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One Message Doesn’t Work for Every User. And That’s Okay.
A while back, I was reviewing the onboarding emails for one of our products. Every new user received the exact same message. It explained the product, highlighted a few features, and encouraged them to explore. On paper, it looked fine. But something didn’t sit right. Some users had signed up to solve one problem, while…
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Stop Segmenting Users by Who They Are. Start Segmenting Them by the Problems They’re Trying to Solve.
Early in my career, I spent a lot of time thinking about who our users were. Were they enterprise customers or SMBs? Were they recruiters or hiring managers? How large was their company? Those segments were useful, but after a while, I noticed something interesting. Two customers from the same company, with the same job…
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Reliability Is the Feature Customers Remember Most
A few years ago, I was speaking with a customer after a product review. I expected the conversation to revolve around new features or requests for future enhancements. Instead, they said something much simpler. “We just need it to work every time.” At first, it felt like a modest expectation. But the more I thought…
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The Retention Metrics That Tell You What’s Coming, Not Just What Happened
One of the first retention dashboards I built as a Product Manager looked impressive. It tracked monthly retention, churn rate, renewal percentage, and customer lifetime value. Every leadership meeting started with those numbers. The problem? By the time those metrics changed, it was already too late. If churn increased this month, those customers had likely…
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You Can’t Fix Every Retention Problem: Learning to Prioritize What Actually Matters
One of the hardest lessons I learned as a Product Manager wasn’t how to improve retention. It was learning that you can’t improve everything at once. A few years ago, I was working on a product where retention had started slipping. As expected, everyone had a different explanation. Customer Success wanted better onboarding. Sales believed…