Project Overview
Background & Problem
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Atlas is an early-stage B2B SaaS tool that enables professionals in Venture Capital to discover paths to connect to target individuals.
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Our team saw early signs of product market fit among certain users, but struggled to identify specific attributes about people who derive value from the product.
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This resulted in the team going too broad on acquisition, making it hard for the team to prioritize feedback and opportunities.
Process
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Planning: Developed a research plan rooted in the Sean Ellis Survey to understand where Atlas was and was not showing signs of Product Market Fit.
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Methodology: User interviews, Interview Coding, Affinity and Journey Mapping, Persona Creation, Brainstorm Workshop
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Constraints: As with most early stage products, I had a small customer base from which to recruit users (9 interviews)
Results
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Drove a 270% increase in paying customers over the course of 6 months as a result of insights and recommendations derived from research
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Delivered a number of highly-referenced UXR artifacts including insights, personas, journey maps and affinity diagrams to equip teammates to be more user-centered.
Team
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For this project, I was the sole and lead researcher, but I also worked with a product manager, customer success and an analytics lead.
Research Plan
Methodology
User Interviews: I incorporated techniques from the Product Market Fit survey into user interviews since my goal was two-fold: understand if we have signals of product market fit and why or why not.
Given how little we knew about our early adopters, I wanted the opportunity to ask follow up questions and talk live to ensure I captured richer qualitative data.
Recruiting relevant participants
I partnered with a data analyst to pull users who had been active on the product for 4 consecutive weeks.
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I chose this group because their consistent activity indicated that they found enough value in the product to return regularly and would likely have stronger opinions and feedback.
Learnings & Insights
Strong signals of Product Market Fit
​User interviews revealed strong product market fit among this cohort, as 4/9 users said that they would be "very disappointed" if they could no longer use Atlas and 5/9 said they'd be "somewhat disappointed".​
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While it was clear this group saw value in Atlas, I was able to uncover more about their associated thoughts, feelings, actions, and the 'why' behind each.
Research Insights
Primary job responsibilities:
Talent / Value Creation
"Value creation" is a growing function in venture capital and refers to providing guidance and operational support to portfolio startups.
This includes: advice on organization design, introductions to key hires, customers, or subject matter experts.
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Some users had limited talent acquisition backgrounds and were learning the function on the fly.
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Key motivators:
Being viewed as indispensable
Most users were relatively new to their roles (6-12 months) and eager to make an immediate impact.
They understood there was no unicorn tool that could meet every need, and had learned to curb their expectations around SaaS tooling.
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This cohort had developed a "roll up your sleeves mentality" to deliver value to their stakeholders.​
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Why they chose Atlas:
Feels limited by the "status quo"
Value Creation teams were a new motion in Venture Capital.​
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They felt their role was overshadowed by more top-of-funnel teams at their firm and in the industry.​​​
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As a result, they were often shoehorning data from those teams into their own nascent workflows, further siloing their data and tech stack.
Mindset / Mantra:
"Organization increases ROI"
This group of users invests heavily into capturing the nuance that makes each of their connections unique, and ultimately valuable to their firm.
Given their heavy workload, it's critical that they find quick ways to categorize and organize that data.
Historically they've tried to keep this data up to date in spreadsheets and They are committed to the upfront organization for future benefits.
Opportunity Spaces
Despite each user claiming they saw some level of value within the product, 5 out of 9 people still indicated they'd only be "somewhat disappointed" if they could no longer use Atlas.
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I dug into what it would take to change their response to "very disappointed" and what I learned was helpful in prioritizing initiatives and new features. (More on that in a minute!)
Lacks advanced customization capabilities
Data quality and freshness needs improvement
Confusing UX for core capabilities creates friction
Introducing: "Value Creator Vicki"
Product Impact
Investment Areas
I used the Kano Method to articulate product recommendations that addressed core user needs and problems. This exercise led me to the conclusions and recommendations outlined below.
Opportunity Spaces
Lacks advanced customization capabilities
Data quality and freshness needs improvement
Confusing UX within core features creates friction
Product Recommendations
Invested in easy-to-use custom tagging system
103 unique custom tags were created across the customer base within the first 3 months of feature release.
Supported decision to invest heavily in data infrastructure
Learning that users see value in consolidated data supported the decision to heavily invest in data enrichment, which resulted in contact profiles that were rich in information and insights.
Workshopped UX improvements to core feature (list building)
Partnering with a PM, I co-organized and facilitated a cross-functional brainstorming session about how we might improve list creation UX, which was a core feature.
Reflection
This project was incredibly interesting and empowering as a UX Researcher.
Upon completing this project and sharing what I learned, I heard the team reference Vicki on the regular across the sales, marketing, engineering and product teams.
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This project was successful on many fronts, but perhaps the greatest success was my growth as a researcher. A few of the top level takeaways I'll take with me to my next experience are:
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Motivators say more than job titles
Our ICP went through multiple iterations and scope changes. Ultimately, I chose to focus on the core motivators as opposed to more details and tactics related to their role and professional background.
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This was helpful in keeping me and the team focused on painting a picture of "what could be" for Vince.
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02.
Secondary research can fill in a lot of context gaps.
Since our ICP was not a decision maker, I knew it would be beneficial to better understand the Venture Capital Firm landscape as a whole.
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I leveraged multiple online communities, newsletters and past sales demo recordings to stitch together a better understanding of Vince's colleagues and stakeholders.
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03.
It's never "finished"
I've learned it's normal, even healthy, for ICPs and personas to change as you learn more.
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While this was an incredibly insightful first iteration, early stage products and teams are constantly learning new things about users and the market. I learned the importance of stress testing these assumptions and seeking out more information when we saw cracks.