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How we used demo calls to fuel our product roadmap

The last couple weeks have been quite eventful for us. We finished the very minimum viable version of our product! ? It’s already processing user data, events, and sending emails to actual people. Our next goal was to identify the roadmap from the barebones MVP towards our grand product vision.

Benedikt Deicke
Benedikt Deicke

The last couple weeks have been quite eventful for us. We finished the very minimum viable version of our product! ? Thanks to our early access champions, it’s already processing user data, events, and sending emails to actual people.

We also started showing it to more people via demo calls. Not only was it nice to meet fellow entrepreneurs and talk shop, it was also a fantastic opportunity to learn about use cases that our product doesn’t support yet. (Thanks to everyone who volunteered their time to hop on a call with us!)

Our goal was to identify the roadmap from the barebones MVP towards our grand product vision. We had many features in mind (including actual designs), but Rome wasn’t built in a day. Which of them should we build first?

Demo calls helped us identify the most important missing features. Most of them came up multiple times:

  • Segmenting users based on their activity. This lets you know who’s actively using your product or who’s about to fall off.
  • Segmenting users based on time. This allows you to identify people whose trial is about to expire or who’re about to renew their yearly subscription.
  • Triggering campaigns when users join or leave a segment. This would allow you to send tailored campaigns to people matching certain criteria.
  • Removing people from a campaign when they do something or match certain criteria (i.e. campaign goals). For example, stop sending your trial nurturing campaign when people actually start paying.
  • Skipping individual messages inside a campaign. For example, this let’s you skip emails about features they are already using in your onboarding campaign. Where’s the point in telling people about things they already know?
  • Sending one-off broadcasts to users. This one doesn’t need an explanation, does it? At least, we would love a way to let you know about all the new features we’re rolling out ?

Of course, the list of things to add is much longer than this. However, these key features will allow our customers to create truly useful automation campaigns (unlocking the real value of our tool). We’re stoked about having a clear short-term roadmap for our customers!

What do you think about it? Are we missing anything obvious? We’re looking forward to your input. Until then, I’ll get back to implementing these features ?

– Cheers, Benedikt.

P.S. If you’d like a demo for yourself, let us know by emailing us at support@userlist.com. We’re still open for these calls!

About the author
Benedikt Deicke

Benedikt is a software engineer and ex-strategy consultant. Before founding Userlist, he used to help founders plan, build, grow, and maintain their web applications. He's a co-host on the Slow & Steady podcast and co-founder of FemtoConf.