August 1, 2017 at 12:596 Tips for Starting a Startup Designer for Anything
Designers of documents, sweaters, resumes, bots, sites, posts for social networks - such projects are constantly catching the eye. The concept of the designer is really relevant and universal for many products and services. But why do some designers like Tilda “take off” and many fail at the very beginning of the journey? Let's try to figure out what errors lead to failure and how to approach the creation of a constructor.
You made a funky (as you think) designer of microfiber crocheted tablecloths, but for some reason no one is buying your miracle products. And all because the buyer does not want to wait a month for the manufacture of the order, or to overpay for customization. It is easier and cheaper to buy a finished tablecloth. “It may turn out that the designer is suitable only for synthetic examples, and without it, the real task is cheaper and easier to complete,” says Sergey Bazhenov, CEO of Cleverness . You must ensure that factors such as price, interface complexity, or product manufacturing speed do not degrade your competitive advantage.
Anastasia Andrizhinevskaya, founder of Aveeva clothing designertalks about how her project manages to win against the backdrop of competitors: “Our competitors are all players in the market for the production and sale of clothing: from ateliers to large retailers. And our competitive advantage is that our project integrated all the positive aspects of the existing approaches to ordering clothes, leveling the inconvenience. Everything is fast, simple, high-quality and at the price of a mass market. ” It turns out that the clothing designer solves the problems of fitting clothes according to the figure and matching the specific tastes of the client, but does not “go too far” according to other parameters important for the client.
“Creating a new designer, you take the same steps as in any startup - analyze the needs of the market, competitors, work with the audience and try to extract from it an understanding of the value for which it is willing to pay. But the main thing to understand: people come to the designer not in order to use the designer, but in order to get some result in a simpler and cheaper way, ”says Dmitry Molchanov, product manager of uCalc calculator designer .
“ You need to know what is the main problem when trying to solve the same problem without a constructor. Ideally, you should initially be in a business that solves the same problem with “pens” in order to know where to dig, ”Sergey Bazhenov sums up.
The designer of something is a long time, if we are talking about a high-quality, useful and complex product, and not an application that helps to choose a print for a T-shirt. It is necessary to carefully consider all possible user interactions with the designer and, as the need arises, adapt the project to his needs.
Kirill Grishanin, WB – Tech partner explains with regards to the development: “Before you develop something, you need to design something and write down all possible situations (the program’s responses to user actions are test cases). In the case of the constructor, the number of user scripts is very large, which is why it is laborious to plan them. ”
Cyril cites Readymag as an example of a successful startup “designer” and emphasizes that the project was created for several years: “The project was made exactly like it is now for three years. Another of the most successful is Tilda. Both projects developed very gradually, they were not going to immediately release as many features as there are now. ”
The designer will have to tight without popular solutions, especially if the interface is complex. “Website builder will need ready-made website templates like air. Application Designer - ready-made applications for popular tasks. Etc. Moreover, initially you will have to develop them, ”says Sergey Bazhenov.
You don’t have to try to hit the client with the “scope of opportunities”, you are more likely to confuse him. It’s important for a person to quickly understand where, what, and how to do it.
“There is a golden rule: take all the most important settings to the first screen and classify them well. Define the minimum set of the most valuable features, and hide all additional or complex settings that are only useful for experienced users under the spoiler, in the documentation, and if you can even put them in a separate paid tariff, ”says Oleg Lisovenko, product manager of the social constructor designer widgets for uSocial sites .
Help the user, otherwise he will leave or make a mistake. “Your user is left alone with the system, and if he does not understand something and is not motivated enough to write technical support (be sure to place a link to the contact form or online chat in a prominent place), he will quit the job in the designer. Tips - what will bring him to the target action.
At the start, we ourselves made this mistake by not adding tips to some fields. For example, when creating a set of social media buttons for a site, a person should indicate the address of his resource. Before introducing a hint to the “Site Address” field, people regularly entered invalid data there (for example, they gave a link to a social network, and not to their site). By adding a clear hint about what and in what form to insert into the field, we reduced the number of input errors to 1%, ”says Oleg Lisovenko.
Irina Cherepanova, uKit product director, shares a long but instructive story : “One of the important lessons for us is experiments with the monetization model. Two years ago, we started as a site builder with a trial model (you get time to test, and from a certain day you have to pay for the system) and a single tariff. The hypothesis that small companies and private specialists will be ready to pay a few dollars for the site was confirmed, but in parallel we conducted a split test, showing parts of new users different conditions: a frimium.
After several split tests, we came across a fact: the user often stayed with us and was better converted to paying on the freemium. The shareware version generated more money, so in January 2016 we switched to it.
At the same time, the product, market, economy, or dozens of factors, some of which you do not always know for sure (for example, we did not immediately find out how the weather affects payment schedules, but there is a connection) are in constant change. We decided to double-check the findings. Periodically returned to the tests "trial against frimumum." In the second year, we saw that the shareware model, which gave an important effect of speed-dialing the base (by the end of the first year, we had 300,000 users, and the second - already 1.3 million), at a distance shows itself to be less profitable.
Tests showed that with the development of the product, people began to see more value in it and feel the return on the result of working in it (you are not selling a constructor, but a result). Since this July, we have reverted to the trial model for new users, retaining the freemium for those who chose it when meeting us. But this does not mean that we will not double-check the current findings further. ”
Do not create a constructor for the sake of a constructor
You made a funky (as you think) designer of microfiber crocheted tablecloths, but for some reason no one is buying your miracle products. And all because the buyer does not want to wait a month for the manufacture of the order, or to overpay for customization. It is easier and cheaper to buy a finished tablecloth. “It may turn out that the designer is suitable only for synthetic examples, and without it, the real task is cheaper and easier to complete,” says Sergey Bazhenov, CEO of Cleverness . You must ensure that factors such as price, interface complexity, or product manufacturing speed do not degrade your competitive advantage.
Anastasia Andrizhinevskaya, founder of Aveeva clothing designertalks about how her project manages to win against the backdrop of competitors: “Our competitors are all players in the market for the production and sale of clothing: from ateliers to large retailers. And our competitive advantage is that our project integrated all the positive aspects of the existing approaches to ordering clothes, leveling the inconvenience. Everything is fast, simple, high-quality and at the price of a mass market. ” It turns out that the clothing designer solves the problems of fitting clothes according to the figure and matching the specific tastes of the client, but does not “go too far” according to other parameters important for the client.
“Creating a new designer, you take the same steps as in any startup - analyze the needs of the market, competitors, work with the audience and try to extract from it an understanding of the value for which it is willing to pay. But the main thing to understand: people come to the designer not in order to use the designer, but in order to get some result in a simpler and cheaper way, ”says Dmitry Molchanov, product manager of uCalc calculator designer .
“ You need to know what is the main problem when trying to solve the same problem without a constructor. Ideally, you should initially be in a business that solves the same problem with “pens” in order to know where to dig, ”Sergey Bazhenov sums up.
Do not create a constructor in one night
The designer of something is a long time, if we are talking about a high-quality, useful and complex product, and not an application that helps to choose a print for a T-shirt. It is necessary to carefully consider all possible user interactions with the designer and, as the need arises, adapt the project to his needs.
Kirill Grishanin, WB – Tech partner explains with regards to the development: “Before you develop something, you need to design something and write down all possible situations (the program’s responses to user actions are test cases). In the case of the constructor, the number of user scripts is very large, which is why it is laborious to plan them. ”
Cyril cites Readymag as an example of a successful startup “designer” and emphasizes that the project was created for several years: “The project was made exactly like it is now for three years. Another of the most successful is Tilda. Both projects developed very gradually, they were not going to immediately release as many features as there are now. ”
Add patterns and popular solutions
The designer will have to tight without popular solutions, especially if the interface is complex. “Website builder will need ready-made website templates like air. Application Designer - ready-made applications for popular tasks. Etc. Moreover, initially you will have to develop them, ”says Sergey Bazhenov.
Do not overdo it with "chips"
You don’t have to try to hit the client with the “scope of opportunities”, you are more likely to confuse him. It’s important for a person to quickly understand where, what, and how to do it.
“There is a golden rule: take all the most important settings to the first screen and classify them well. Define the minimum set of the most valuable features, and hide all additional or complex settings that are only useful for experienced users under the spoiler, in the documentation, and if you can even put them in a separate paid tariff, ”says Oleg Lisovenko, product manager of the social constructor designer widgets for uSocial sites .
Add Tips
Help the user, otherwise he will leave or make a mistake. “Your user is left alone with the system, and if he does not understand something and is not motivated enough to write technical support (be sure to place a link to the contact form or online chat in a prominent place), he will quit the job in the designer. Tips - what will bring him to the target action.
At the start, we ourselves made this mistake by not adding tips to some fields. For example, when creating a set of social media buttons for a site, a person should indicate the address of his resource. Before introducing a hint to the “Site Address” field, people regularly entered invalid data there (for example, they gave a link to a social network, and not to their site). By adding a clear hint about what and in what form to insert into the field, we reduced the number of input errors to 1%, ”says Oleg Lisovenko.
Test, test and test again, what you have already tested
Irina Cherepanova, uKit product director, shares a long but instructive story : “One of the important lessons for us is experiments with the monetization model. Two years ago, we started as a site builder with a trial model (you get time to test, and from a certain day you have to pay for the system) and a single tariff. The hypothesis that small companies and private specialists will be ready to pay a few dollars for the site was confirmed, but in parallel we conducted a split test, showing parts of new users different conditions: a frimium.
After several split tests, we came across a fact: the user often stayed with us and was better converted to paying on the freemium. The shareware version generated more money, so in January 2016 we switched to it.
At the same time, the product, market, economy, or dozens of factors, some of which you do not always know for sure (for example, we did not immediately find out how the weather affects payment schedules, but there is a connection) are in constant change. We decided to double-check the findings. Periodically returned to the tests "trial against frimumum." In the second year, we saw that the shareware model, which gave an important effect of speed-dialing the base (by the end of the first year, we had 300,000 users, and the second - already 1.3 million), at a distance shows itself to be less profitable.
Tests showed that with the development of the product, people began to see more value in it and feel the return on the result of working in it (you are not selling a constructor, but a result). Since this July, we have reverted to the trial model for new users, retaining the freemium for those who chose it when meeting us. But this does not mean that we will not double-check the current findings further. ”