🗞 What's New: UX lessons from billion dollar companies

The importance of user experience cannot be overstated:

• Amazon prioritizes customer experience. Founders can implement this approach by focusing on user-centric design and streamlined workflows.
• Writing high-quality articles that appeal to the search engine algorithms can skyrocket your growth. Optimize titles, subheadings, and word count.
• $170K MRR pre-pandemic, then a 90% drop. Jason Lee pivoted his seafood marketplace, then launched a new product that's hit $40K MRR.

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by Tucker George

User experience (UX) is a critical component of any SaaS product. Well-designed UX can significantly enhance customer satisfaction, increase retention rates, and drive business growth. Learn UX pro tips from these industry leaders!

Amazon: Prioritizing customer experience

Amazon’s relentless focus on customer experience has been a key driver of its success. The company continuously invests in UX research and design to understand and meet customer needs.

Lessons for SaaS:

• User-centric design: Focus on understanding your users’ needs, pain points, and behaviors. Use this knowledge to design user-centric products that solve real problems.
• A/B testing: Regularly test different design elements to see what works best.
• Streamlined processes: Simplify workflows to make it easy for users to achieve their goals. Amazon’s one-click purchasing is a prime example of streamlining the user experience.

Target: Investing in research and insights

Target uses insights from various research methods to create a seamless and enjoyable shopping experience.

Lessons for SaaS:

• Comprehensive research: Use a variety of research methods, including surveys, interviews, usability testing, and analytics, to gather insights about your users.
• Data-driven design: Base your design decisions on data and user feedback.
• Continuous improvement: Regularly update and refine your product based on insights you get from your users.

Walmart: Structuring for usability

Walmart’s website and mobile app are structured to provide a smooth, efficient user experience. The company focuses on making it easy for customers to find products, complete purchases, and access support.

Lessons for SaaS:

• Information architecture: Organize your product’s information architecture to ensure that users can easily find what they need.
• Responsive design: Ensure that your product is accessible and functional across different devices and screen sizes.
• User support: Provide robust support options like FAQs, live chat, and self-service resources.

Best practices

1. Conduct user research: Work on collecting user interviews, surveys, usability testing information, etc.

2. Focus on simplicity and clarity: Clear interfaces and straightforward workflows enhance the user experience.

3. Provide excellent onboarding: Implement interactive tutorials, welcome emails, and in-app messaging.

4. Monitor and iterate: Continuously monitor your product’s performance and user feedback. Use this data to make iterative improvements to your UX.

These strategies will help you create a user-centric product that delights customers and drives success. For more, check out the full breakdown in my video here!

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by Tuiddy

Writing high-quality articles that attract search engines can increase website traffic and boost brand recognition. These key tips can help you write articles that are both reader- and SEO-friendly!

Keyword research

Before you start writing, it's important to do some keyword research.

Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or Semrush to find high-traffic, low-competition keywords related to your topic.

Optimize titles and subheadings

An eye-catching title and optimized subheading can boost your rankings.

Place primary keywords in the first half of your title, and include secondary keywords in your subheadings.

High-quality content

High-quality content is crucial. Make sure that your content is original, valuable, and informative.

Avoid keyword stuffing, and maintain a natural, fluent language. Make sure your article answers readers' questions and provides useful solutions.

Use internal and external links

Use internal links and authoritative external links wisely to enhance your article's credibility and user experience.

Multimedia elements

Include relevant images, videos, and charts to increase reader engagement.

Add descriptive tags to help search engines understand these elements.

Optimize article length

Generally, in-depth content over 2K words tends to perform better.

However, content quality and relevance should be your aim. Don't focus solely on word count.

Use simple URLs

Use simple, keyword-rich URLs with clear structures.

Regularly update content

Search engines favor fresh content. Regularly update your articles with new information, re-optimize keywords, and check links.

Share on social media

Share your articles on social media platforms to increase exposure and traffic. Make them easily shareable to encourage readers to repost them also.

Analyze and adjust

Use tools like Google Analytics and Search Console to monitor your article's performance. Adjust and optimize your writing strategy based on the data.

Remember, SEO is not just about technical aspects, but also about content quality and user experience.

If you're interested, check out SEO AI. It generates articles based on detected keywords, making your writing process much easier!

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from the Growth Trends newsletter

💬 Bluesky and Mastodon users can now talk to each other with Bridgy Fed.

📻 There's a secret smart home radio in your new Mac.

💲 Link to your product here. Our most affordable ad.

💵 How to manage your entire marketing budget (templates included!).

🤳 Substack brings video to its chat feature.

🗺️ Google Maps is making a big privacy change to protect your location history.

Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

by James Fleischmann

Joseph Lee has had many failed ideas, and a few resounding successes. His previous company was at $170K MRR before it tanked during the pandemic, forcing him to make a huge pivot to salvage what was left. During that pivot, he came up with an idea for a new product, which is currently bringing in $40K MRR.

Bypassing the job market

I've never had a "real job." Like many startup founders, I've been building and hacking products since I was super young.

At 15, I started my first venture, buying and selling wholesale electronics. I was fortunate enough to have parents who allowed me to pursue my own unique interests. Having this latitude to try different things and fail quickly really affected how I do business.

I attended university at UBC in Vancouver, where I worked part-time internships to give myself financial runway. This is how I was able to attend hack-a-thons and work on side projects, which helped spark my first successful company.

I'm 29 now, and I've gone on to create a dozen or so products and services...most of which have failed.

Pivoting during the pandemic

One that didn't quite fail was North America's first demand-driven marketplace for seafood. It was bringing in ~$170K MRR, but with COVID-19 shutting down restaurants, supply chains, and seafood companies (essentially the three pillars of our business), we lost nearly 90% of our revenue overnight.

The company is now called Freshline, and is an e-commerce platform built for food distributors and wholesalers.

The next idea

During my big pivot in 2020, I really saw the need for Supademo.

One of the biggest challenges I was having with the pivot was demonstrating the value of our complicated, esoteric product to an audience comprised of wholesale distributors. The videos, screenshots, and demo tools I used were clunky, time-consuming, one-way monologues that no one ended up watching.

In contrast, when I was able to conduct a demo with a screensharing product demo in an interactive way, they immediately got it. So, I realized there was an opportunity to scale this magical "A-ha!" moment with better product demos. I built Supademo, the fastest way to create elegant, interactive product demos.

Validation framework for founders

1. Identify notable problems: Compile a discovery questionnaire of non-leading questions focused on identifying problems.

2. Define your focus: How is the customer solving the problem today? How does the problem make them feel? How often does this problem come up? How big is the market?

3. Develop your hypothesis: Think of potential pitfalls, and start building hypotheses around potential solutions, target customers, or distribution channels.

4. Deliver your solution: Crystallize your hypotheses into a tactical, time-bound experiment.

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by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Tucker George, Darko, Tuiddy, and James Fleischmann for contributing posts. —Channing