The Self-Serve SaaS 'Cast

User engagement is often taken to be the actionable link to revenue that teams should focus on. Create more engagement, create more revenue, in a nutshell. This is why growth teams design for multiple logins, Weekly Active Users, or Day Seven Retention. In this episode, your hosts discuss why the logic of “more engagement = more revenue” is flawed, and present four arguments for why you’re missing out on big opportunities by manufacturing engagement. 00:00 Introduction 01:20 Why Companies Design for Engagement 03:23 Argument Against Engagement #1: The Lowest Common Denominator 08:22 Argument Against Engagement #2: The Opportunity Cost 14:52 Argument Against Engagement #3: Meaningful Engagement Patterns 19:43 Argument Against Engagement #4: Strong vs. Weak Correlation

If you want your automated sales process to convert users as effectively as a human-led sales process, you need to actively manage it. In this episode, your hosts break down the major stages of the Self-Serve customer lifecycle and discuss what it takes to structure each stage so it sets users up for success in the next. 00:00 Introduction 01:13 Managing an Automated Lifecycle 09:08 Stage One: Setting Up 11:14 Building Trust by Setting the Right Expectations 16:27 Stage Two: Finding Value 19:04 Defining Outcomes and Paths to Outcomes 24:59 Stage Three: Converting to Customer 35:23 Stage Four: The Rest of the Lifecycle

Many Self-Serve companies operate much like their Sales-Led counterparts, minus a Sales team. In this episode, your hosts discuss how leaning into Self-Serve's differences can turn them into advantages, and how the Self-Serve model opens up opportunities that Sales-Led companies can only dream about. 00:00 Introduction 00:27 Self-Serve Companies Still Rely on the Sales Playbook 06:49 Turning Differences Into Strengths (Leaning Into the Self-Serve Model) 14:47 Building a Faster Feedback Loop; Asking Better Questions 21:12 Managing the Self-Serve Sales Process 27:23 A Quick Summary For more insights on the Self-Serve model and the full transcript, check out: https://selfservesaas.feather.blog/hidden-advantages-of-self-serve

“Aha moments” are a go-to tool in the activation toolkit, but how effective are they? And could they be limiting Self-Serve companies trying to help new users succeed? 00:00 Introduction 00:53 Aha Moments Have Social Media Baggage 04:37 There Are No Singular Aha Moments 13:11 The WHEN of Aha Moments 15:42 Aha Moments Don't Activate Users 25:35 Designing For User Outcomes Vs. Aha Moments Join the discussion here: https://selfservesaas.mn.co/posts/34146405

Your hosts discuss how to manage churn and steer it in a more positive direction using cohort analysis and segmentation. This is a reliable way to identify which customer segments are churning out the most, and where in the customer lifecycle you're losing them. 00:00 Introduction 02:40 Churn As A By-product (The Standard Approach) 04:50 Cohort-Based Churn Analysis 08:38 Cohort-Based Churn Trends 10:31 Upfront Churn: An Opportunity 13:28 Patterns In Churn Segments 18:02 Flying Blind With Aggregate Churn 27:16 Managing Churn: Summary Find additional resources and the full transcript here: https://selfservesaas.mn.co/posts/managing-churn-for-self-serve-saas

If you're looking for impactful Self-Serve tactics that you can put to work immediately, here are a few no-brainers. 02:58 Tactic #1: Lay Out The Critical Pathway 09:00 Tactic #2: Enhance The Critical Pathway (WIIFM) 12:06 Set Expectations On Two Levels 15:28 Against Activating Using An "Aha Moment" 21:56 Tactic #3: Progress-Oriented Lifecycle Emails 26:16 Tactic #4: User Timeline-Informed Invitations Download the transcript and additional resources related to this episode here: https://selfservesaas.mn.co/posts/self-serve-tactics-you-can-use-right-now

Self-serve customers produce the most scale-friendly cashflow in the SaaS game. But what does it take to scale revenue with self-serve? And how does it compare to scaling with a sales team instead?

Delivering value to your users begins with understanding why people are engaging with your product, and we're here to help you nail it. In this episode, we share our secret sauce for running value-driven research projects by answering questions like which users to talk to, how to ask them for their time, and how to surface nuggets of insight throughout your interviews.

A long-held belief in UX is that designers need to balance the company's needs with the users' needs. In this episode, we reexamine that two-headed monster from a different perspective: thinking in terms of timelines. Your user flows will always be affected by company-timeline considerations, but diving further into your USER's timeline is an easy way to find insights for healthy conversion and retention.

Ok, enough with the high-level design philosophy: let's get into how Value Paths can be IMPLEMENTED. The gist: When someone arrives at your offering, it's because they're seeking change in their life. There are patterns there, and you can design for the good ones. Which life-changes do you want your product to be REALLY GOOD AT? How can you DELIVER on them? And how can you tell that your efforts are PAYING OFF? Today, we explore all of the nooks and crannies of that topic with the practical example of Segmenting by Intent.

Your software business is driven by people engaging with your offering. But what CAUSES people to engage? We believe that every time someone uses an app, it's because they're trying to change something about their life OUTSIDE the app. We call the out-of-app changes that drive engagement (and hence drive your revenue) Beneficial Outcomes. Today, we explore all the ins and outs of how to better identify and deliver Beneficial Outcomes, so you can create more value for both your users and your business.

Performance Valuation is all about uncovering the user outcomes that most strongly correlate with revenue, and finding ways to deliver those outcomes more effectively. Here we provide an introduction to measuring how well you're currently producing user outcomes, and confirming that those user outcomes are valuable for your business, too.

Path Design is how you get users from where they currently are all the way to the results that they care about. A process is only as good as the outcome it produces, so how do you design one that reliably results in outcomes users care about?

In this episode, your hosts discuss their 3 pillars for healthy, sustainable growth: • Path Design • Performance Valuation • Super-Outcomes After introducing each one in detail, we explore how the pillars can be combined to create compound user/revenue growth, without having to resort to engagement hacks.

In this episode, your hosts talk about how to generate key outcomes for both your users and your software business. Your users are on a path of pursuing value, and they're recruiting your product into it. Your business is pursuing value too, and Value Paths help you align both processes like chocolate and peanut butter.