Takes 8 weeks | Costs $8500
I’m an independent consultant who specialises in helping software products grow by optimising for user retention.
The data analysis aspect of this service offers an overview of your current retention metrics and insight into where the biggest opportunities for improvement are.
This service includes 4 data reports:
- An Overview – A retention curve that shows how well you are currently retaining customers as well as a breakdown by available user segments.
- Onboarding – A drop-off funnel for your activation experience. I define each of the steps in your onboarding process and map out where the biggest drop-offs. I will highlight which steps have the strongest correlations with long term retention so that you can work towards optimising your activation experience around these high impact moments.
- Engagement – I will map out the different states of user engagement for your product so that you know who your power users are and how they use your product.
- Offboarding – This involves understanding why and when people leave your applications so that you can prevent it from happening rather than trying to reactivate people after they have already left.
Data analysis will help reveal where problems are but it won’t tell you much about why they exist.
To provide richer context around the factors that influence your biggest retention bottlenecks this package also includes 10 one-on-one interviews with your existing users.
As part of the service:
- I will identify which users to recruit.
- Provide outreach templates.
- Conduct the interviews.
- Summarise and present the findings.
The final deliverables will include all four data reports and an opportunity canvas that maps out all of the factors that your existing users care about when it comes to each of the bottlenecks identified in the data analysis.
How do we get started?
The first step is a quick conversation to see if we’re a good fit for each other. If you decide to hire me then there’s a little bit of paperwork to fill out before I can begin the analysis. I will need a few days to review your product and then I will send your data lead a series of templates to fill out before I can begin my analysis. Once the first round of analysis is complete I will propose who to contact for the interviews and provide templates to enable the outreach process.
Is this service really for us?
This service is most useful for capable product teams that want to know where to focus their attention to have the highest impact on their retention metrics.
If you are not sure if the service is the right fit for you, we can discuss your situation and I’ll let you know if it’s the right time to focus on optimising retention.
What if we don’t have the metrics you need?
You must have at least a year of behavioural data to run this analysis. If you don’t have some of the data that I ask for then I will outline exactly what you need to start tracking so that you can run the report in the future. Rather than interacting with your Business intelligence tools directly, I will provide templates for your data lead to fill out. I will then convert the templated data into insight reports.
What do you need from us to get started?
After an initial conversation, if you think we’re a good fit and you decide to hire me, I will share several data templates for your data lead to fill out to begin my analysis. A little later I will need your team to send outreach emails to specific users. I can provide templates for these emails, and I will specify exactly who to send them and I will conduct the interviews, but you must send the emails.
Who’s behind this service?
Hey, I’m Josh.
I’m a product strategist and I help SaaS companies grow by improving their user retention metrics.
I’ve spent two years working as a UX designer and five years working as a software engineer. I can work on the big picture and plug specific leaks at the same time. This combination of skill sets helps me think about the user experience from a perspective that’s both technical and creative.
Think of me as a power pack for your product manager. Your product manager is the one who focuses on improving your product’s user retention rate. The problem is that they manage multiple teams and are also responsible for acquisition, monetisation, the product strategy and the roadmap. Who knows how many meetings they get caught up in each month.
My job is to help product managers pay attention to the right numbers, ask the right questions, and invest in the best opportunities each month. My goal is to help your product grow by retaining as many users as it can.
Do you have case studies?
I have three case studies at the moment. Unfortunately, I do not yet have permission to publish either publicly. I do have permission to share two of the case studies on request.
I can also share case studies and testimonials from my previous work as an engineer and a UX lead.
This is a UX design project I ran for a company called Beeminder. It’s a product that helps you develop habits by helping you stick to your commitments. You can read an in-depth case study here https://www.joshpitzalis.com/beeminder
Josh was wonderfully thoughtful about the tradeoffs (newbees vs power users) and did many user tests to single out problem areas in the old design and to test out the mockups of the new design.
DANIEL REEVES , CO-FOUNDER OF BEEMINDER
21st night is a software product I built that helps students prepare for their standardised exam. You can read an in-depth case study here, https://www.joshpitzalis.com/21stnight
Overall, it was fantastic working with you. The two big differences between working with you and working with most developers are:
a) You care about your work. Having worked with remote developers a couple times, I’m so used to having to bug-hunt for them, make sure all the features discussed are there, etc. I really appreciated not having to do that with you.
b) You’re self-sufficient. Related to the first, I felt confident that, if I left you on your own, the work would get done well. You solve the problems that come up, without my help.
Overall, it was great working with you. If it’s alright with you, I’d certainly like to continue working with you in the future.
TREVOR KLEE , FOUNDER OF 21ST NIGHT
Prolifiko is another engineering product I built with a small team. It is a web app that helps writers develop consistent writing habits.
“We are delighted with the results. Josh was a delight to work with; always cooperative, creative, responsive and technically excellent at his job – went above and beyond. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him to anyone.”
Bec Evans & Chris Smith, Co-founders of Prolifiko