Companies that focus on user experience from the very beginning and put it at the centre of what they do build better businesses more efficiently. A lot of business advice focuses on business model, marketing, sales, etc, but not nearly enough focuses on user experience and its impact on KPIs and business efficiency — this talk does!

1. WHY FOCUSING ON
USER EXPERIENCE IS
GOOD FOR BUSINESS
Turing Fest
August 2017

2. • American, lived in London for 12 years
• 37
• VC for 12 years
• Previously with Doughty Hanson Technology
Ventures
• Connect Ventures
• London-based seed fund
• Invest across Europe
• £500k-£1m
• 36 investments, 25 active
• CVI: £21m
• CVII: £50m

3. • Highly focused seed strategy: 8-10 investments per year
• We like to lead deals and are often the first investor
• Three necessary conditions:
• Strong founder/market fit
• Mission-led founders
• Focus on product and user-experience from the beginning

4. “All aspects of the end-user’s
interaction with the company, its
services, and its products. The first
requirement for an exemplary user
experience is to meet the exact needs
of the customer, without fuss or
bother. Next comes simplicity and
elegance that produce products that
are a joy to own, a joy to use.”
- Nielsen-Norman Group

5. Platforms SaaS Networks
Product
User Experience
Marketplaces

10. VS
Significantly better business value

11. Engagement
Loyalty
Virality/Referrals

12. More
Sign-ups, conversions, etc
Engagement
Virality
Brand
Revenue
Less
Churn
Cost
Customer complaints

15. • LEARN: About user experience. Start with your own daily frustrations,
both technology-related and not.
• BEFORE: Use the product, try the prototypes, ask to see wireframes of
the product.
• Great user experience focuses on providing value to the user, not
extracting value for the company.
• Example: Sign-up or on-boarding flow.
• DURING: Start with the product, not the presentation.
• TEAM: Look for
• founding teams that include: user-experience or interaction designers,
product managers, product designers
• founders with empathy for their users

16. • Not all companies gain (enough of) an advantage by initially focussing on
product and user experience.
• Many businesses gain a greater advantage simply by raising more capital,
which enable them to grow faster and dominate a market, discouraging
investment in competitors
• Offline services - delivery, cleaning, transport
• eCommerce and other low-margin businesses
• A focus on product and UX generally applies to mature technologies, like
Internet/mobile companies. Several interesting investment areas such as
biohacking, VR and autonomous vehicles are nascent technically