The document discusses 10 lessons learned from building and running the Perch content management system (CMS) business over several years: 1) Focus on solving customers' problems rather than new features; 2) Your ideal customers may differ from your own needs; 3) Listen to feedback from the happy majority, not just complaints; 4) Learn how customers describe the value of your product; 5) Understand customer use cases rather than just requested features; 6) New features don't drive sales, solving problems does; 7) Learn from unintended uses of your product; 8) Great support can be a key marketing feature; 9) Don't rely on influencers who may lose interest; 10) A self-hosted software business requires ongoing

1. How customers hold the
secret to your success
Rachel Andrew, Peers 2015

2. http://rachelandrew.co.uk
@rachelandrew
http://grabaperch.com
Rachel Andrew

3. edgeofmyseat.com

4. PHP framework for larger sites
• CMS framework that we licensed along with
our development services to implement
• license cost $4,800
• average cost of a site build around $10,000

5. grabaperch.com

6. Perch business model
• Downloadable self-hosted software
• Customers buy a license per site
• Recurring revenue because customers are
typically agencies and build lots of sites
• License includes support and free first party
add-ons
• At launch $55 per site, now $79 per site

7. Perch came from …
• a need to have a tool that would make small
jobs profitable
• a drop-in CMS for tiny sites
• started life as an internal tool but we quickly
started thinking of it as a standalone product

8. We had no idea what we were
doing.

9. We had no mentors

10. The Flyjar Story
https://www.flickr.com/photos/laserstars/640499324

11. Perch version 1
• built over 4 weekends
• launch infrastructure took another 4 weekends
• entirely a side project
• costs limited to lawyers fees, domain, a bit of
stock illustration and UI design (we’re
developers)

12. “Profitable” in 24 hours

13. Keeping the needs of our
customers front and centre.

14. Lesson 1.
The “missing features” at
launch don’t matter to
anyone but you.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lizadaly/2944362379

15. Solve a complete problem in as small
a way as possible.

16. Sell your solution to that problem

17. Existing customers enjoy getting new
features after they have paid - it
feels like free stuff!

18. Launch as soon as you have a
product that solves a real pain. Work
with your customers to add features.

19. Lesson 2.
Scratch your own itch but
be aware that you are not
your ideal customer.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/9516941@N08/2286083797

20. Version one was the product that
we wanted and needed.

21. Our first customers were our
friends and peers - “people like us”.
The second wave had different
requirements.

22. Version two was the product that
our real customers needed.

23. Lesson 3.
The happy majority are
often silent.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/binaryape/3431773089

24. There are many terrible ways to
configure PHP web hosting. We
know about all of them.

25. The more people can do with your
product, the more they want to do.

26. June 2014 to April 2015
• 39% of people who bought a license during this
time also raised a thread in the forum
• of that number 35% have contacted us only
once
• not all of this is “support” some is people
posting sites they have built/tutorials etc.
• we have heard from 7.5% of our entire
customer base since June

27. Your best customers may never
speak to you.

28. Find out who they are and get in
touch with them. Ask for feedback.

29. A survey can prompt customers to
give you their feedback

30. http://blog.mailchimp.com/reducing-irrelevance/

31. http://grabaperch.com/chat

32. When it feels as if “everyone” is
asking for something. Is it really
everyone, or a few noisy people?

33. Make sure that a noisy minority
don’t cause you to make changes
that will upset the happy majority.

34. Lesson 4.
Your customers can show
you how to sell your
product.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/shootingjaydred/6539831765

35. We love …
• Storing structured data
• Templates defining a schema
• Speed and efficiency of the template engine

36. Our customers love …
• not having to know PHP
• that the CMS doesn’t mess with their markup
• that the end client doesn’t need handholding to
edit the site
• that they can use any Bootstrap template or
jQuery plugin

37. Great code is not a selling point

38. The things your customers tell you
they love should be your headlines.

39. grabaperch.com/about

40. Lesson 5.
We’re not looking for
features, we’re solving their
problems.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeepersmedia/15016371116

41. “Can you add a setting for this?”

42. What problem are you trying to
solve?

43. As the product owner you need to
get from the specific to the general
use case.

44. • “I want a select list of already uploaded
images”
• “I want to browse the images already
uploaded”
• “I want to find out if an image is used
anywhere on the site and delete unused ones”

45. Collect use cases from support,
from feature requests, from the
way you see people use the
product.

46. Lesson 6.
Features never move the
needle on sales.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/brookenovak/1012870079

47. New features keep your existing
customers happy and sticking with
you as their needs are met.

48. Expecting new features to mean
more sales is a mistake.

49. Lesson 7.
You can learn a lot from the
“misuse” of your features.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/begnaud/243996426

50. That’s not a blog.

51. Why are they doing that?

52. http://blog.intercom.io/shareable-map/

53. Pave the cowpaths
• See what users are already doing
• Don’t penalize them for making that choice
• Find ways to help them do the thing they want
to do in a better way

54. Lesson 8.
Great support can be your
best feature and your most
effective marketing.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lydiashiningbrightly/4436324664

55. Seth Godin
Most of your competition spend their
days looking forward to those rare
moments when everything goes right.
Imagine how much leverage you have
if you spend your time maximizing
those common moments
when it doesn’t.

56. Help people to do things they
couldn’t do before they started
using your product.

57. Support is a feature you don’t
spend time up front developing. You
just have to commit to being great.

58. Sam Hernandez
“you will not become a better
communicator without becoming a
better human”

59. Jim Rohn
One customer well taken care of
could be more valuable than $10,000
worth of advertising.

60. With self-hosted software support
is your first run experience

61. Lesson 9.
The influencers are fickle.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/-elleinad-/7075406127

62. The ideal Perch customer
• is a freelancer or agency building lots of sites
for clients
• understands that time is money
• prefers running a solid business over constantly
learning new things
• often does fixed price website builds

63. The “influencers”
• are well-known in the web industry
• can charge a premium for their work
• can treat each project as a “special snowflake”
• have time in higher budgets to try new things
• have a need to learn new things in order to be
able to talk about them in their influencer role

64. We don’t chase the influencers

65. Treat attention from influencers as
a bonus when it comes, don’t worry
too much when they move on.

66. Lesson 10.
You are never done.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jayneandd/4450623309

67. We are so lucky.

68. We are so tired.

69. We swapped 10 or so clients per
year, for 1000s of customers.

70. We are supporting our customers
every day of every year and have
been doing for almost 6 years.

71. With no exit plan, we are never
done. So we need to learn how to
make this work well.

72. grabaperch.com/runway

73. Jeff Bezos
We innovate by starting with the
customer and working backwards.
That becomes the touchstone for how
we invent.

74. rachelandrew.co.uk/list

75. Thank you
rachelandrew.co.uk
grabaperch.com
@rachelandrew
http://rachelandrew.co.uk/presentations/customers