UI Breakfast: UI/UX Design and Product Strategy

This is the second founder interview from Jane’s new book, The UI Audit. Today Rob Walling, the founder of Drip, shares their story of finding the desired product-market fit. By positioning Drip as an email marketing automation tool they were able to reduce churn, rapidly grow the customer base, and gain a clear vision of new features. If you enjoyed the interview, you're welcome to get your copy of the book here while the launch discount is still active. Show Notes HitTail Software by Rob MicroConf Startups for the Rest of Us Rob's and Derrick's audio documentary on building Drip: startupstoriespodcast.com Rob Walling on Twitter: @robwalling Drip's website: getdrip.com

This is a special founder interview from Jane's book, "The UI Audit." In this interview Tope Awotona, the founder of Calendly, shares his product development journey. To build this revolutionary scheduling tool, he reviewed over 30 competitors — all to find out their strengths and weaknesses. Tope shares how he developed his product as a non-technical founder, and how Calendly leverages free plans as a viral form of marketing. Show Notes Jane's book: The UI Audit Calendly website: calendly.com Pivotal Tracker — for feature development Intercom — for communicating with customers Tope Awotona on Twitter: @TopeAwotona

What impact can podcasting have on your personal and professional life? It can be a superb tool for making money, but money is never the direct goal. In this episode we talk with Christopher Hawkins about the long-term game of podcasting, building your own tribe, establishing relationships with guests, the art of interviewing people, and much more. Show Notes Rocketship.fm — a podcast that has great landing pages for guests (pre-show, post-show, etc) How To Interview Like The Best – With Andrew Warner (Mixergy) — Andrew Warner shares his interview secrets with Brian Casel and Jordan Gal Chasing Product — Christopher's podcast Record & Release — Christopher's book on podcasting (use code UIBREAKFAST to get $10 off).

In this episode with Christopher Hawkins we discuss the biggest fears that prevent people from starting their own podcast. Surprisingly, it's not the technical part! Tune in to learn everything about fears, mistakes, and goals related to podcasting. Show Notes Zencastr — the ultimate tool for recording podcasts (using it here at UI Breakfast, too) Podcast Motor — premium podcast editing service Fiverr — cheaper alternative for quick gigs Christopher Hawkins on Twitter Chasing Product — Christopher's podcast Record & Release — Christopher's book on podcasting (use code UIBREAKFAST to get $10 off).

Welcome to the new season of UI Breakfast Podcast featuring Christopher Hawkins! He's been running his own awesome podcast for many years, wrote a book on podcasting, and is working on his own SaaS product. Today Christopher shares his product story and the lessons he learned along the way. Show Notes Chasing Product — Christopher's podcast Episode 32: Designing for Startups w/Jane Portman — two of us talking at Christopher's podcast a few months ago SmallSpec — Christopher's SaaS product (in development) Record & Release — Christopher's book on podcasting (use code UIBREAKFAST to get $10 off) Follow Christopher Hawkins on Twitter Sign up for Christopher's newsletter

This is the final episode with Kai Davis! Today we discuss the art of interviewing people. How can interviews boost your business? What are the awesome side effects? What's better: written format, audio or video? How do you make the process as smooth and effective as possible? Show Notes Book in a Box — done-for-you service by Tucker Max when audio interviews are turned into books A dedicated page with outreach goodies that Kai put together for our listeners

Writing support documents is no easy feat. How do you explain technical things to non-technical users? How do you balance being concise and going into details? Today we get together with Kai Davis to interview Thomas Cannon who's deeply passionate about technical documentation and support (while being a developer by trade). Show Notes Freckle Time Tracking — an awesome company where Thomas works Edgar — social media automation tool that re-uses your best content Get started writing great technical docs — a dedicated guide that Thomas put together for our listeners

Fasten your seatbelt and greet Amy Hoy here at UI Breakfast! Join us for an exciting conversation focused on design. You'll learn about Amy's design background, strong product opinions, and the workflow she stands for when building SaaS products. Show Notes Creating Passionate Users — Kathy Sierra's blog on creating better user experiences The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo The Brain Audit by Sean D'Souza Just F---ing Ship — an awesome book by Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman A dedicated page for our listeners at Amy's website

Email remains the core way of communication online. Writing emails is true art. And my co-host Kai Davis is the true artist! Today you'll learn to line up you letters perfectly, from a subject line to a postscript, for the best results. Dive in for some hot writing strategies! Show Notes Email Hunter — find email addresses quickly (free plan available) All My Tweets — displays user's full Twitter history for easy text search The Startup Chat — an awesome podcast by Steli Efti and Hiten Shah

Podcasts are a great way to promote yourself and your ideas. But you don't have to run your own: instead, you can appear as a guest on other podcasts. My awesome co-host Kai Davis will teach you how to organize such podcast tour. You'll learn how to compile a list of podcasts, reach out to them, become a perfect guest, and promote new episodes. Show Notes BuzzSumo — find the key influencers to promote your content Quickmail — software for sending personalized cold emails Streak — CRM for Gmail Boomerang for Gmail — schedule an email to be returned to you later Edgar — social media management tool that re-uses your best content

Today Kai Davis gives us a huge lecture in his core expertise: outreach. He explains why everybody must include outreach campaigns into their marketing plan, and gives us a detailed outline how to organize and implement a successful outreach campaign. Jump in to learn about the methods, tools, and techniques! Show Notes The Brain Audit by Sean D'Souza Built With — shows what instruments sites use for shopping carts, analytics, hosting and many more Nerdy Data — a similar tool, lets you search the source of websites for things that normal search engines would miss. You can search for chunks of javascript, CSS, HTML elements, etc. Email Hunter — email address finder Yesware Email Tracking — with this Gmail plugin, see who opens your emails and clicks on your links Quickmail — software for sending personalized cold emails Buzzstream — professional outreach software

In this episode we talk with Kai Davis about strategic copywriting. Choosing the right words to describe your product is so incredibly important, maybe even more important than the product itself! You'll learn how to go out in the wild and pick the right language, and how to write a perfect sales page. Show Notes Just F... Ship It by Amy Hoy with Alex Hillman, where they teach to make products crispy, not soggy Amy Hoy talking about Sales Safari at La Conf Paris 2013 Getting Started with Fancy Hands by Kai Davis The Traffic Manual by Kai Davis Traffic Powerup by Kai Davis The best book on writing long-form sales copy: The Brain Audit by Sean D'Souza Good example of intricate premium language & positioning: Bounce Exchange Good example of a smart naming pattern: Double Your Dating by David DeAngelo The UI Audit by Jane Portman

Today we have another episode with Kai Davis as a co-host. We discuss the importance of the right audience for your products, our long-term product strategy, and the benefits of the "audience-first" approach. We dive into the history of my products one by one, breaking down all the mistakes. Jane's first book (flaky one-size-fits-all positioning): Mastering App Presentation Double Your Freelancing Clients by Brennan Dunn (he recommended to make a free course targeted at clients) Jane's free email course on managing designers (nailed the positioning this time): Coefficiency Jane's famous productized consulting service — monthly creative direction for software companies: Correlation Jane's training course for consultants: Client Onboard (a post-mortem screenshot) Kai's book that he wrapped up, killing a list of 500 people: Getting Started with Fancy Hands Authority by Nathan Barry (guides you through the actual writing process) 30x500 Academy by Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman (teaches you to find the product-market fit) Kai's new book: The Traffic Manual Jane's new book: The UI Audit

In this episode we meet Kai Davis, who'll be co-hosting a whole new podcast season here at UI Breakfast. We learn about the early years of his career, what he did in college, and how he ultimately nailed his positioning as the outreach consultant. Kai also shares his product aspirations and gives us an overview of his current projects. Kai's website: doubleyouraudience.com 30x500 Academy by Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman (helped Kai a lot to nail his positioning) Kai's new book — a guide to getting more traffic for your digital products, apps, and services: The Traffic Manual Kai's book on cold email outreach: The Outreach Blueprint The upcoming book by the Productized Consulting Roundtable: The Independent Consulting Manual Special free goodies from Kai Davis — exclusively for our listeners!

This time we talk with software consultant Matthew Lehner about building good relationships with new clients, how he tripled his income in a year, his onboarding process, and so much more.

In this episode we talk with designer, educator, brand developer and entrepreneur Dennis Field about the benefits of teaching, the value of sharing your mistakes and what you’ve learned, why Dennis chose to position himself as a studio instead of a freelancer, how to find the clients that are right for you, and so much more.