Making tough prioritisation decisions is a constant challenge for anyone involved in building products. One of the hardest is the need to drive growth for the business vs building lasting product value to keep customers happy. In this talk Roan, will draw on over 10 years experience of founding and scaling FreeAgent, an online accounting product with industry-leading customer satisfaction scores, to discuss a pragmatic framework that allows for a balanced approach to these sometimes competing priorities.

1. Driving growth vs building core value
Roan Lavery, co-founder & CPO

2. Accounting software for freelancers and micro-businesses in the UK
FOUNDED
TEAM SIZE P & E
REVENUE
RAISED
2007 £15M
£10M
140 70
CUSTOMERS
68K

3. Sound familiar?
“These bugs need to be fixed”
“Why don’t you have this feature?”
“We need to increase revenue”
“We want to test a price change”
“The product is too slow”
“We’d win more deals if we had
this feature”
“Customers are complaining”
“We need to up engagement”
“We need upgrade our analytics
and tracking”

4. Streamline onboarding
Landing pages
Supporting sales
Price/packaging changes
New features
Improving performance
Fixing bugs
Addressing UX issues
A balancing act
GROWTH
CORE
VALUE

5. Finding the balance
3 steps to perfect product harmony

6. ARTICULATE
CORE VALUE
MAP USER
JOURNEYS
BALANCED
SCORECARD1 2 3
The playbook

7. RESTRICTED
AREA
NO UNAUTHORISED
PERSONNEL
BEYOND THIS POINT
SEARCH

8. Articulate core value
How do we help customers succeed?

9. Core value map
VISION
USER NEEDS
JOBS TO BE DONE
FEATURES
Nail the daily admin Make better decisions Relax about tax
Make businesses happier and more successful by putting them in control of their finances
Get Paid Health
checking
Track Cashflow Planning for
future File taxes Stay legal
Foreign
currency
Track expensesInvoicing
Online
payments
Banking
Bank feeds
Dashboard Tax timeline
Project
profitability
Insights
Forecasting
Benchmarking
VAT Audit trail
Self-
assessment
Payroll
Final accounts
Payment
reminders
Track bills
SEARCH: Jobs to be done

10. Map user journeys
How can we help customers quickly ‘get it’?

11. Growth: a hypothesis
We drive growth by engaging users with core value
as quickly and as frequently as possible.
SEARCH: Chamath Palihapitiya growth

12. Reduce time to wow
Building habits
Engagement loops
Resurrect from the dead
ONBOARDING
EARLY USAGE
ESTABLISHED USE
DISENGAGED/CHURNED
Lifecycyle growth
SEARCH: Brian Balfour optimizing retention
CORE
VALUE

13. Time to wow
Arrive on
website
“Quick and easy
form to complete”
Complete
sign up form
Activate
account
SIGNUP APP ONBOARDING EXPLORING CORE VALUE
Get
activation
email
“I just want to
get going!”
“This looks great”
Explore
site
SuccessFind
banking
area
Account set
up
“I don’t have all the
info now. I’ll do it
later.”
“Ok, let’s do this!”
Land on
dashboard
“Great, but
what do I do
“This looks
really useful”
Bank feed
set up
“More forms?”
“Praise be!”

14. Time to wow
Arrive on
website
“Quick and easy
form to complete”
Complete
sign up form
Activate
account
SIGNUP APP ONBOARDING EXPLORING CORE VALUE
“This looks great”
Explore
site
SuccessFind
banking
area
Account set
up
“I don’t have all the
info now. I’ll do it
later.”
“Ok, let’s do this!”
Land on
dashboard
“Great, but
what do I do
“This looks
really useful”
Bank feed
set up
“More forms?”
“Praise be!”

15. Time to wow
Arrive on
website
“Quick and easy
form to complete”
Complete
sign up form
Activate
account
SIGNUP APP ONBOARDING EXPLORING CORE VALUE
“This looks great”
Explore
site
SuccessAccount set
up
“I don’t have all the
info now. I’ll do it
later.”
“Ok, let’s do this!”
Bank feed
set up
“More forms?”
“Praise be!”

16. Create a balanced scorecard
How do we prioritise effectively?

17. H
E
A
R
T
APPINESS
NGAGEMENT
DOPTION
ETENTION
ASK SUCCESS
SEARCH: Google heart framework

18. GOALS SIGNALS METRICS
H
E
T
We want our customers
to enjoy using our
product
We want our app to be
free of bugs
We want our customers
to regularly use the
product
New customers are
connecting FreeAgent
to their bank
Customers are
recommending the
product
Customers are not
reporting bugs
Customers are logging in
and using the product
frequently
A high proportion of
customers set up a
bank feed during their
trial
Quarterly NPS
Open bug count
Monthly active users
% of customers who
enable bank feed in
the first 14 days

19. HAPPINESS ENGAGEMENT ADOPTION
TASK SUCCESS
70
RETENTION
Net Promoter Score
App store reviews 4.5
Setup completion
Monthly active users
Mobile active users 1.1K
Free trial conversion
Mobile downloads
Customer churn
Open bugs
Balanced scorecard
20%
3%
35
Bank feed setup 52%
76%
85%
32%

20. GREEN
AMBER
RED
We’re happy with this KPI, and don’t need to apply any
additional effort to keep it green.
We’re not happy with this KPI and need to divert effort to
get this KPI green.
We’re concerned about this KPI and may need to
divert effort to get this KPI green.
KPI status

21. ARTICULATE
CORE VALUE
MAP USER
JOURNEYS
BALANCED
SCORECARD1 2 3 RESOURCE
INTENTIONALLY4

22. What should we work on?
Maria Gutierrez, VP Engineering at FreeAgent
Engineering track, tomorrow, 11:35am

23. That’s it!
Get in touch @roanlavery