Sorry, this product is not meant for you
Should you allow anyone to sign up for your product, or does it make sense to actually shut some people out?
A couple of days ago, I was fortunate enough to attend an inspiring 30-minute Q&A with Josh Pigford of Baremetrics and a bunch of Product people at the Podio offices in Copenhagen.
Baremetrics is basically providing Stripe users (running subscription-based businesses) with an analytics dashboard superior to what Stripe is offering. Josh has reportedly gotten a nice reputation among the Twitterati for his bluntness about his business — a good example being the demo of Baremetrics which is the realtime view of Baremetrics actual revenue. That is just awesome.
Yes, I have a point. That is not (only) about how cool this Josh guy is. Coming up.
Turning users down
On the Baremetrics blog, Josh mentions how happy he is with his Enterprise customers. During the Q&A session, he also mentioned how most of his user churn is coming from users who don’t have enough threshold to actually benefit from a meaningful analytics platform.
What if you just turned those users down to begin with?
Let’s exaggerate things for the sake of discussion. If you know — based on the data you have — that this type of user will leave within the first couple of months, what are you really gaining from letting them sign up in the first place?
If I’ve tried a product and didn’t find any good use of it, I don’t think I would be coming back anytime soon. It’s not about feeling betrayed, or just annoyed that the product didn’t deliver. Using Baremterics as case again, if you’re an early-stage SaaS business with only a few customers, Baremetrics might not pose a real value to you, since there’s just not enough data to project anything reasonable. That’s not anybody’s fault. But still an unfulfilling experience. For all parties invovled I would assume.
What you’ll be missing out on
- Users and revenue. The first, and by all means, most relevant concern. Of the users you choose not to let in, who would become valuable customers over time.
- Important feedback. The users that actually buy into your idea, get convinced that this works, but still leaves quickly — that journey could provide some vital data for your business. In the usecase we’re working with here, we assume we know the reason.
What you could be winning
I cherish friendly user experiences helping you along a path suiting you and your needs. Also if it impairs imminent revenue or growth — I believe the long-term gain of a stronger brand reputation is worth much more. This service, this usecase — it might be a point. At least to try out.
How about just offering a free trial?
That concept has been around for a while.
As I see it, there are two sides to this — the solution and the communication. My main point here is about communication. About building a product that actually feels like it’s main purpose is to help people. And if you — who knows what you’re offering — have a hunch this relationship won’t last, be blunt about it and do the preemptive breakup.
