Product

17x Growth in 30 Days: Our Secret Sauce Exposed!

July 16, 2023

Tomáš Ivan

Head of Product

Maybe you’ve experienced something similar. You launch a new product with a great initial response, but as time goes on, interest fades and demand stagnates, or worse, declines. On the surface, everything seems fine - you have website visitors, an acceptable bounce rate, and leads coming in. However, the critical issue remains: conversions and revenue are lacking.

Perhaps you dismiss it with a thought, 'Well, that only happens to amateurs.' However, this scenario is not exclusive to inexperienced players. It occurred even for a well-financed start-up, backed by venture capital funds and headquartered in Silicon Valley.

With one of our projects, three years in the market, and a nearing 500k user base, it was steadily growing - until it wasn't. They decided to seek a partner who could assist them in addressing this situation. We collaborated with them to develop a comprehensive plan for sustainable revenue growth. To ensure the best possible outcome, we utilized the Product Discovery Process. The result? The impact was indeed remarkable. After implementing the insights gained from our Product Discovery Process, their revenue surged by an astounding 17 times in just one month.

Laying the Foundation with Product Analysis

Jointly with the client, we delved into an in-depth product analysis to identify the key issues we needed to address. We reconsidered the core problem and evaluated the product’s functionalities. Then, we closely examined the rationale behind certain features and their alignment with the business value. All this was done by analyzing a pile of contextual and non-contextual data generated through users’ interaction with the product in the previous period. Additionally, we used a product canvas that revealed significant areas of misalignment within the product.

It became evident that 3 main areas demanded immediate attention:

Unfocused and Overwhelming Offer: Despite effectively addressing multiple user pain points, the innovative product suffered from excessive features, which dimmed its unique selling proposition and caused confusion among users.

Lengthy Conversion Funnel: The user journey from initial engagement to conversion proved excessively long, with too many options in each step of the funnel and a lack of clear and engaging information that would take the user to the final destination - conversion.

Non-transparent Offer and Pricing Model: The placement of the payment gateway disrupted the user flow toward conversion, while the subscription-based pricing model contradicted the product’s value proposition, requiring adjustments for better clarity and alignment.

Time for Market and Competition Research

Next, we delved into comprehensive research on the market ecosystem and competition. Our primary objective was to understand how our client's product compared to others in the market. We identified direct and indirect competitors, while also studying the successes and, more importantly, the failures of similar products. This competitor's analysis enabled us to find market gaps and strategically position our client's product.

Developing Hypotheses, Mapping User Journeys, and Segmenting Users

With practical insights gained from our initial analysis, market research, and competition analysis, we created hypotheses for the improvements we aimed to test with users. This involved mapping user journeys for key functionalities, considering different user segments. By identifying pain points, bottlenecks, and areas for enhancement, we streamlined the overall user experience.

Going for Usability Testing

We believe that user-centric design is the key to digital success; therefore, we conducted rigorous testing to ensure that our client's product met the highest usability standards. By observing users interacting with the prototype we designed to address the key issues and by gathering feedback, and validating it against our hypotheses, we pieced together the puzzle gaining a clear understanding of the necessary implementation steps to achieve our main objective: revenue growth.

Setting Priorities and Planning the Roadmap of Implementation

Using the outcomes from our analytics, research, and usability testing, we refined and confirmed the necessary changes in terms of unique selling proposition, user journeys, user experience, and pricing model. These changes were transformed into a roadmap and subsequent backlog items for our engineering and design teams to begin implementation and delivery. The timeline was clear: we had two months to elevate the product by incorporating all the proposed changes.

… and success!

We implemented all the changes within the planned time frame and relaunched the new version of the product without any additional costs for marketing or PR activities. After the first month, we assessed the performance results, and the outcome was truly astounding: a 1,700% increase in product revenue.

The success achieved through the Product Discovery Process is a testament to the power of a strategic and user-centric approach to digital product development. By conducting market and competition research testing, user journey mapping, usability testing, and pricing model adjustments, we delivered a product that resonated strongly with the target audience, resulting in an amazing 17-fold increase in revenue within a month.

Learn more about the discovery process with a free ebook, "The Digital Entrepreneur’s Holy Grail: Essential Topics for Startup Victory."

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Project

1 min read

Pivot Like a Pro: Startup Strategies for Success

Cleevio

Company News

Discover the highlights from our recent exclusive panel discussion featuring Roman Stanek, CEO of GoodData, alongside industry leader Milo Poplar and our Head of North America, Filip Orth.

The event provided valuable insights into global-scale product building and entrepreneurial success. Dive into the key takeaways and memorable moments from this engaging discussion, where experienced pioneers shared their wisdom and expertise on the AI landscape.

We were thrilled to have Roman Stanek and his impressive track record in building successful startups. His journey began with the acquisition of NetBeans by Sun Microsystems in 1999, followed by the acquisition of Systinet by Hewlett Packard in 2006. Along the way, his ventures received support from renowned VC funds like a16z, Intel Capital, and General Catalyst.

Outsourcing

During the event, our discussions delved deeply into the strategies startups can employ to enhance efficiency through outsourcing across various operational domains. We explored how outsourcing can serve as a vital tool in mitigating the challenges inherent in the dynamic startup landscape. Among others, these challenges encompass navigating a tough fundraising environment and contending with fierce competition in virtually every industry.

Agility and adaptability

Central to our discussions was the imperative for startup founders to remain agile and adaptable in the face of evolving circumstances. We underscored the critical importance of being responsive to market shifts and customer demands, emphasizing the need for continual adjustment to ensure the longevity and success of their ventures.

Operational effectively

The ability to pivot effectively is essential, particularly when considering the quest for operational efficiency. In this context, leveraging outsourcing capabilities becomes paramount, whether it is in technological development, sales, marketing, or legal compliance. This strategic approach is especially pertinent in the current landscape, where fundraising endeavors are meeting with increased difficulty, and access to capital is more constrained than it was just two years ago.

Milo Poplar, Co-founder of Eldison during presentation

We intend to make this event a regular occurrence. We aim to host Founders’ Lounge regularly, each time focusing on a different theme and bringing in a special guest who will share insights from their entrepreneurial journey.

Are you a founder, investor, CTO or decision-maker in the technological startup environment seeking to accelerate your growth and gain a competitive edge in the market? Watch our LinkedIn for future invites!

Development

1 min read

Crash-Proofing Your Code: Setting Up Sentry on Android

Tomáš Dvořáček

Senior Android Developer

Welcome back! As promised, we are here with the second part of the Crash-proofing series. This time, we will show you how to set up Sentry for the Android platform and some nice-to-have stuff as a bonus.

Let's begin!

Create sentry.properties file inside your Android project’s root folder

Initial setup in Sentry Admin

These are a few things you need to do before implementing Sentry Android SDK.

Create a new project in Sentry. Give this project some appropriate name like your-project-android
Then go to Settings → Projects → Your new Project → General Settings

You should see the name of your project. This is your project_id. In sentry.properties, replace <project_id> with it
Then go to Organization settings → General Settings, copy your organisation_slug and replace <organisation_slug> inside sentry.properties

Then go to User and tokens and create new Token. You can add every permission to it for a start but its better to check every permission and decide for yourself what is needed.

Then copy your new auth token and replace <auth_token> with it inside sentry.properties.Sentry can upload ProGuard mapping files for you and needs this auth token. Ignore this if you don’t care about ProGuard
Your sentry.properties should be filled now.
Then go to Settings → Projects → Your new Project → Client Key (DSN)
Get your DSN link and save it somewhere for now.

Now you can return to your Android Project

Adding sentry to project

A full tutorial is on this page. Sentry can set itself with a command, but if you prefer a manual approach or have problems, follow the instructions below or this page. Sentry will also give you a direct link for setup in Android Studio (https://sentry.io/organizations/XXX/projects/YYY/getting-started/)

Add this to your main module build.gradle

Open your application class and initiate Sentry

Let’s explore what each line does:

This line applies the environment to the issue. If you use several build flavors like development and production, you can then easily filter specific flavors.

These lines set the percentage value of how many traces to log. 100% means everything is logged. It’s not recommended to collect everything in a production environment; however, e.g., on development, it’s a good thing since testers could find bugs. In our example, we set the percentage on the release version to 10%.

Open your AndroidManifest.xml file inside your main module and insert this

If you don’t want to use CI/CD and just hardcode your DSN, replace ${sentryDsnUrl} with your collected DSN link.

Open app’s build.gradle and setup DSN there as well

Add Sentry gradle plugin to project

This code enables sentry gradle plugin. This prepares scripts for your convenience like uploading aab to sentry with proguard mapping files.

Nice things to know

Assign someone to new issue

Every issue in Sentry can be assigned to someone and you can do that manually or automatically with rules.

Create Jira issue directly from Sentry

If you setup the Jira integration mentioned in the previous article, Sentry enables you to quickly and easily create Jira issues from the issue itself.

Discover page

Discover page let’s you quickly query in all yours collected data so you can answer analytics questions or analyse potential health issues in your project. You can use predefined queries or create, edit and delete your own queries. It’s really powerful tool but it’s limited only to Trial and Business Plan.

Pluggins for Sentry

Sentry for Android offers plugins which let’s you automatically collect more specific data. For example:

Some stuff like Android Fragments, okHttp events and logcat are already logged automatically from Sentry version 3.1.0.

In order to disable them, change the sentry config in the project’s build.gradle.

OkHttp plugin

Like said above, from Sentry 3.1.0, Sentry will automatically log OkHttp event via manipulating your final bytecode and inserting SentryOkHttpInterceptor. This will create breadcrumbs which would look like this:

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If you use Sentry 3.11.0+, Sentry will also insert SentryOkHttpEventListener which will log even more data from http requests. Everything will be logged with logcat:

Thank you for diving into the second part of our series. If you have any questions, feel free to catch up or reach out.

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#meetcleevio

1 min read

From Code to Culture: The Backbone of Our Backend Team

Přemysl Rucký

Backend Lead

Hey there! Curious about what makes our backend team tick? Let me spill the beans on what keeps us running at Cleevio.

Team Contract: Our Secret Sauce

Ever heard of a team contract? It's like our BE team's rulebook but cooler. We all chipped in to create this gem, covering everything from our core values to nifty Slack etiquettes (like no-reply expectations after 4 PM). It's not just a newbie guide; even our weathered developers learn a thing or two from it.

Bringing the Team Together

With team members scattered across Prague, Brno, and beyond borders, building bonds ain't easy, but we're not ones to back down from a challenge. That's why we came up with Backend Onsite Day. Originally a monthly affair, we scaled it back to every two months to make it work for everyone. It's a chance to catch up, brainstorm, and maybe even grab a beer together.

Sharing Know-How Like a Boss

We take knowledge sharing seriously. Our weekly BE meetings aren't just about updates and project briefs - they are also our chance to pick each other's brains. Plus, we've got knowledge base packed with tech insights and project learnings. It's like having a cheat sheet for all things backend.

Reflect, Refine, Repeat

We're all about improvement. That's why we love our team retrospectives. Just recently, at the start of 2024, we huddled up for about an hour to chat about how things were going. Turns out, everyone is pretty happy being part of the team, which is great to hear - but we also came up with some ideas to make things even better next time. It's all about celebrating wins and figuring out how we can crush it even more in the future.

Growing Together

Personal growth is big on our agenda. Regular performance reviews and one-on-one chats keep us on track. And with internal training programs, education budgets, and buddy systems in place, we're all set to level up together.

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At the end of the day, it all comes down to communication. Whether it's a quick Slack chat or a face-to-face meeting, keeping the lines of communication open is what keeps our team humming.

So there you have it—our backend team's recipe for success. With a healthy dose of teamwork, communication, and a sprinkle of resilience, there's no limit to what we can achieve together at Cleevio.

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