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resisting temptation
Jay Nathan & Jeff Breunsbach
July 24, 2024
The Middle from GrowthCurve.io
Three ideas to level up your week.
Hey Reader,
Welcome to The Middle, your midweek rundown of the most interesting things we've read this week.
I'm back on my 5 am wake-up routine (#humblebrag).
No, not to fit in with the hardos.
With a 2-year-old, it's been the only time I can prioritize myself before the day gets crazy.
I'm honestly telling you this so I have the accountability to wake up tomorrow.
Let's jump into The Middle.
Jeff
Today’s Newsletter is brought to you by Mayple.
"Customers churn when they don't know how to use the platform effectively."
“Lacking the knowledge and manpower, customers fail to see ROI and eventually leave.”
Sound familiar?
Read Mayple’s full report on how to effectively combat churn in 2024 (surprise: it does not include AI )
Celebrating the real wins
IMO, the market is reprioritizing this in earnest right now, but what do you think?
Resisting temptation
In a recent LinkedIn post, Kyle shares insights on why customers "actually" churn.
As I lead the Marketing and Sales team here at Hampton, one stood out: customers weren't the right fit from the beginning.
"They weren't the right customer in the first place" - Kyle Poyar
It's easy to drop your standards in the chase for that extra $.
It's been a tough couple of years - we need the revenue.
"It's only just until we get momentum back."
Resist the temptation to broaden your ICP just to hit short-term targets.
Remember, a bad-fit customer costs more than just lost revenue. It drains resources, damages morale, and can harm your reputation.
Prompt: As an AI assistant with expertise in SaaS product management, help me prioritize features for next quarter’s product roadmap. Consider the following inputs:
List of proposed features: [Insert 5-10 feature ideas]
Our current customer retention rate: [X%]
Top 3 reasons for customer churn: [List reasons]
Our target market: [Brief description]
Current market trends: [List 2-3 trends]
For each feature:
1. Rate its potential impact on customer retention (High/Medium/Low)
2. Estimate the development effort required (High/Medium/Low)
3. Assess its alignment with market trends (Strong/Moderate/Weak)
4. Suggest potential risks or challenges in implementation
Finally, rank the features in order of priority based on these factors, and provide a brief rationale for the top 3 choices.
Explanation: I doubt your product and engineering teams would adopt this, but every team in the business is always fighting for attention regarding the product roadmap. Why not use AI to help you build the right case?
If your team is using AI in your day-to-day work, press reply with a specific tool or prompt that you use so we can highlight you.
The Trust Battery
Tobi Lütke's (Co-Founder/CEO of Shopify) "trust battery" concept offers a powerful framework for building team dynamics in fast-growing SaaS companies.
"We use the metaphor of a trust battery. It's charged at 50 percent when people are first hired. And then every time you work with someone at the company, the trust battery between the two of you is either charged or discharged, based on things like whether you deliver on what you promise."
It's funny to think about something like trust in the form of a battery - but I found myself inspired by it. The idea that there is an ebb and flow to something like trust inside of a business.
I jotted down a few things that made me think this could be used by more teams:
Trust as a Measurable Metric: By framing trust as a battery that can be charged or depleted
Continuous Evaluation: The trust battery encourages ongoing assessment of working relationships, promoting constant improvement
Mutual Responsibility: Both parties in a working relationship are responsible for maintaining and charging the trust battery.
Performance Impact: High trust levels lead to more efficient collaboration and decision-making.
How do teams win? When there is trust.
People with trust move swiftly, do right by the customer, and ultimately look for bigger wins.
 Jeff Breunsbach |  Jay Nathan |
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