Episode #3 | A few things I’ve learned from my most successful product launches
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In this episode, I chat about my journey in launching digital products and the lessons I've learned along the way.
This is an arena where there's loads of 'experts' and 'formulas', but I wanted to throw some real world stories into the mix, without a follow up pitch for anything I'm selling.
From my early days as a graphic designer to creating successful products like The Stash, I share the importance of trusting your gut and listening to your audience.
We talk about the value of solving real problems, standing out from the crowd, and using surveys to get feedback (with a couple super key tips that I picked up along the way). Plus, we'll chat about the importance of patience, staying flexible, and having fun with the whole damn process.
Episode Transcript —
Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Also, thanks for the love on the first couple episodes. And yeah, I'm just super stoked to have this place to talk about so much more stuff that I never really had a spot to talk about it before.
So today I wanted to go over some of the things I've learned that have worked for me when it comes to launching products and offerings in my business. And yeah.
And also like right off the bat, I'm not launching anything that's going to help you sell stuff. I think often when it comes to this conversation of, like digital products, making money, launching things, there's always like a follow-up to it, which isn't a bad thing. There's a lot of people that are making really good stuff out there, but sometimes I find these like missing conversations of just like people doing stuff and they're not selling or teaching about selling.
It gets very meta and deep. But yeah, I thought I would just chat about what's worked for me. I will start with a little bit of context because I also think context is majorly important and is often missing from this conversation.
So I'll kind of go over a little bit of my experience and the should I sell now if you aren't familiar because I think it matters.
Experience and Early Work
So I've been self-employed for 13 years. During that time, I've done a lot of client one-on-one work as a graphic designer, working with clients to help them build brands, websites, all that good stuff. And it was a lot of my clients that actually introduced me to the world of digital products like eBooks and courses and all this stuff. And it kind of blew my mind.
So yeah, it was really my clients where I started learning all this stuff. I'm just picking up a lot of things that I wanted to try for myself. I launched an ebook. That was my first ever thing I made in my business. It was just like a guide of all the things I knew about business at the time, which was a very long time ago. So I didn't know that much.
I've made courses, like I made a branding course called Be Unmistakable that it still had the most amount of people that have ever purchased a product I've made.
And then I've made lots of other various digital templates over the years, design templates, design courses, workshops, all kinds of things like that. And these days in my shop, I have Squarespace templates. My main template is called the Stash and it's actually like a mega Squarespace template made for designers. Comes with like unlimited licensing so you can use all the templates to build sites for your clients and everything.
I have Notion templates that are a collaboration with Jade Moberly. And then now I'm kind of also expanding into more new design education. So I have something called the Summer Design Club. It's a series of workshops about design. And I'm also going to be launching a layout design course called Layout Legends that will be coming in a few months. So I've had like lots of experience and I feel like over the last year or two-ish, especially with the Stash and also the Summer Design Club.
They have really worked for me and I've actually learned stuff when it comes to launching and selling digital products that I feel like consistently works for me that I can actually like talk about. So that's the brief little background on my experience history, what I do.
So yeah, that's the rundown on that. So I would say that there's actually two things that I've found to be most successful. And this is like before you even get to launching, when it comes to like thinking of ideas and coming up with products to sell. And I, this could actually be an entire episode on itself, which I might actually do if I can kind of flesh it out a little bit more and think about it more.
But for me, the most successful products I have made kind of sit in two categories. The first one is something that you know that you would buy without a doubt. It's in an industry that you know, and it's something that you know is missing. And it's just something that you have to bring to life with like a minimal outside input.
Product Example: The Stash
For me, the example of this is the stash. This was something that, and like a lot of the products I make and the stuff I make, it's like very led by my intuition a lot. And the stash was something that just came to me. I've been a website designer, designer for 15 plus years, working in Squarespace a lot for the majority of that time. And I just knew once I came up with the idea for the stash, I knew I had to do it and I didn't really ask for advice because it's an industry I know and I was like, I want to build this for myself and maybe other people will buy it.
And then basically what I did was I just brought the entire thing to life because it was like, it was kind of like a download for me. Like as soon as the idea landed over the space of like a week, the entire thing just like became so clear to me and I wasn't interested in any outside input.
Feedback and Launch
And yeah, I just needed to launch it regardless of what anyone else said or if anyone brought it. So I like spent a bunch of time bringing it to life. And then what I did was right before the launch, actually, I had the sales page and everything built. And I posted on my Instagram. was like, is there anyone? Okay, I'm launching this new thing. Is there any designers, Squarespace designers who want to check out the sales page and like give me feedback on this thing?
So I did that maybe within a week or maybe two weeks of the launch, just to see like, does this make sense to other people and stuff like that. So I actually got some really valuable feedback. And the other thing with feedback is like, you kind of have to know yourself and your offerings well enough to know like what you actually want to follow through with because you don't have to listen to feedback. So you don't, it's easy to get lost in that, but anyway.
Only after I had made this entire thing did I then ask for feedback. And it was mostly kind of on the sales page of like, does this make sense? Because it was a little bit different than a regular Squarespace template. So I was like, does, can you understand what this is and how it works and everything? So the feedback I got from people was super helpful. They were like, maybe you could like clarify this or it would be really cool if you kind of offered this as a bonus. So that was like very much driven by your own kind of ideas, then ask for a little bit of feedback at the end.
And that, the stash has been the most successful product I've launched in my entire business. And it's been amazing. And it's, I think it was just driven by like a need for something that I was like, yeah, this is a space that I know. And I just want to make this for myself. Maybe other people will buy it. So I feel like that is kind of one area that I've seen a lot success myself and I'm sure a lot of other businesses as well.
And then the flip side of that is kind of just flipping that. Like starting with conversations with people and noticing what people are asking for, what do they want help with, what are they struggling with. So like start with that and then see where that leads you and kind of combining that with.
What is your zone of genius? What is something that you can actually help people with in that area? And kind of just going from there. So those are two different ways to create things in this kind of world. At least that's my experience of it. And both of them can be equally successful, to be honest.
Yeah, so I kind of wanted to like throw that out there. might do an entire separate episode on that, but I feel like it's kind of, it's a important part of the conversation. kind of leading on from that, the next thing I would say is that most offerings need to solve a problem, like talk to people and survey people. That's my number one thing that I would recommend if you have an existing audience, even if it's really small.
Like talk to people, whether it's maybe it's even Instagram DMs, surveys are really good. But that is like, if you want to build something that is going to really resonate with people, you have to talk to them and like see where they're at. And surveys are a really good way to do that. I've been kind of doing surveys in my business forever, just as a way to like gauge where people are at and what they need help with.
Yeah, because you can't just keep guessing what you think people want help with or what they... Yeah, you just can't guess with that stuff. If you're gonna go the route of, like I said, starting with the conversations and you're gonna go that route, chatting to people about stuff is number one. Secondly, know how it's different from everything else out there.
This is like a big piece of branding in general, I think, is just like knowing how your brand and your specific offerings, like how are they different to everything else in the same space? Because like nothing is really that original anymore. Everything is just a remix on something else, which is fine. Like we don't need to be constantly reinventing the wheel all the time, but you do have to know what it is about your offerings and products.
that make it different because otherwise it's just gonna blend in and like you're not giving people a reason to buy your shit over anyone else if there's no, if you can't explain that. So that's pretty key. Another big
thing that I have learned and I'll start with the backstory so this kind of makes sense. And now it's very obvious to me. I'm like, my gosh, of course that's why it didn't work in the past and now it works now.
Real-World Application and Feedback
So we'll definitely do a separate episode on things that haven't worked for me. But so like I mentioned, I have something at the moment that I'm offering called the Summer Design Club. It's like a series of three workshops and brand case studies over the summer, like June, July, August. And it's been going really well so far, like beginning solid signups, everyone's really stoked on it. And I'm really happy with how it's going. And it's just, everything's going awesome with it.
So I actually did something similar to this two years ago in summer. where it was pretty much the same structure almost exactly. It was like over the June, July, August, I had like a workshop each month in the area of design. So two years ago when I did it, the workshops were one was Adobe XD, one was Adobe InDesign and one was layout design. And then the workshops I'm doing now are.
The first one's branding workshop, a layout design workshop that's totally different compared to the last one, and also a Squarespace design workshop. And so when I launched it two years ago, I had like very few signups. Like it wasn't a complete failure, but it definitely like wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be. But now that I've done the summer design club, I've done it so differently and it's so obvious to me why.
This is working versus why it didn't work two years ago. And one of the main things I've realized is that like, and other people who have said this, it's just one of those things that like, you kind of got to figure it out for yourself sometimes. Like people don't give a shit about learning. Like they don't really want to pay to learn Adobe InDesign or like Adobe XD. Like most people are not going to pay to learn programs like that because there's so much free content like can go on YouTube and find entire fucking courses and tutorials about how to do how to use Adobe programs.
They want like people don't want to know just how to like design some how to use Adobe. They want to know how to like design a workbook for to accompany their free workshop that they're running in their business or they want to know like how do I design a really sick Instagram post or whatever. Like they don't want to know the tech side of things. They're like, what's the practical application of that thing? So this time with the summer design club, I really went hard on like, first of all, the three workshops are very much things that I know and I can talk about easily. So that is absolutely key for me.
Using Survey Feedback
But beyond that, I actually sent out a survey a couple months ago because like I mentioned, I'm doing a bigger layout design course in a few months. So I sent out a survey to do a bit of research for that. Just kind of asking people like, what do you struggle with with layout design and like all kinds of stuff. And a lot of that feedback I've kind of used in the creation and the marketing and the sales page and everything for the summer design club, because it's, it's a very like similar kind of audience and
offering in some ways. So a lot of the feedback that I got on that survey is like directly on the sales page. So I asked people like, what are you struggling with? And like, how do I build out a layout from a blank page? Cool. That is literally a section in the workshop and it's also directly on the sales page. like using, this is something I've heard from a few copywriters over the years, but like when you do surveys and you talk to your audience,
Leave those questions open ended and don't give examples and don't give like multiple choice because like when you like you want to hear the words people use so that you can then use those same words to explain what you're selling. Like instead of you kind of overthinking all these like fancy terms, you can just use the same words that people actually understand to explain what you're selling Makes sense. don't know if I explained that very well. Just like use people's own words to sell the shit that you want to make and like build it around what people actually want. Which is really helpful and I feel like that is part of why the Summer Design Club has been successful and my other offerings. Any other time I've done this it totally works because it's like and the offering is built around that. Like I'm not just like fake using the words to sell something. Like it's whatever
Like I'm using that survey feedback to build the thing and then to sell the thing. So it's not some like majorly constructed thing. It's just very much. Yeah, pretty simple. that is Kate, like what's the real world application that people actually want to learn if you're in the same, a similar arena where you're like teaching people something. Like, because if it's stuff that people can find for free on YouTube.
yeah, they probably might do that. But if it's something like learning your specific design style or like how to do stuff with a lot more soul and like depth and yeah. So what's the like real world application? next thing, keep talking about the thing, which I know it can be hard sometimes because we don't want to like sell.
Or feel like we're overly selling stuff or just like constantly pushing it on people. But honestly, in the last couple of years, I've kind of got over that. And a big part of it, I think, is like, you have to be stoked on what you're selling. That's absolutely number one. It doesn't mean it's always going to be easy for you to like post about it or sell about it, sell it, but it's going to make it a fuckload easier.
Because you're going to be excited to talk about it. That's like absolutely number one. think your energy when it comes to like talking about the things you're making, especially now with how much content and shit there is that people can buy all the time. I think people have gotten way more dialed into your energy when you're talking about the thing.
So if it feels like you're kind of weird about it or like you're like wishy-washy, people pick up on that shit. So that's number one. But like keep talking about it. I think most people have probably heard that they say, they say, I don't know who, but I think it's like definitely a general kind of marketing thing that I think people have to see your thing like seven times before they'll consider buying it or buy
Like most of the time people aren't just going to see it once and buy it. That's really not how it works. so you have to constantly keep talking about it. And sometimes it will feel like you're talking about it too much, but like, gives a shit because you're running a fucking business and you're making cool stuff that you're stocked about selling. And more importantly, it's like stuff that you're actually going to help people with like lean in on that. Like what is the thing?
Problem Solving
What is the problem you're going to help people solve? like, what is the, like I was saying, like what's the real world application shit they're going to be able to help. You're going to be able to help them with, like focus on that. And I also find that like, for me, when it comes to talking about this stuff, like just on Instagram and emails and whatever, all
Like the marketing of it is so much easier when you're clear on everything else I've talked about. So like, what is the problem you're solving? How is it different to everything else out there? What's the real world application? Like, what is it literally going to help people do? That's like absolutely key. When you're clear on all of those things, talking about it becomes really easy.
Like it doesn't have to be hard and you don't have to feel bad about it. And like, if people don't want to see it or they, like, you don't have to manage other people's perceptions of how you are marketing or selling your offers. Like it's not your job to worry about how it's going to look. Like if you're stoked about it, that's cool. I mean, if you have like really good friends that also follow your work, you can ask them Hey, am I like talking about this like too much? And like, I almost guarantee 100 % of the time, most people are gonna be like, no, not at all. Like I love seeing you talk about it and like you should do it even more. Yeah, so just keep talking about it. Like don't fucking worry about feeling like you're selling too much because you're probably not. The next thing, which is, I feel like maybe this is the one that
People don't want to hear, or it's like the hard one to hear. it's that you got to play the long game and put some skin in the game. And by that, mean, put time and energy into your brand and business and know that this stuff doesn't happen overnight. feel like there is so many, there's a lot of people that think launching digital products is like a fast ticket to making an assload of money really easily.
But it's so not that. Like I've been making offering products in my business for a long time and it's fucking hard. Like it takes a lot of work. If you want to build stuff that's really helpful and different and like worthwhile and just fucking good, you can't do it overnight. And like you have to spend time building your brand and building your voice. Which is majorly important now, especially with the amount of people doing this stuff. Like since COVID obviously, the entire online, everything has blown up. So you have to like put some skin in the game and like put in the time to really hone your voice and build the foundations of your brand to have something solid to launch from. Like launching stuff out of nowhere.
Without an audience is gonna be extremely hard. So the more you can like spend time building the foundations of your business and like, what do you stand for? What is your voice? Like what do you actually wanna help people with? Like that doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen in two months or six months. Like that.
Long-Term Strategy
Is where it really starts before you even get to launching anything. And I feel like that's not a part of the conversation that I hear very often because probably most of the time, like I said, when people talk about launching and making money and selling digital products, there's usually a pitch and they're somewhere because they're selling something related to that. So they're not going to tell
You have to like play the long game and shit like that because they want you to like buy their shit immediately. which is another piece of this conversation and my entire outlook approach and branding business is that like there's no formula to any of this and people will tell you there is one for like selling and
Your Own Path
Offering cool shit in your business, but there's not like there is absolutely not a formula. You just have to spend time figuring out what works for you and like what gets you really stoked and that you want to actually be spent actually like spend time creating and helping people with. Yeah, you got to do it on your own terms and
Just fuck off what everyone is telling you. Because, you know, that's just how we do things around here. So that is kind of the main gist of what I wanted to share today that I'm sure there will be. I would love to do like future kind of variations on this. Like this could be part one. I'm sure there's lots of other things I will think of in the future. Like I said, I will definitely do.
What hasn't worked for me. And I might also do dive a little deeper into those two kind of ways of coming up with products, like something that's intuitively straight from the ground up that you just have to do it. You have to bring it to life regardless of what anyone else says. And then flipping that and like making sure that you know who people actually are asking for. Because I feel like that is a super interesting conversation.
But yeah, at the end of the day, you just gotta...
Final Thoughts
Do what works for you and have fun with it. That's the number one fucking thing. I think sometimes we get like so lost in the source and like think it's like, this like big stressful thing. And that like has to be so serious. Okay. There's one more thing I just remembered that I'll quickly talk about. Yeah. Like, yeah, it doesn't have to be so serious. Like have fun with it. And also like on that note, one thing
That I actually changed with the launch of the Summer Design Club is actually, and this is like part of the reason why I wanted to call this podcast a pivot playground because part way through the launch, I was like, wait, I'm going to like kind of pivot this how I thought I was going to close the signups for this. So basically like I was going to close the signups the day before the first workshop launched. Just because I was
And also like it is a marketing thing, like scarcity. That's a whole different conversation. I don't love doing that. There's a lot of shit I've done in the past or I haven't even tried because it just feels sleazy and gross. But like this one, it kind of made sense at first. I was like, okay, I'm gonna close the signups for the design club the day before the first workshop. It's fine. Whatever. And then it got to that day and I thought about it. I was like, wait a minute. I don't actually need to close
Because people can sign up and they'll just get instant access to whatever workshops and content are available. And then the other shit will be scheduled and they'll get it. Secondly, I'm going to be spending a lot of time on these workshops and things over the summer. And I want to keep talking about them and like a whole, a big piece of how I market and talk about my work is showing the behind the scenes and showing the building of the thing.
So I'm like, okay, that's, definitely want to do that. And like overall, I was just like, wait, I don't even want to close the signups. Like I want to keep it open all summer. It's leaps, least pressure for other people. It's least pressure for me because I'm going to be spending time doing this. Like I might as well fucking leave it open and possibly make more revenue for it and like help more people do cool stuff with this design. Yeah. So I guess that's my last point is like, don't be afraid to pivot.
Even if you get part way through and you feel like something is off, or like you just have an idea for something that is different that you want to try. If I could do it, if like, I feel like you can, like your gut never leads you astray, really. If we're honest about it, I feel like, yeah, trust your gut. And also like one more thing I would say is
Trusting Your Gut
Don't be afraid to... I think it was, I don't know how to phrase this question exactly. was maybe Peter Kelly has talked about this a little bit in her books and there's also something kind of around the same topic in the creative act with Rick Rubin. And basically like I'll phrase it as a question. If you didn't know how it was supposed to be done, how would you do
And you can apply that to launching and like lots of stuff, like, especially with this world of digital products, like there's so many right ways to do things of like how you launch, how you close the signups, how you do this and that and that. And like, it's cool, but if you didn't know any of that, how would you do it? And I think that's such a sick question. that just kind of opens so much more freedom to everything.
Closing Thoughts
Especially in this arena of launching and getting cool shit out into the world. So I'll leave you with that. Hopefully there's a few little things in there that maybe you want to try. You want to adapt for yourself. But yeah, that's all I got and I will see you next time.
