seanrrwilkins

Don't sleep on the benefits of DM. And automated DM remarketing like this is a killer touch for the high value bottom funnel prospects and returning customers.

A couple recommendations...

1. Get References: ask for references for previous employers/managers and coworkers. You'll want to focus those conversations around the potential co-founder's skills, work ethic, style, motivations and attitude.

2. Fear Setting: if you're not familiar, lookup "Tim Ferris Fear Setting." It's a good exercise to get all your fears and doubts and worst case scenarios down on paper so you can work through addressing them.

3. Operating Agreement: define and document a clear set of operating agreements outlining roles, expectations, separations procedures, etc. Hash it all out now so there's no confusion or guessing if things do fall apart.

4. Temp to Perm/Sweat Equity: if this person's truly motivated to be a cofounder with you, consider a short term trial period that's unpaid and non-equity with a clear set of tasks and goals. If they agree to it, and complete it successfully, they may have proven worthy to join.

I've been working on a UX/Conversion Optimization blog post and was doing some research on web design across different verticals and business types. As you start to look around, you'll see specific details emerge to meet the needs of different verticals and business models.

With every UX project, same applies to anything in sales and marketing, a little bit of audience research and understanding will go a long way to defining the best path forward for your design. Ask target users in 1:1 sessions to share the kinds of evaluation questions they want to ask of the product and their expectations. Listen for the hierarchy of the information, what's prioritized, and the specific language they're using. For an FS client project this research helped us define a simple decision tree to build into the site UX that led visitors down different paths based on their specific challenges/wants. It delivered 125% of target annual performance in the first six months.

I also recommend looking at several sites across categories to get a feel for how brands build experiences for different business models and audiences. The focus for that business model will come through loud and clear. Here are some examples to look at side by side:

CPG vs DTC: checkout traditional CPG sites like Church and Dwight or CLR and their associate brand pages vs DTC or more digital native brands like Trumans or Method Home. You see that the older CPG sites are more informational and drive to retail with the "where to buy" prompts. And the more digital native w/ or pure DTC brands put purchase paths front and center.

eComm vs Retail Clothing: another great example is ASOS vs Gap. ASOS, as a more digital native and eComm brand shows a much cleaner and focused UX to smooth the path to digital purchase. Gap however just feels more like a traditional retailer with the plastered coupons front and center, along with a general feeling that digital purchases are secondary to the retail channel.

Consumer Banking: take a look at N26 vs Chase or Wells Fargo too. You'll see a completely different UX from N26 as the digital native. mobile focused brand that's ACQ focused since they just launched here in the US. And the older traditional banks like Chase and Wells definitely have that more cluttered UX that's indicative of an internal tension for old vs new tech, products, customers, etc.

Software: this is one vertical where I think most people are up to speed with decent best practices across the board. I haven't found any glaring instances of horrible UX yet. Look at your top of mind software companies and you'll likely see very clear UX patterns emerge. This is especially true with homepages for new visitors and brands focused on heavy user ACQ. Personally, I like Webflow and Trello as consistent examples of good UX.

As for bad examples, agencies and restaurants have historically been consistent offenders with the worst UX out there. TBWA and Ogilvy are keeping the streak alive today.

Hope this helps. And feel free to ping me if you have other questions or want to talk through some ideas.

ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit and Klaviyo are all solid paid alternatives that provide a range of list CRM, marketing automation, audience insights and performance tracking.

ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign are more targeted to the software community, and I've seen Klaviyo used by more eComm and DTC startups lately.

A couple questions to ask yourself before your leave:

1. Why did you join this company? Was it a personal connection or admiration for the CTO? Or do you actually like the company/product/service you're working on?

2. Are you mostly unhappy with the working relationship with this one person, or with the full company? If it's with this one person, that's fixable with some effort and conversations with other leaders to restructure the operation.

3. What have you learned from this to take forward? If you decide to leave, what learnings are you taking from this experience to better qualify and understand the future roles and organizations?

1. Manage Up: no matter your level, there's someone you're going to report to or be accountable to. Get to know them, their function and focus areas, expectations, how they operation and how they judge value and success.

2. Network: regardless of the size of your organization, make a list of people you want to meet across different groups/departments. Make it a point to schedule 1:1 time to get to know them. Much like the guidance in Pt 1 above, get to know what they do, how they operate, what they value and how they judge value and success. Ask them about where they need help and if they see opportunities for you to help in your new role. And always ask them for referrals to other people you should meet next.

3. Regular Review Intervals: do this first for yourself, and try to establish a more regular progress and planning session with your boss. Quarterly is good to keep this somewhat informal as it will be outside regular performance review cycles, but regular enough to ensure timeliness and value. It's also important for your own sanity to keep a realistic view on how things are going and whether they map to your personal needs and plan. We all get bogged down in the day to day BS, so this forces a time to reflect and put things in perspective.

4. Plan A Vacation: whether you have something booked or not, block a vacation for sometime in the next 6-9 months. It's easy to get approvals when you're starting out, if you need that, and it gives you a purpose to find something meaningful to fill that block of time so you have something to look forward to.

Absolutely, happy to help. Feel free to ping me if you have any more questions.

Both journaling and business writing these days. Trying to be more intentional with writing to get in better practice, refine my skills and work through shaping clearer points of view.

Hahah. We’ve used lightly electrified mat a couple times. Now if we put it at the door the cat just sits quietly across the hall. Don’t even need to turn it on now.