 Hey Hey, everyone, my name is Carlos and the founder and CEO at product school today I'm here with another founder and CEO his name is Osman cop and he works at user guiding welcome to the show Yeah, thanks for having me Maybe we can start from the top, but then you give us the time 10 second high-level pitch on user guiding Oh, cool is a guiding is a product adoption platform We help product companies product people to improve their Important metrics like conversion or retention rate and we are working with almost 1,000 companies from 80 different countries All right, I like that I'm sure that wasn't easy and that wasn't quick either. So we're going to explore your journey Yeah, and Osman. Yes. So there's another fun fact is you are not based in Silicon Valley, right? Yes. Yes, I have spent almost two months two years in Silicon Valley, mostly in San Francisco, but I am in London right now And I love that. I think there's still a misconception around High-tech or has to be built in Silicon Valley Even now that there we see there's more flexibility and hybrid or remote companies and and I love that your story and your Success case and how you can't build team. You can build a product outside Silicon Valley. In this case, London I know you've traveled around the world Turkey Brazil and still serve a global audience including US market. Yeah Yeah, yeah Carlos I remember I tweeted about Silicon Valley I said that Silicon Valley is not a location. It's a time zone. I think it's all about Shade time zone that You are in touch. You are in touch with people Yeah, it was six years ago. And yeah, we were having some tailor-made businesses for other companies with my existing co-founder current co-founder moment And we were helping entrepreneurs to build their first product products and onboarding was a pain in the ass But we were not sure how big is the problem then we decided to go to San Francisco it was 2017 to See people what's going on there. I was in San Francisco for a few times before then we noticed that the onboarding is a common problem for almost every product People we have we have met Then we check it out the product. We were there. There were a few tools in the market But yeah, we saw the gap that we can we can gain and we started to build user guiding in San Francisco So I see you started this company in 2018, right? Yes before that and what do you study? What is your background? Yeah, I was born and raised in Turkey My my beckillers my my degree was in business administration Yeah, mom and I my co-founder and CTO. We have been very close friends for almost 18 years They studied at the same high school same university after University I started to work as an investment analyst in My university angel investment network. That was a great chance for me to understand fundamentals of entrepreneurship Since I really more than 3,000 business plans in terrible feet 600 entrepreneurs in this company During those days one minute I yeah, we have tried a few ideas together But all of them failed quickly then we decided to quit our job and start building our own company To save some capital to understand the Ecosystem a little bit better. We decided to go we decided to build a Technology service company. We call it why not partners and yeah, we help Entrepreneurs to build their minimum viable products and acquiring their first customers So that first company was it more about an incubator to to allow other founders start their own companies Actually, it was if we felt like a startup studio We have 11 customers and we built the year first products as I said And we also help them to acquire some new customers Help them to raise some money. Yeah I think I think it's a good good observation Like this in my opinion that the biggest difference between an incubator and in studio is that in an in studio You are the one who decides the idea Starts yeah, and brings talent to grow it when an incubator Bring people with the idea and then you help them grow But like this is like different power dynamic and risk Yeah, absolutely, and it was a lot of fun Carlos actually I really missed our Service business days. I know it was very difficult to scale. They have a lot of issues Yeah to solve but yeah working with great mind founders every day trying to help them to solve their problem owning their problem as your problem It wasn't was it was a great opportunity for for us to Grasp the essentials for entrepreneurship before we start our own business Totally and I'm touched multiple things. I mean, I think as an investor was probably amazing You were able to see from there from the outside Other people are growing and get some ideas learnings then as an operator of a portfolio Also a test and then I guess you decided to go all in into one of those companies Yeah, yeah, actually it was it was it was a case and I also always suggest our Freshly graduate friends who's asking some Advises from me. Yeah, if you have no a solid robust idea to start Building. Yeah, you can try to sell some service businesses Let's let's start with making some ACO for a technology company. Let's start doing some social media Consultancy for for other companies. It's also good to understand the Building company hiring people firing people creating some invoices Managed the balance managed the cash close. Yeah, it was it was always my advice for Freshly graduate people The way I put that and I've seen that a lot in very successful companies is a lot of these successful companies products they started as services first and Typically founders where the product and they were able to kind of get enough insights to then try to scale But but there is no replacement for that first interaction for that first service if you will I think it's very risky to go into just building product and thinking about skating without really testing and feeling the pain of a user Absolutely absolutely and yeah, I think it's all about iteration Carlos. I also see Tens of cast the tens of great founders who try to add some service Today are products to increase their average revenue per user increase the lifetime value of the user Yeah And another common people I've seen in this in the evolution of these type of businesses is first most product companies actually start as a service and Most of those companies that try to go from service to product fail mostly because Their service is actually a service. It shouldn't be productize And if you are an agency and you are trying to you know sell something by the hour Sure, I'm sure there are certain things that you can automate But but there are some things that are just very very hard to automate And I think that's the magic of SAS product like software as a service Like if you can find that opportunity to fully automate that solution so it doesn't require just charging by the app Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was actually be We we were over with our existing clients if we try to Productize what we are serving to our clients. I think yeah, it was was not applicable for us They said, okay, we try to Sell a few projects that we are working on it and it went well Then we said goodbye to other clients. Then we went to some friends and we said, okay Yeah, we are out of this service business for right now. Then we we start using building user guide so in the case of user guiding was that an Idea that was being created in your studio Yeah, Carlos as I already shared actually onboarding was a Very very huge pain in the back back in the days. Yeah, we were trying to solve Using intro GS. I'm sure you heard of it before We were intro GS at the open source library for creating some onboarding materials We were we were trying to find some walker walk around to solve this issue And there were some beautiful products back in the days But Carlos we were not planning to build the onboarding product before we went to San Francisco Because we were not sure how big this problem is You're just thinking about okay. Yeah, it does it's a solid problem But maybe only ventures into your product product people are having that but in San Francisco whenever we met some new people They are always talking about some adoption metrics. Some They're always complaining about their conversion rates Retention rates and they said oh my god. Yeah, we were trying to solve this issue. Let's clarify What is onboarding for you? Yeah I think in a one sentence I can talk about it for four days, of course Delivering the value proposition in the simplest and quickest way possible. Yeah That's that's the main idea about behind user guidance. Yeah, we try to help our clients To make their end users to reach their aha moment more civically Yeah, and yes, so just to add to that as we're talking about software products And really most of the audience are product managers. They are familiar with this pain We're talking about once that user Signs up or creates an account even if that account is free onboarding starts there right is is trying to accelerate the path to Value so that user continues using the product and doesn't drop off before they get to that aha moment Yes. Yes Carlos actually Let's start from here Firstly, nobody sign ups to your product To sign up your product right they have some problems. They have some issues to solve They need some help from you from your product from your services. Yeah, and But you have also a lot of competitors alternative solutions in the in online in the world and You have to deliver your value proposition In Maybe three four maybe ten minutes you made you need to make your end users. Ah Yeah, I got it. Yeah, this product will help Me to solve these problems in these aspects. Yeah, this is this is the hardest part of our business Because Carlos you remember Ten years ago fifteen years ago when you download the product from the internet. Yeah, you can spend two three hours to understand how is How you can use it how you can get benefit from it? But right now you sign up a product if you don't understand something if you can That's not clear. Okay. Let's go use a guiding alternatives. I can I can't I thank you Alternatives to use a guiding and that's the same for all every Every BDBs house companies in the world in the detail world like nobody wants to read an instructions manual I like they Okay, I'm going to give you a shot as a user, but I have a limited tension span You need to show me value. I need to start experiencing something delightful. So then I want to continue Getting more just just out of curiosity want to know what are some of these Work-class onboarding experiences that you've seen in other data products Yeah It was I think the first one is bubble bubble that I actually even though they have not They have not renewed the onboarding process for a while. I think Their onboarding experience is still one of the best in the world Yeah, I remember. Yeah dropbox doling go actually. Yeah, doling. There's also doing a great job on on the air Mobile app slack is doing really good stuff. Especially they're always promoting the air They are checkpoints. They are Automated work. Yeah, these companies are doing real well in addition to user guiding, of course Let's speak maybe slack. It's like a very popular tool for the PMS. What makes that onboarding so special? Yeah, because yeah They're asking some questions when you are signing up to slack and Yeah, they understand. Who are you? What kind of purposes we are gonna use and According to your answers they are personalizing the year onboarding process and They are teaching you and the most important part about selects on boarding They are not pushing you very hard. It's another point about product adoption. Nobody is full And the more yeah, you just need to show a few things at one time You don't need to show everything in the first five minutes After the sign up. Yeah, so I can say includes because they they are getting good Good as first before when you are signing up to select second one. They are not pushing you really hard they are Showing a few things at the every time and I think they're also doing good this Whenever you start talking to slack, they are giving some Very valuable advice to you. For example, when you try to remind yourself something on slack Slash and remind. Yeah, they are onboarding processes really clean and It's a bit. Yeah As a user as well as an absolute product lover who eats onboarding for for breakfast It's an evolution of these and I've seen over the years the very beginning Nobody very few people care. It was all about driving up downloads or email registration They're the whole like, okay, wait, give me your email. Give me your phone number download and that used to be associated as a Success metric obviously that that is not like that anymore and and we see a top companies in the world especially in social media Talking about daily active users. They are not even talking about monthly active users They are caring about like the people who already everything and they're coming back Currently and they're coming back not because those companies are spamming them with push notifications or emails Yeah, some some some science to that but that was most important. They're coming back because they're finding value Yeah, that's yeah, that's the whole point. Yeah, you know You have you have a lot of problems Carlos You don't need to create more problems for your business for your day legend You need you just need to solve your issues and that's that's that's why I'm emphasizing again and again. Yeah If your product doesn't help it doesn't Nobody cares how beautiful design you have What kind of messaging what kind of testimonials do you have in your in your home page? And yeah, that's that that's why we always focus on these willing proposition delivery to end user What so as we think about the entire life cycle of the user from Act being you joining a product and then being on board the finding value as fast as possible Why is that step? So? What comes next? What is the actual business impact? Yeah, the first thing get the value and Then we just I can I can give some examples from user guiding Yeah, we just want to create some guides first then embed our JavaScript tracking code Then Carlos the the second most important thing Create some habits. I'm sure our audience is Is very familiar much more than me to create some habits. It's very very important Yeah, you don't need you don't want to create some users. They can sign up to your product They can sign in your product every quarter. You don't want to create this kind of habits quietly habits you need to give some ongoing value, okay, you show your main value, but You you you need to create some reasons For people to enter your product if possible on a daily basis If not on a week the basis, yeah, that's that's why that's why we created survey, okay You built your onboarding material Then you just need to get some feedback about your new features You just need to get some feedback about your net promoter score. Then you need to enter user guiding at least week the basis to Read the answers export the answers share your team beds. I think that's a good point What the success metrics for one company don't always translate to another company? I like maybe in a social network makes sense to look at daily active users Maybe not Got insurance company. You don't need to come day The other thing that meant you mentioned that I think it's it's enabling more product leaders to start paying attention to onboarding is that now there is technology There's tools like yours that are visual that are helping people do it like before there wasn't really that much so teams would need to either create from scratch something that is Actually table stakes that hopefully now they can use from a SAS product and focus more on their specific instead of trying to build from scratch But it's also onboarding Becoming much more complex right as as those products evolve and have multiple features as you think about Not just the new user that joined today But also maybe a user that was with you for a year and now if you launch a new feature You also want to think about the onboarding for that new feature not just Performing for that new user so choose to know about how you think through Different types of onboarding depending on the use cases you are trying to push or the customer segment that you are trying to tackle Yeah, yeah, that's a great question Carlos. Yeah We're always pushing our survey As one of the first steps of our clients onboarding process Because you can get some answer from your clients. I'm talking about new user onboarding But I will jump to me feature onboarding as well if you should promotion as well. And yeah, just use sure way Yeah, if somebody is looking for Some specific Actions you don't need to show all the stuff and in user guiding you can create this kind of connections between your Survey results and next step second thing is about feature Promotion and Carlos as you said, yeah It's also very important because people Become a little bit blind after they enter your product Maybe 50 times 60 times. It's also very important because people are very good at ignoring some Some emails some message, but if you can reach them if you can Get your attention at the right time when they are doing something wrong or when they are doing something right, but they can make it More proper way in a more in a proper way. That's also very important. That's why we always Pushing segmentation for for our clients if somebody has only one container You don't need to show How to segment their container right because they have only one container, but if somebody has 10 container if somebody has 24 different language in the localization page You have to show some how to cluster their their language their localization settings Yeah, the future adoption is important But you have to be sure it is the right time. It is the right segment of your clients That's why it's become my opinion becoming such a big deal for for product leaders and this technology to support that So even after customer segmentation, you can even get to personalization Because now you can see exactly what is each user doing where they need more help I think yes, it's good to have some standard templates that will push a certain use case But not everybody will adopt it at once and maybe the ones who already adopted can move on to the next Level and and we try to push to adopt another feature while there are some people that still need more care and different ways to to learn about that and and I think that is the key of onboarding the end of the day it's about really getting users to value as fast as possible and then Connecting that with the next steps of this life cycle is ultimately a goal is to increase revenue for those those users and That can only be done if the users love your product. Nobody's going to renew a product that they don't use An excellent customer experience Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah People are very busy. They are very busy with your With your own agenda with Twitter, TikTok, other social media platforms, knifes and Yeah, that's why you have to personalize their experience because yeah, nobody has one more minute to rest on any kind of platform. Yeah And so how are you thinking about artificial intelligence in terms of helping users with onboarding? Yeah This is the topic we have been discuss For a very long time and yeah soon We will also take some actions to how we can enable user-guiding with other AI solutions. How can we integrate our existing other AI tools with with user-guiding and I think There are two aspects one of them. Yeah, they can AI stuff can create some onboarding materials. I think that can be that can be life-changing for for for all of us and yeah, they can You just need to have only one chat chat bar and you can ask any kind of questions and They can the AI can show how to do that how to do how to Connect your data how to connect your Platform have to connect any kind of stuff. I think it will be a very breakthrough for for all of the Players in the market the second one, I think we can use AI to make our Existing products more clever We already discussed segmentation. We already discussed personalization. I think we can We can we can Get some value from existing AI solutions To make user-guiding or your product more personalized more you remember the wording sense and Sense and response. Yeah, your product can sense and they can response before you You are even aware before you are even aware what what's gonna happen And in terms of your own product What's your vision? How do you see user-guiding evolve? Yeah, we are From the beginning of this year We we decided to go with a bdb sus Players because their product usage Retention metrics conversion metrics LTV and other critical metrics are much better than the other other Other clients in in our in our portfolio and we we are planning to Go to product adoption platform Which bdb sus companies can Get some feedback about their new features They can create the year feature roadmap prioritization they can Create some new future adoption materials promotion materials on user-guiding get something big about the existing existing new features And yeah, we will be we are we are we are dreaming about the ultimate product adoption platform for bdb sus companies and we are also Improving our analytics structure. That's that will be a very important part of our User-guiding 2020 far. Let's talk about adoption versus onboarding We want to be Optimistic adoption platform. What is the difference between adoption and onboarding? Yeah onboarding I think onboarding is a sibling of adoption adoption serves For bigger purposes, for example, yeah, you can onboard your new users But in in product adoption, you can also get some Feedback about new feature records, for example, you can also get some feedback about your latest releases In in onboarding, you just need to feel people the aha moment in product adoption You have to own all critical product metrics Upsell of conversion your one metric that matters Rates your retention rates your net dollar retention rate this kind of all All critical metrics can be owned by adoption Not not on the onboarding Yeah, I've seen that it going from being literally a product to being a platform and supporting multiple use cases Yeah, I see onboarding as a subset of adoption one strategic decision that I I'm sure you are aware I want to ask is How to go about that evolution from product to platform? I see two different trends in general and they're pros and cons one is building and say, okay We're going to start expanding our own product We're going to build some of these different use cases and it's probably going to take longer It's probably going to be more expensive, but obviously if you work well, it's it's all going to be centralized Another option that I've seen is integrations With other tools that are covered in specific use cases that if you speed that is pretty less That's you know, less effort and less money since you are not building every single thing you are building the integrations Obviously, you don't you're not the central player. So What type of direction are you thinking to take next? Yeah Yeah, we are we are already investing a lot of time to integrate as much as different platforms with user guidance Because there are some platforms you cannot build in in a few years Yeah, that's why we are integrating with your guiding bit and to to mix panel hub support Yeah, there is no way to replace these tools in a few decades. I think so Yeah, but there are some Some features that we if we can if we would build in house That will be much more meaningful for our clients for our And it's also make more sense in a financial outcomes wise Survey, actually. Yeah, they're they're tens of surveys in the market, but if we cook Create a native survey Now, you know, if you could build it, you know the every part of your product You can integrate your old product and it is it is much more Smarter decision for us And but I really want to answer your questions. We will I don't think so. Yeah, they are substitute We will invest in integration as much as we can but we also make some some brave Some both moves to build some new products Under user guiding umbrella Making that's part of product leadership. Thank you. You as the leader making the hard decisions on Here's how we're going to grow the business and their pros and cons and it's hard to be impossible to please everyone and In a way and I know as I found there Stempting to go for more to squeeze in one more thing into the next Next roadmap, right? I think having the awareness around how we win how we can double down on what makes you unique and Be an easier player to connect with others that are very very good at other use cases Can give you an edge at least in the product space I've seen that about from being from being no space. Literally. There were no product tools backing off like tools for marketers tool for designers and now we have our own set of Tools some players are trying to cover everything and be the ultimate platform But most players are trying to double down on their strengths and make it easy to integrate with others Yeah, yeah, as you said, yeah, I guess some trade-offs and yeah, I'm very excited for for 2024 because they're Coming soon very very great features for user guide it Yeah, and I think we will be one of the best friends for product people for It's a privilege to build for builders, right? And I love having this time to learn from you and your vision. Thank you so much, Osman Yeah, it was a great chance for me Talk about our feature our product and our journey. Thanks for having me guys