Opticon 2015: Who I met and what I learnt after flying 9,000 miles to be there

Opticon 2015: Who I met & what I learnt after flying 9,000 miles to be there

…and what it’s done for my startup

Where I live: Perth, Australia

Where Opticon 2015 is held: San Francisco, USA

Distance between the two: 14,735 km or 9,155 miles

Average flight time (via Dubai): 26 hours

Door-to-door: 35 hours and 30 minutes

For a little startup like Stockphoto.com, Opticon 2015 is a BIG deal.

It’s an acknowledgement of what little we know.

But it’s also a statement of intent. We’re shooting for the stars.

We’re going for the touchdown but it’s not going to be a Hail Mary that wins this game.

It’s going to be street smarts backed by hard yakka.

How I planned for Opticon…

My co-founder sent me this excellent resource by Optimizely’s Robin Johnson prior to my trip. (https://blog.optimizely.com/2015/05/28/how-to-make-the-most-of-opticon-2015/)

It’s not hard to deduce from Robin’s article that networking, being sociable and receptive to people with their unique take on using Optimizely — is the key to having a successful (on-going) learning experience.

I would add that travelling solo and being a lone attendee meant that I pushed myself out of my social comfort-zone. It forced me to interact and got me talking to more of my fellow attendees than had I been attending with my co-founders.

I’m not a natural social butterfly (as a UX Designer by day at Diversus and a startup guy by night) but by the end of Opticon I had achieved a degree of competence in walking up to, introducing myself and carrying on a meaningful conversation with, most people at the event.

My tip if you’re considering Opticon 2016 — go alone! :)

Who I met and what I learnt from them…

Wyatt Jenkins

Optimizely VP of Product

How I met Wyatt: Being a lone wolf attendee, I forced myself on an unsuspecting stranger standing alone at the Opticon Bash who happened to work at Optimizely. They in turn introduced me to another Optimizely employee who upon seeing I was from Stockphoto.com, insisted that I meet Wyatt. She proceeded to personally escort me around the conference looking for their VP of Product…FATE!!

Something else about Wyatt: Did I mention that before he joined Optimizely, he was VP of Product for Shutterstock!!!!!!!! It was almost worth the trip to the US just to meet him. Turns out he is good friends with Lee Torrens (my Stockphoto.com co-founder).

What I learnt from Wyatt: “Look for entry points into your product, don’t assume it’s the homepage. Optimize areas where customers are making key decisions such as your photo page.”

Michael van den Nouweland & Arnout (“Arnold”) Van Scherpenzeel

Conversion Optimisation Specialists for Dutch Lotteries

How I met Michael & Arnold: Arrived early at the Stats Engine session with Pete Koomen. Proceeded to look for someone new to meet and found Michael sitting alone — so sat down and introduced myself. Michael later introduced me to his college buddy Arnold at the Opticon Bash.

Something else about Michael & Arnold: Hypothesis #1 (below) was setup at Opticon itself (in one of the breaks) — instigated by Michael and Arnold.

What I learnt from Michael & Arnold: “Start your testing by removing the page elements that distract from the page goal”

Grant Wilkins

Ecommerce Web Designer for Northern Tool

How I met Grant: In the dying minutes of the Opticon Bash, I found Grant and introduced myself.

Something else about Grant: Grant loves a good Tiki Bar and was heading to San Fran’s best Tiki Bar after we chatted.

What I learnt from Grant: “Optimization gems are found buried deep in your site analytics”

Ryan & Collin Mauldin

Founder & Optimizely Specialist for Vici Media Group

How I met Ryan & Collin: While waiting in the lunch line on Opticon day one.

Something else about Ryan & Collin: Ryan has travelled to 15 countries and studied at language schools in three of those countries. Collin used to run his own online used car business.

What I learnt from Ryan & Collin: “Look at and learn from user patterns and behaviours (what do they search for? how often do they purchase? are they are seasonal purchaser?)”

Who else I met…

Will Egan — CMO at Ausmed

Aswin Teja Yamuzala — Front end developer at a Silicon Valley startup.

Jeff Deutsch — VP of marketing at PTEngine.com.

Omkar Nimbalkar — AWS Architect, masters student at San Jose U and works at autodesk.com.

Nick Golovin — Founder of datavirtuality.com.

Adrian Chacon — Product Designer from Mexico living in San Fran.

Matthew Hayden — Founder of conversionkings.com.au in Brisbane Australia.

Fabian Liebig — Optimizely Marketing Manager DACH region.

Clair Vo — Founder of experimentengine.com

Leo Naressi — Founder of consulting company www.dp6.com.br which is only Optimizely partner in Brazil.

Yoni Blumberg — Special Projects Manager at inventure.com. A mobile micro finance startup for Africa.

What I did with my new-found knowledge…

Hypothesis #1 IF we simplified our home page by removing image categories THEN we can increase the number of users performing a search.

What I did: Removed the image categories e.g. People, Business, Animals etc. This reduced the number of things that users could click on before performing a search.

Results from the A/B test on Hypothesis #1

..and the winner is:

The variation resulted in a 16.2% increase of users performing a search on Stockphoto.com’s home page.

Hypothesis #2 IF we simplified our home page further and downplayed the Hero image and removed the navigation and pricing link THEN we can increase the number of users performing a search.

What I did: Decreased the transparency of the Hero image and removed pricing buttons and menu bar. This really highlighted the search box. If the user was in any doubt what we wanted them to do, the variation really spelled it out for them.

Results from the A/B test on Hypothesis #2