Happily ever after?

“Thanks for everything!” And with that, the Pitch project was over. I’d just gotten off a video call with our main client stakeholder and he sounded really happy with us, but I wasn’t so sure. Had we even been that helpful? Was he genuinely satisfied with our work? We’d touched nearly every aspect of the product, their visual design language, and even riffed on logo design, but without staying on to see the weekly progression through to the finish line, doubt lingered in my mind as to whether or not we could call this project a success.

Truthfully, I knew this project would be atypical from the beginning; I’d witnessed my team grow in new ways and I was proud of both the relationships we’d developed and the quality of the work we’d created as a result. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that my doubts didn’t have anything to do with Pitch or the project outputs at all. Instead, it was a reflection of how narrow my definition of project success had become.

How we get from starting to shipping

At MetaLab, we pride ourselves on end-to-end design. We’ve established a reputation and a client list on our ability to take big ideas and turn them into products people love and can use right away. Sure, blue-sky thinking is an important part of every project’s creative journey, but time constraints and practicalities put a cap on how much dreaming we can do before it gets in the way of the quality of the end product.

Our track record and experiences have led us to develop a general framework for how we run a project. This doesn't mean we take a "one-size-fits-all" approach—every partner is as unique as their needs. What it does mean, however, is that most of our projects have a clear beginning, middle, and end; we rely on well-defined project plans and processes to serve as guardrails for our thinking and ensure expectations are met on both sides.

Learn more about our typical process.

Still, we’re always up for exploring alternative ways of working when opportunities as exciting as Pitch come along.‍

Pitching a new approach

Initially, the ask from Pitch founder, Christian Reber, sounded familiar —and right up our alley: “We have this idea, we want to turn it into something real, and we want your help to do it.” We were excited to dig in.

Soon, though, we found ourselves a bit out of our element. With a $50 million investment to build the collaborative presentation software for modern teams, they’d made a conscious decision to approach a more experimental relationship with us as design partners.

Reimagining a product as institutionalized as PowerPoint requires a creative environment where it’s safe to poke holes in (or protect) the status quo, so that became our main job. Rather than looking to us to tackle the full product or lead the charge on a defined feature set, they wanted us to operate as a continuation of their own internal design team who could challenge their thinking and provide alternative perspectives.‍

The beauty of unfinished business‍

There are elements of our typical process that are highly collaborative, but working with the Pitch team took our concept of collaboration to a whole new level. Instead of designing separately towards set milestones, each team would take turns generating ideas and riffing off of each other's thinking. Some weeks, we’d dive deeper into a particular focus area only to go in the complete opposite direction the next. Other times, their team would present ideas to us and we’d give them feedback (or vice versa). Lo-fi prototypes or half-baked concepts would be abandoned only to reappear in later iterations.

Week over week, new rules of engagement began to develop. At first, we were uncomfortable handing over incomplete thinking; it was hard to let go of ownership over quality and polish, and we had to learn how to operate in a permanent state of fluidity. But for Pitch, it wasn’t as important to spend time on structure and formalities. They wanted to get down to work instead of spending time defining how we planned to get it all done, especially because their priorities were apt to change and shift as a growing startup. Eventually, though, through this tag-team approach, we came to a consensus on what did and didn’t need to be in the product, all the way from layout decisions to how to differentiate Pitch in the market.

Elements of this working style were extremely liberating. With so much freedom and so few limitations, we could take the time to do the things we thought were wrong but wanted to try out anyway. Every time, we surprised ourselves with what we learned and we were able to develop more concrete arguments for the pursuit of one functionality over the other. Where most clients need us to work quickly on our own to iterate and arrive at foolproof solutions, the Pitch team embraced divergent directions and wanted to be part of arriving at the best solutions together. ‍

What we left (and learned)

In the end, we left Pitch with a kaleidoscope of work in varied formats and states of completion. We also gave them a component library in Figma with visual design and icon work that they could pull from as needed in an effort to set them up for future success. When we checked in on them a few months later, we were happy to discover that they’d been putting our unfinished files to good use as they continued to refine their MVP. Thanks to Figma, we could see exactly when things were touched last and by whom, and not a single one of our files had been left for dead. It was pretty cool to see designers we’d worked with — and even some who’d been hired since we left — poking around and drawing inspiration from our initial ideas.

Discomfort is often the gatekeeper of learning and growth. As a design leader on our team, it’s my job to support the good kind of discomfort and fend against the bad. This can be a tricky exercise, but projects like Pitch push me to get better at discerning between the two. Since wrapping this work, I’ve embraced of similarly unconventional partnerships that come through the door in the hopes that my “loosening by example” will give our process more room to breathe. This project wasn’t typical for us by any stretch of the imagination, but once we were able to let go of the reigns and relax into uncharted territory, we were surprised by how much there was to be gained in trying something new. ‍

Push the envelope where it counts

When it comes to the creative process, staying in your comfort zone can be more dangerous than venturing outside it. Even on tight budgets and short timelines, there are ways to practice "radical innovation” without breaking the bank. One method that we lovingly refer to as “The Tarantino,” is a great exercise to try when you’re looking to generate out-of-the-box ideas quickly and effectively. Another way to use your creative reserves wisely is to focus on differentiation where it counts. Don’t reinvent the wheel for the sake of it. Pick and choose where to push so the product can have a transformational impact where it matters most.‍

Discomfort is often the gatekeeper of learning and growth.

More structure isn’t always better

No matter your typical project style or constraints, use structure sparingly. Obviously, it's a huge part of keeping things on track and establishing shared rules of engagement. But when there’s a little less rigidity and a little more appetite for “let’s see what happens,” creativity flows in a way that’s unhampered by egos, insecurities, or fears of getting it wrong.‍

You have more to offer than you think

Lastly, don’t pigeon-hole yourself or what you bring to the table. You can make hypotheses and educated guesses about how you might be able to best contribute to a project, but don’t assume you know exactly what others might get from working with you. In our case, we were the right partners for Pitch not only because of our ability to make interfaces, but also because of the quality of our thinking and our approach to project management. By the end, we were giving input and direction on things that would normally fall outside our typical scope and expertise thanks to the trust that we’d developed with their team.

So, could I rightfully call the Pitch project a success? Absolutely. Not because our team created every flow or vector, but instead because our involvement has continued to permeate and inspire long after we left. Part of creating solid products requires a willingness to exhaust the bad and the mediocre to get to the good; we helped Pitch cut through a lot of that clutter and clear the path to success.

For more about Pitch and the product we designed together, read the case study.

Now that you have a strategy and your differentiators in place, it’s time to draft the entire product experience into a single document. This is a key step in the product lifecycle called product definition. 

One of the key deliverables that comes out of the product definition is the product blueprint. Your product blueprint allows you to visualize the entire product service on one page. This helps manage its complexity, including the actions and touchpoints of all the actors, key features, technical dependencies, and operational requirements.

Behind the scenes, there are several key assets that power this product blueprint: 

This view helps to ensure your team is aligned on the critical pieces of success.

That being said, it’s easy to go overboard with product blueprints, so don’t boil the ocean! Focus on the few critical features and components that will make a big impact for your customers.

Remember to trust in yourself and the research that has been done. Your customers don't always know what the right solution is for their wants and needs. That's why it's your job to consider their needs in the context of your product's potential and develop an appropriate blueprint that can scale in the future.

We saw earlier that you’re going to be spending the majority of your time in the product definition/design, testing, and build phases, which means you need a talented team of skilled makers. 

This may seem obvious, but when building the right team with the right chemistry within your budget, there are a lot of factors to consider. How long will it take for the team to gel? Do you stick with who you have? When should you contract vs. hire?

Too often, we see companies spend big budgets hiring a ton of great developers and designers. They throw them onto a project expecting the product will be delivered fast only to find the team isn’t hitting their milestones. Why? 

Teams typically struggle to get going immediately because of differing working styles, personalities, mindsets, and honestly… sometimes ego. That’s why you shouldn’t focus on individual hires but on the team as a whole.

If you have time, budget, and desire to invest in the future culture of your company, you have to invest time to build the team dynamics. We find that it typically takes 4-5 sprints for a team to find its groove — approximately four months, or more.

If you are an early stage startup, and don’t have a lot of time (six months or less), but still want to get a product out there quickly, we recommend hiring a pre-built team of skilled makers who have launched several products together. 

The key takeaway is to not waste all of your time and money hiring. Building a successful team takes time and cycles of members working together to hit their stride. When necessary, augment with experts to help your team grow, add a skill, or just simply to outsource a function. It ultimately comes down to how you want to allocate your resources.

Don’t reinvent the wheel… and don’t build everything from scratch! Accelerators are existing tools and technologies you can leverage or integrate into your product.

Some of the tools that we use to help accelerate the design process to create and test out designs, concepts, and prototypes with users include Figma, Framer.io, and even Typeform.

For development, we use many different tools and platforms on our projects to help accelerate the product development lifecycle and build products that can scale to meet customer demand.  Several of the most popular and impactful integrations and platforms used by our teams include:

AI is everywhere these days for a reason. It’s powering brand new ways to get work done and being incorporated into almost every tool we already use to make workflows easier. From content creation to scheduling, we are seeing tools popping up for everything. Here are a few that can help accelerate product development:

There are important considerations to keep in mind when using any AI tool in a responsible way. Sensitivity of data uploaded into any of these systems and the originality of the content is a big one.

Policies and regulation with AI are still being figured out, so it’s wise to exercise caution when setting guidelines for your product teams. Leverage these tools as inspiration or starting points for copy, as pieces of a larger composite for images, or to get as specific as possible with prompts in order to generate something unique.

Product development succeeds when teams develop a culture of continuous learning. This is fueled by rigorous testing, analytics, and strategic iteration during key phases of the product lifecycle.

In the discovery phase, we immerse ourselves in understanding our potential early adopters' needs and motivations (see #validators). Alongside this, we work with clients to think through solid analytics strategies. This step instills a data-centric culture from the start, setting the stage for ongoing learning and adaptation. 

By aligning qualitative user insights with a framework for quantitative data capture, we ensure the product strategy we craft will continually evolve to meet user needs.

As we pivot to the alpha and beta stages, the emphasis turns to iterative improvement. We engage early adopters in testing programs. Their first-hand experiences provides invaluable feedback to detect bugs and potential enhancements. 

This feedback, bolstered by real-time analytics data, drives our evidence-based refinement process, prepping the product to be market-fit.

By investing in this cycle of continuous learning — persistent testing, data-informed analytics, and strategic iteration — we embrace a user-centric ethos in product development. This equips our clients to not just navigate, but also thrive.

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When Ravi Mehta (former CPO at Tinder/Product Director at Facebook) was working on the first iteration of his personalized coaching product, he validated it quickly with a paid offering he pieced together with a number of low-code tools.

Leveraging learnings from a community of early adopters, he partnered with MetaLab to help enhance, refine, and evolve the product into the Outpace app.

Outpace launched earlier this year. It provides guided programs for personalized career development designed to level up with the support of a one-on-one AI coach.

We are in a post-WeWork/Theranos era of founders promising growth without showing any profit. You need to ask yourself "What do we need to show investors?" Users are great, but how is this actually going to make money?

You have to show real numbers and an actionable monetization strategy. This means outlining your marketing and growth strategies — and the mechanisms that will bring in not only revenue but profit.

Revenue strategies can vary greatly, but the following are a few of the most common buckets of digital product monetization mechanisms:

There are many ways to monetize a product, and this is by no means an exhaustive list. The right way is the one that will resonate with your audience, so feel free to experiment and be flexible when choosing a strategy.

We’ve been supporting Modular with the release of their new AI platform and product offerings. Early in our engagement, they asked us to design a marketing site to help them grow and segment their sales pipeline. This allowed them better understand, and target, existing and potential users. We took those early learnings to ensure the product landed with their audience and supported their revenue targets.

The product lifecycle doesn’t end with a launch, it goes far beyond. Once you begin to get a better understanding of your customers and their purchase behaviours, it’s vital to adapt, being flexible with pricing, monetization strategies, and identifying unexpected revenue drivers. 

For example, you may see that your primary offering for your SaaS tool is slowly gaining traction, but over and over customers are requesting access to an API for a specific data flow. You may be sitting on a large additional untapped revenue stream and there could be more. Meet your customers where they are!

It helps to consult the people who’ve been there before. There are a million people on LinkedIn who are trying to sell you a service or product that you may not need. There are critical steps that could cost you if you miss them. There are shortcuts you may not even know exist. Trusted advisors can help you navigate this and more. There is just no substitute for experience.

Find seasoned product leaders, designers, or engineers who have launched products in the past and will be familiar with the nitty-gritty details. They will have the perspective to help you find the forest through the trees. You want people on your side who can make sure you are spending your time, efforts, and money on the right things.

These are the Product Survival Kit items that we recommend to anyone who is creating and launching a product in today's climate. It's a mix of techniques, processes, people, actions and tools that we've seen provide success to many of our clients, colleagues and partners out there. But remember — each product is different, so find the mix that worst best for you. 

It may seem daunting but it is possible to successfully bring your idea or product concept to life today.  This may even be the right moment to go after it. Companies who launch useful and impactful products during economic downturns have a history of surviving and thriving. The next one could be you.