rohde’s homepage
• Mike Rohde on Twitter
• Buy Mike’s first book: The Sketchnote Handbook
• Buy Mike’s new book: The Sketchnote Workbook
• Subscribe to Mike’s newsletter
• Documentary: Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Note from Justin

This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Mike, available on Product People Club. Go to  productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!

Want to help the show? If you could go to  iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you’re listening on  Stitcher, please leave a review on there!

Cheers,
 Justin Jackson
 @mijustin

Music: Lethal Force by Striker, visit them at  striker-metal.com

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

Marc-André Cournoyer is a passionate coder and product person from Montreal, Quebec. If you’re a developer, engineer, or technical person looking to make the jump to building products, you’re going to love this one.

Show notes

• Marc’s homepage
• Marc on Twitter
• Owning Rails
• Great Code Club

Note from Justin

This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Marc, available on Product People Club. Go to  productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!

Want to help the show? If you could go to  iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you’re listening on  Stitcher, please leave a review on there!

Cheers,
 Justin Jackson
 @mijustin

Music:  Land of the Lost and  Can’t Stop the Rush by Striker, visit them at  striker-metal.com

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

Andreea Mihalcea is a dynamic young founder from Romania. Her and her team are building a new product called Startup Kit. I loved her insights into how and why people buy software products. Startup Kit is targeting an interesting problem: managers and CTOs who need to get a handle on what products their team is using and paying for.

Notable quotes

“When you’re working on a team, you have to make sure that your tools play nice with other team’s tools” – Andreea Mihalcea

Show notes

• StartupKit.io
• Startup Kit blog
• Startup Kit on Twitter
• Startup Kit on Medium
• Andreea on Twitter

Note from Justin

This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Andreea, available on Product People Club. Go to  productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!

Want to help the show? If you could go to  iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you’re listening on  Stitcher, please leave a review on there!

Cheers,
 Justin Jackson
 @mijustin

Music:  Land of the Lost and  Can’t Stop the Rush by Striker, visit them at  striker-metal.com

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

First, you need to know that Jarrod Drysdale is a good dude. He’s also the author of Bootstrapping Design, and the creator of Cascade.io. He’s smart, and humble, and talented and he has tons of great things to say about building products, succeeding and failing, and the importance of really caring for the people you’re serving.

Show notes

• Jarrod’s blog
• Jarrod on Twitter
• Bootstrapping Design
• Cascade.io

Note from Justin

This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Jarrod, available on Product People Club. Go to  productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!

Want to help the show? If you could go to  iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you’re listening on  Stitcher, please leave a review on there!

Cheers,
 Justin Jackson
 @mijustin

Music:  Land of the Lost and  Can’t Stop the Rush by Striker, visit them at  striker-metal.com

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

Sacha Greif joined me again for a chat on how he marketed Discover Meteor, and why certain blog posts get popular.

Notable quotes

“I’ve always believed that people really respond to quality content.” – Sacha Greif

“You can tell when someone has written something with no research; getting quality data, screenshots, and diagrams really helps.” – Sacha Greif

“There’s a direct relationship between the amount of time I put into a blog post, and how popular it is” – Sacha Greif

“People respond to books: they don’t want to have to look through 20 blog posts.” – Sacha Greif

“I did something I shouldn’t have done – and I put all my eggs in one basket.” – Sacha Greif

“My first book is really short: it’s like 40 pages. I didn’t spend 6 months in a cave building it.” – Sacha Greif

Show notes

• Sacha Greif’s website
• Sacha Greif on Twitter
• Discover Meteor

Note from Justin

This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Sacha, available in Build Your Own Audience. It’s available here:  justinjackson.ca/audiencecourse. You can also sign up to my  mailing list.

Want to help the show? If you could go to  iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you’re listening on  Stitcher, please leave a review on there!

Cheers,
 Justin Jackson
 @mijustin

PS: By the way, I’m working on something new called Product People Club. Go to  productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!

Music:  Land of the Lost and  Can’t Stop the Rush by Striker, visit them at  striker-metal.com

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!