#28 - The Jitterbug Mystery

Music has a way of bringing anything back to life after it’s gone, or over.  If you don’t get this now, you’ll understand this when you listen to a song years after you’ve lost a friend, a lover, or a family member.  Music becomes a magical doorway into a world you once knew but lives in the present inside you.  But with every magic music memory doorway, exists a second door that can open unexpected memories.  It’s a bit like that scene in the movie Labyrinth, one door leads to the castle, the other to certain death, well, certain not death, but it can certainly bring back those memories you’d rather forget.  Good with the bad.  Some songs fish out good memories and some fish out creatures from the sea of bad memories.  Memories tucked away in the pages of a journal that sits on your shelf, and you stare at it from time to time, but don’t dare to open it up for fear of remembering that past.  Click click click… Flash flash flash…

The street was empty.  Kymmie Lawyer opened her closed eyes and found herself standing outside The Microsoft Theater.  Everyone seemed to be gone.  The sun had set.  The streetlights glowed.  The show was over.

“Where is everyone?!”  Kymmie said to herself.  Then she shouted looking around.  “Hello!  Anyone!?!?”  She felt tightness in her chest.  She was on her own, lost on this empty street.

“I don’t know.”  Her dad replied from beside her.

She smiled at him, just glad she wasn’t alone.  The fear in her chest dissipating.  She took a breath in as the tightness eased.

He looked up and down the street.  “This place is a ghost town.  There aren’t even any cars driving around.  I’ve never seen LA like this before.”  He looked at his phone, trying to get a signal.  “Hmmmm…”

“What is it dad?”

“I can’t seem to get a signal.  It just says SMPTE error.”

“You mean a Swiftie error?”  She looked up at him.

He pulled the phone in closer and squinted at it, “No, it says… SMPTE.”

She shrugged back.  “SMPTE.  Never heard of it.  Weird.  Maybe try walking around in circles.”

Carl knew what SMPTE was, he just wasn’t sure why his phone signal would have been replaced with the words SMPTE error.  He’d certainly never heard of a SMPTE error.  SMPTE stands for Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, and to have an error with SMPTE didn’t make any sense.  “I think I might do that, I won’t go far, just stay here.”

Kymmie smiled at her dad, and then turned her attention to something fluttering in the wind.  Pages turning.  A small notebook on the ground.  She walked over to it and picked it up.  She inspected the notebook for a moment then opened the first page.  “The Perfect Playlist…”  She read out loud.  Maybe it was a journal, or a diary.  There were numbered lines but they were all blank, like someone had decided to make a playlist but never started it.  She flipped through the notebook noticing small bits and pieces of incomplete information.  Some celebrity must have dropped this, she thought.  It had to be someone from the red carpet!  She felt a rush of excitement.  They were standing very close to where the red carpet had been.  There were random doodles and a note here or there.  Some looked like lyrics, or perhaps poetry, some looked like movie set notes and reminders, photo-shoot dates in the margin, costume notes, make up, hair, tiny journal entries, tiny stories, tiny entries.  This IS a celebrity’s notebook!  She quickly flipped through the pages wondering whose it could be.  There were Ideas and doodles here and there.  But the center of every page was blank except for the numbered playlist on the very first page.  ‘The Perfect Playlist…’ Kymmie decided it needed to be filled in.  The notebook, or journal, or whatever this was seemed like it was meant to be written in.  She was now tasked with the responsibility to create The Perfect Playlist.

“Dad!  Can I have a pen?”  She yelled in his direction.

“Sure.”  He stopped walking in circles trying to get a signal and jogged over to her.  He handed her his special lawyer pen.

“Can I keep it?”  She asked.  Examining it.

“Well, how about you hold on to it until I need it back.  Okay?”

“Sure.”  She thought for a moment then wrote her name on the very first page.  She pressed the pen to the paper and went over the letters multiple times when she was finished Kymmie Lawyer displayed in bold at the top corner of the journal.  She closed the notebook and placed the pen back in her pocket.  She wasn’t quite ready to start filling in the playlist.  After all, how does one decide the exact songs that are just the right fit for a PERFECT playlist?  “What now?”  She asked.

“Let’s just wait here for a bit okay?  We’ll see if anyone else shows up.”

“Okay.”  She looked at the journal in her hands.  She felt another wave of excitement rush over her.  Then she looked up again at her dad.  He was restarting his phone.  “Are you trying to call your boss… Mr. Whale?”

“I was trying to call your mother, actually, but I’ll need to call him at some point too.”

“Why do you call him The Whale?”

Carl reflected for a moment.  “It’s a long story, a whale is a person with a lot of money.  It’s an old term.”

“Oh, so it’s an olden days thing.  I was going to say he doesn’t really look like a whale.”

Carl laughed and shook his head no.  “The nickname has nothing to do with his physical appearance.”

She blinked, then blinked again, thought about it for a moment, then moved on.  She opened the journal once again.  She decided the playlist NEEDED to be filled in and since she needed SOMETHING to keep her mind occupied now that her phone was broken, this would have to do.  Mostly, it was hard to leave a waiting playlist empty.  It was pulling her in.  The question was, what songs made the perfect playlist?  Kymmie couldn’t decide.  She would have to think about it.  Maybe just add some of her favorite artists.  She turned to the second page and created a new list, she called it ‘STAN LIST’.

Kymmie wrote ‘Stan Ariana Grande’ at the top in the number one spot.  Then she wrote ‘(OBVIOUSLY)’ in big bold letters.  She made a small heart drawing beside her idol’s name.  Then she wrote on the next line ‘Justin Bieber (is okay too).  Then she wrote, ‘Billie Eilish is pretty stylish’ on the third line.  She wasn’t about to full on stan either of them but she decided they were cool.’  She made a little smiley face.  Then she wrote Taylor Swift’s name down below that with an undecided question mark.’  Then she thought of the cat and drew a picture of the cat next to Taylor’s name.  She wasn’t sure how she felt about Taylor right now, she knew how other people felt, some loved her, some didn’t, but she wasn’t entirely sure about a lot of things at the moment.  She moved the pen back up to Ariana Grande and underlined her name. Okay, she knew that much at least, she’d do ANYTHING for Ariana.  Arianator for life.

She turned to the next page and wrote PLAYLIST POSSIBILITIES at the top.  She added more artists on her mind besides Ariana , Justin, Billie, and Taylor.  Cardi B DEFINITELY, and Roddy Ricch. She paused, thought, then continued writing, The Weeknd, Harry Styles, CHVRCHES.  She wasn’t sure what order and what songs she wanted this playlist to be in, she would reorder it later, right now she was just writing down artists she liked.  “I’ll just make a list and then cross the numbers out and change it later.  Ugh, paper.  Why do you have to be so difficult?”  She was talking to herself.  She tried to remember what she had saved on her phone.  She wrote down more names, Drake, Tones and I, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Lewis Capaldi, DJ Khaled, Dua Lipa…

She stopped writing for a moment trying to think of more.  She was drawing a blank, there were so many more SOOO many more she just couldn’t think of them!  Instead, she wrote down, ALL OF COACHELLA, even though she’d never actually been to Coachella, because her mom wouldn’t let her, but she watched it on live stream and it seemed like the best ever.  She thought back to Ariana’s Coachella performance, so amazing, ohhhh and Beyoncé!  Beychella.  She wrote down Beyoncé.  Then she went back up and underlined ALL OF COACHELLA.  Then wrote “ARIANACHELLA GRANDECHELLA”.  She lifted the pen again and looked up at her dad trying to get cell service.  “Hmmmm… THIS THING IS SOOOO COOOL!  I love this journal dairy book thing.”  She flipped through a few pages and found some writing in the margin.

The Jitterbug Mystery

“The Jitterbug Mystery?”  She read it again.  “Dad, what’s a Jitterbug?”  She yelled in his direction.

“It’s an old dance.”  He said back in her direction after looking up from his phone thinking for a moment.  He started walking towards her still not having any luck with getting service.  “I thought you didn’t like bugs?”

“Hmm, well, yeah, but this bug sounds interesting.  Is it as old as The Whale?”

Carl laughed.  “I’m not going to comment on the age of my boss.  If it gets back to him, I could be in some hot water.  I will comment on the dance, the Jitterbug dance is pretty old.  Why do you ask about The Jitterbug?”

“It’s written here.”  She pointed to it in the journal.

Carl looked over at the faded and worn looking notebook his daughter was holding up for him to see.  “Where did you find that?”

“It was over there.”  She pointed to where she found it.  “Someone dropped it.  It’s mostly blank, but…”  She pointed back to The Jitterbug Mystery writing.  “There’s some notes written here and there.”

He eyed the cover, it looked vaguely familiar, like an Art Nouveau painting, but he couldn’t quite place where he’d seen it. “Well, if you find a name, or figure out who it belonged to, we will have to return it to its rightful owner.  Just don’t get too attached to it, okay?”

“Ummm, I already wrote my name in it.  Sorry.  No big deal.  Where’s the undo on this tablet thing.  I’ll just undo it!”

“It’s pen and paper, you can’t undo it.”

“Oops.  Ugh, pen and paper, it’s like making life mistakes, you can’t go back!  It’s like that time I un-friended one of my best friends because they couldn't stan the same musician as me.  And then I was like, I miss my best friend.  Life is so hard when you can’t undo!”

Carl chuckled.  “I don’t think I’ve ever met this Stan friend of yours is, but hopefully you learned a valuable lesson from losing your friend.  Just remember, someone else is missing that book right now.  It will be up to you to take care of it for them.”

“Dad, stan isn’t a friend, it’s when you… Never mind.”  She pulled out the pen and thought for a moment. “Hmmmm…”   She pressed the pen into the paper and underlined The Jitterbug Mystery.  “I’m going to get to the bottom of this Jitterbug Mystery”, she said to herself the noticed more writing below, written in ink the same color as the paper, nearly invisible, but it was there if you held the notebook at just the right angle.

A perfectly imperfect playlist

Me… The right songs in the wrong order.

You… The wrong songs in the right order.

Us… The right songs in just the right order.

She read it again.  Kymmie let a feeling of awe wash over her.  “A perfectly imperfect playlist.  Me… You… Us.”  She ran her hand over the words.  Someone else’s words were grabbing her; the journal was pulling her into its mystery, its Jitterbug Mystery.  She started to wonder about its history, “Who are you?“ She said to the journal.

She removed the pen from the page and paused again to think for another moment, wondering which shelf this journal would sit upon were it not for this fork in the road, then turned back to the playlist page.  She wasn’t going to fill it out yet but, why not… it’s not like it was going to be a perfect playlist, at least not at first anyway, it was going to be perfectly imperfect, the wrong song or the wrong order, a perfectly imperfect playlist.  Kymmie decided to add her missing friends to the playlist.  She wrote down Justin Bieber, then moved the pen to the next line and wrote Billie Eilish.  She left the songs blank, she decided she would fill those in later.

Kymmie looked up from the journal after writing their names and spotted Billie and Justin walking down the street.  Billie was holding Justin up every few steps, but he seemed okay.

“Dad!  Look!”  She yelled.  “BILLIE!  JUSTIN!”

They picked up their pace, walking quickly over to her and Carl.

“Are you two okay?”  Carl asked.

“Yeah.  I think so?  I mean, we feel okay.”  Billie pointed to Justin and herself.  “I’m… just not exactly sure what happened.  I remember going through that doorway and then, it was a bit like that scene in Contact when Jodie Foster goes through that space gate, you know when she falls right through and no one believes her journey story because there’s nothing on the tape, it was a blank tape but then the one person points out that sure the tape was blank, but it recorded 18 hours of blank tape and then you’re mind is blown because you’re just like WHAAAAATTTTT, THIS IS REAL!  I love that part.  Anyway instead of space this was… what was it?  Some kind of an earworm wormhole?”  Billie looked at the others and they shrugged back at her.  The agreed to call it an Earworm Wormhole as that seemed to work.  “After the wormhole, everything went hazy and we were just here in the street.  To be honest, I was expecting something cooler at the end of the earworm wormhole.”

“Yeah, me too.”  Bieber added.  He looked a little like he was about to throw up, but then seemed okay again.  “So it kind of is like contact, all that wormhole traveling and you end up right back where you started.”

Everyone nodded. “Yeah.”  Carl replied with a furrowed brow.  “It was more of an exit door than an earworm wormhole.  One heck of an exit door though.”

“Where are the others?”  Billie asked.  “Where’s Lizzo, and Kanye?”

Carl looked back at Billie unsure.  He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.  “I don’t know.”

“Ohhh!  I should add them to this playlist too.”  Kymmie fished her hand into her pocket and pulled out the pen her dad gave (loaned) her (we all know he’s not getting it back), she opened the journal and wrote Kanye West and Lizzo on the playlist.

“I hope they’re okay!”  Billie looked up and down the street.

“Wait, Kymmie, you said playlist.  What playlist?”  Justin asked.

“This journaling book I found!  I don’t know… it was just lying over there.”  She pointed to the spot on the ground where she found it.  “But you're on it now!  See!!!  I added you, it was blank when I found it, but now you’re in it.  And Billie, so are you!  I just haven’t decided what songs of yours I want.  But don’t worry, I’ll pick something from each of you.”

“She’s going through phone withdrawal.”  Her dad said to Billie and Justin.

“Oh.”  They nodded.

“DAD!  I am not going through phone withdrawal.”

“Yeah, you are.”  He smiled at her.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes.  Kymmie pulled out her phone, it was still locked on the same screen.  Even a secret doorway couldn’t fix it.  She held it up.  “An earworm wormhole couldn’t bring my phone back!”  She put it back into her pocket.  “Oh well.  At least now I have this cool notebook journal thing.”

“You’ll just appreciate your phone that much more when you finally get it back.”  Billie smiled at Kymmie.  “Just keep writing in that book.  It IS pretty cool looking!  Look at that cover!”

“Yeah.  It is pretty cool looking.”  She repeated and smiled back at Billie.

“Kymmie, do you mind if I take a quick peek at that notebook journal”  Billie asked, eyeing the notebook. “Just real quick?”

“You promise to give it back?”

“Yeah.”  She crossed her fingers behind her back.

“Okay.”  Kymmie handed the mystery book over to Billie.

Billie’s thoughts flashed to what she was told backstage about the fabled celebrity suicides book, not that she was sure it even existed, but if THIS was it, Kymmie wouldn’t be getting it back, Billie would burn it, destroy it, without question, there’s been enough suicides in the world, let alone celebrity suicides in the world already.  She decided if that journal did exist, she could find it and destroy it, ESPECIALLY if The Whale was using it to gain control of valuable art assets to build his stronghold over all of streaming media.  She took a deep breath and opened the mystery notebook.  She quickly scanned through a few of the pages then breathed a sigh of relief.  It didn’t seem to contain any suicide notes.  Perhaps Emma Watson really was keeping the real collection of notes hidden somewhere only she knew, Emma and her mental fortitude not to read it.  How impossible it must be to have a book in your possession that you are never to read.  Billie returned the book to Kymmie.  As the journal left her hands she suddenly realizing if it HAD been the suicide book, what then?  She opened the book so eagerly, as if, she wanted to know if it was THE NOTEBOOK, it was as if she HAD to know.  ‘Don’t read it… don’t open it’ was her first thought, but, ‘I have to know!’  …was her second.  Maybe that’s how it worked, maybe you had to know.  You had to read it.  The curiosity of its mystery as it sat on the bookshelf drove you mad.  You knew what it did, you knew it was cursed; you knew it was destructive, but you couldn't stop, you wanted more.  She felt dizzy for a second, sick.  Billie made a small wish under her breath…

Emma Watson, don’t let a soul near that book.  If you really have it, if you REALLY do, it’s up to YOU to save the lives of anyone who might otherwise get their hands on it.  Keep it locked up tight.  And whatever you do, never open it, please, please, PLEASE, never read it, no matter how curious you might get.  Promise you’ll never read it.  You need to promise me you’ll never read the notes, not even one, because that’s how it starts, you read the first one, and then you can’t stop until it’s too late.  Like reading every terrible troll social media comment about a celebrity, each one burrowing its way into your mind with just a tiny bit more of that melancholy mixed with infinite sadness.

           “Wait where’s uncle Scott?” Kymmie asked.  She had been holding his hand when they went through the earworm wormhole.

“He’s your uncle!”  Justin exclaimed.  “Are you related to everyone!?”

“No… We just call people my dad knows aunt and uncle, I don’t know why we do that.  Dad why do we do that?”

Carl Lyle Lawyer shrugged back at his daughter Kymmie Lawyer.  “Ummm… It’s just something we’ve always done.  I don’t really know either, my dad and used to do that, so I do too.  I never really thought about it before.  I honestly have no idea where it came from.”

It’s a curious thing to consider, not knowing the origin of something in your life that you do.  Everything came from somewhere.  There’s a history to everything about everyone.

“Do the others make music?”  Kymmie asked suddenly, seemingly out of the blue.

“As far as I know they all play instruments, I mean Oak is a famous music producer and writes music and Pop too, Scott plays an instrument, I believe.  Why?”

“I was going to add them to my playlist.  You know what, I’m going to put them on this playlist anyway.  I can always scratch their names out, TAKE THAT PEN AND PAPER!  You aren’t so permanent after all!  And anyway, everyone has the ability to make music!  Who am I to judge?  I’m not a judge, I’m a lawyer.”  She started to write down each name on the playlist beside a number.  She even wrote down the man of mystery who opened up the earworm wormhole that they has just traveled through, William B. Way.

“Oh Kymmie.”  Billie rolled her eyes laughing at Kymmie Lawyer’s joke.

Justin and Carl laughed too.

“I mean, that was kind of funny.”  Justin cracked a half smile.  “You know, for a lawyer you’re funny.”

Carl stared at Justin with a very serious look on his face.

“It… Umm..” Justin pulled at his collar, “It was a joke.  I tell ya… can’t get no respect.  Soooo… how about that unrelated sporting event?  Go Maple Leafs!”

Carl continued to stare at Justin.

“Look!”  Kymmie yelled and pointed, as if she were recognizing some old friends at a concert.  Lizzo, Oak Felder, Scott Borchetta, Kanye West, Pop Wansel, and even Will B walked out of a shadow and into the street.  “HEY!”  Kymmie waved.  “OVER HERE!!!  WE’RE OVER HERE!”  She waved her arms wildly jumping up and down.

They ran down the street to make the group whole again.  Everyone had made it safely to the other side of the wall of sound earworm wormhole.

Different Worlds A Friendship Blossoms

It's now weeks later, as usual, I was basically an errand girl for my boss.  I hated it.  I was in a coffee shop waiting for my boss and his client’s order.  I was on my phone when I heard my name.  I walked over and grabbed the coffees.  I had the drink tray and a text came in.  I was looking at my phone as I walked out.  It was another errand my boss wanted me to run.  I was overwhelmed.  I literally ran into somebody as the coffee spilled all over them.  I heard them cuss at the hot coffee.  Instantly I felt horrible.  "Oh, my god, I am so sorry.  I wasn't paying attention.  I am such an idiot."

"It's okay, no real damage."  They said, seemingly unhappy.

I looked up and saw it was Seth.  I froze.  I realized he didn't noticed me as he was still trying to clean his shirt I just spilled coffee all over.  I was about to quickly leave as I didn't want to him to see me.  Before I got a chance to, he looked up at me.  He looked surprised, then smiled at me.  "I guess this is one way to run into you again."

"I really am sorry about the coffee."  I said, feeling guilty.

"Might have first degree burns but all is good."  He joked.

All that made me do is feel worse.  "Not funny."

He just smiled.  "Sorry, I couldn't help myself."

Then I realized I had to get the coffee again.  "Shit, I have to reorder everything."  

"Let me."  He quickly said.

He walked to the counter and I followed as I tried to stop him.  "Seth, you don't have to."

"I want to."  He said with a smile.

The barista came up to the register and I told Seth.  "No, really it's okay.  I spilled the coffee on you.  I should be buying you your coffee."

He looked at me and said, sincerely, "I want to, Mary.  It looks like you are not having a very good day even though it is only nine in the morning, so let me at least make it a little easier on you.  And I don't mind that you spilled a little coffee on me or a lot.  I got to run into you again, quite literally."  

I slightly chuckled.  I did need that.  I smiled at him.  "Alright, Seth.  If you insist."

"I do, damn it.  Now give the lady your order."  He cracked.

I laughed this time and turned to the barista.  I gave her my order again as Seth added his coffee.  We walked to a table as we waited for our order.  Seth quickly asked, "Can I ask you something?"

"You already have."  I cracked.

He rolled his eyes and said, "Come on."

I slightly laughed and said, "Yeah, what's up?"

"Why did you leave so quickly at the club?  I mean, one minute, we were into each other and the next you left.  I don't get it."

I sighed.  "To be honest, I saw what you wanted.  Wasn't the same thing I wanted.  I wanted to spare your feelings in advance."

"How do you know what I wanted?"  He asked.

"The kiss, Seth.  It was obvious."  I told him.

"You don't think I wanted to just have sex with you?"  He asked.

I laughed slightly as he was naive.  I shook my head.  "No, I know you wanted more.  That is why I stopped it.  I am not the dating and relationship kind of girl.  I didn't want you to take what I wanted and think it would be more."

"Oh."  He seemed to understand.  "So, asking you out would be off the table then?"

"Yeah."  I just smiled.  "I wouldn't be good for you."  He looked disappointed.  I felt for him, I had to admit.  I touched his arm and said, "Seth, I just don't want to give you the wrong idea."

He shook his head.  "I understand, just a little disappointed."  Then he looked at me and asked, "What about being friends?"

"I don't know."  I told him.

He then pushed.  "I mean what harm could that do.  I think you are a nice girl."

I laughed at this.  "Seth, you have no idea what type of girl I am."

"I think deep down you are.  You just don't give yourself enough credit."  He said to me.

I pressed my lips together.  I looked at him as he seemed hopeful.  He had a point, what harm could that do.  I smiled then said, "Okay, friends it is then."

"Good."  He smiled.  Then asked, "Would it be too forward if I ask for your number?  I mean, we could do something as friends."

I smiled at this.  Then said, "How about I get yours and I will contact you."

He nodded but seemed disappointed again.  "Okay."

I pulled my phone out and quickly programmed his number into it.  Then they called Seth's name for the order.  We walked over and I grabbed the drink tray as Seth grabbed his coffee.  I looked at him and said with a smile.  "Thanks for the coffee, Seth.  And sorry for spilling coffee on you."

"Kinda glad that you did."  He smiled at me.  "So, I will talk to you later?"  He asked, hopeful.

I nodded.  "Yes.  Bye, Seth."

"Bye."  He said, softly.

I quickly walked out and got back to the office before my boss threw a fit.  

The following night, I was at home, tired from a long night.  I sat on the couch and was so over my job.  I needed to vent.  I went to call Sophia, she didn't pick up.  Of course when I needed to vent, she didn't pick up.  I then called Sara and she too didn't pick up.  I was frustrated.  Then I looked at my phone and saw Seth's name as it was in between theirs.  I thought, he wants to be friends, well friends don't mind listening to the other vent.  I went on his name and sent him a text.  'Hey, it's Mary.'

A few moments later, my phone went off.  'Hey, I about thought you wouldn't hit me up.'

'Yeah, sorry about that.  My boss keeps me busy at work.'  I wrote back.

'Oh, yeah, what do you do?'  He asked me.

'I am a secretary for a high profile lawyer.  But he treats me more like an errand girl.  It's so frustrating.'  I replied.

'Sounds as it could be.  He isn't cruel to you, is he?'  He asked.

'He can be.  He is a male chauvinistic pig.  He thinks woman are beneath him.  If I make the slightest mistake, he yells at me.  I have thick skin, is why I am able to deal with him.  I think that is why I am able to deal with him.'  I told him.  There was more to the story, but I wasn't ready to tell Seth that.

'I'm sorry to hear that.  Sounds like a crappy job.  Why don't you quit?'  He asked me.

'Not that easy, Seth.  I kinda need this job.  I really don't have a lot of skills.  I barely was able to graduate high school.  I came out to LA to be an actress.  I'm not even that good at that.  So I am lucky enough to have this job to make ends met.'  I told him.

'So, you are not from here?'  He wrote me.  

'No, I'm from Kansas.  My family is there.'

'Then why not quit and go home.'

'Cause my parents would be right and I cannot bare to hear I told you so from them.  I have a lot of pride and my pride will not allow me to go back home as a failure.'  

He didn't text back.  I put my phone down thinking he stopped texting.  I just sighed as I relaxed on my couch.  Then my phone rang, I quickly picked it up and looked at it.  It was Seth.  I picked up as I joked, "You rang?"

"Yeah, I don't do texting much, so I thought this be better.  I just now got settled in at home and figured this be better.  You actually texted me as I walked in the door.  I really was surprised to hear from you."  He told me.

"Really, why is that?"  I asked as I smiled.

I heard him sigh and say, "Well, I thought you took my number just to be nice.  Kinda use to that.  I almost didn't want to give it to you as I didn't want to be rejected."

"You had no faith in me, huh?"  I cracked.  Then said, "Look, Seth.  I don't beat around the bush.  If I didn't want to talk to you at all, I would have not asked for your number instead.  I would have just told you that."

"Well, that is good to know.  I hate women who just try to spare my feelings and beat around the bush.  It sucks more at the end of the day."  He told me.

"You do understand we are just friends, right?"  I had to know as it felt he might get me talking to him twisted.

"No, I do."  He quickly said.  

"Good."  I said with a smile.

"So, back to what we were talking about.  You feel like if you go home, you would be a failure?"  He asked.

I sighed and said, "No, I wouldn't.  But my parents would.  Especially my dad.  They are kinda tough on me."

"Sorry to hear that.  I really am."  Then he got silent for a minute.  "I wish there was a way I could help you with your situation."

"You are, Seth."  I smiled.  "You are listening to me bitch.  That is all I really need right now."

"Well, bitch away then."  He cracked.

I laughed.  "I do feel better talking to you."

"Glad to hear that."  I swear he was smiling at this point.

We sat there talking for the next couple hours.  I had moved to the living room to my bed in that time and laid there as we talked.  It felt nice talking to someone just about everything.  I talked about my home life back in Kansas and he talked about growing up in Connecticut.  His family seemed so different from mine.  They were supportive and really let Seth be who he was.  My parents were always judgmental on what I did and never really that supportive.  They wanted me to be someone that I wasn't.  We even talked about his mother and her passing.  I felt for him.  He seemed to be close to his family and seemed that her passing hurt him so much.  I could tell when he talked about her.  Then he asked, "So, you really don't do relationships?"

"No." I just said.

"Can I ask why?"  He asked me.

I just got silent as I thought about what made me decide to never go there again.  I couldn't bring myself to tell him.  "It's a long story, Seth.  Something I don't want to relive."

"It was that bad?"  He asked.

"Seth, please."  I almost begged.

He quickly apologized.  "I'm sorry, Mary.  I didn't mean to.  I just trying to understand."

"I know you are.  I'm just not ready to share that yet.  And to answer that last question, yes, it was that bad.  That is why I don't want to talk about it."  I told him.

"Maybe one day?"

I smiled as I could tell he really wanted to know me.  "Maybe, Seth.  But I am making no promises."

"Deal."  I told him.  

Then he said, "I was right."

"What is that?" I asked.

"You are a nice girl.  You don't give yourself enough credit.  So quick to put yourself down."  He said, sincerely.  "We have been talking for three hours and yes, you are a little wild.  But you are nice when you let down your guard.  I think you put on a front to scare men away.  I know whatever you are not ready to tell me yet is probably why.  But I will not push that now.  Hopefully in due time, you will be comfortable enough to tell me.  But there is a nice girl under that rough exterior."  

I smiled at this.  "Thanks, Seth."  Then it hit me he said we have been talking for three hours.  "Oh, god, have we really talked for three hours?"

"Uh, yeah."  He said as I looked at the clock and saw it was eleven at night.  

"I really have to go, Seth.  I need to get some sleep.  I have to get up early in the morning for work."  I told him.

"Okay, but if you need to talk, I am here."  He said to me.

I smiled at this.  "Thank you, Seth.  You really are a great guy."

"Thanks, Mary.  You aren't so bad yourself."  He cracked.  I laughed at this.  Then he said, "Goodnight, Mary."

"Goodnight, Seth."  I said to him then hung up the phone.

I plugged up my phone to charge on the nightstand and laid in my bed.  I laid there thinking about how nice of a guy Seth was.  I really hoped this friendship would bloom wonderfully as he was great to talk to.  He wasn't like Sophia and Sara who were quick to tell me what I needed to do.  He just would listen and actually take it in and just let me vent.  It was nice to have a friends like that.  I really knew this would be a great friendship between us.

Previous Chapter / Masterlist / Next Chapter

Order, Disorder, Reorder: My Experience with an Ongoing Spiritual Transformation

I have been so intrigued with Richard Rohr’s three phases of life: Order, Disorder, and Reorder. Order is the belief system and rules that were passed down to you when growing up, Disorder is when those beliefs are challenged and fall away, and Reorder is a new life on the other side. 

Order, Disorder, Reorder is the pattern of growth, transformation, and any story worth telling. Here’s how I have seen it play out in my life the past 18 months...

ORDER

Order was being the youngest child born into a Christian family. Order was having my nursery decorated in a Noah’s Ark theme before I could even crawl. Order was spending Sundays in children’s church before I could even walk. Order was church on Sunday morning and every Sunday night. Order was learning Bible stories before knowing how to read or write. Order was eating goldfish after singing Jesus Loves Me. Order was drawing Zacchaeus up in the tree, a wee little man was he. Order was felt-board Jesus.

Order was boring hymns that sounded 1,000-years-old – maybe they were. Order was the booming voices of older men in baggy suits singing Rock of Ages, and the woman in the pew behind me holding the note a half-second too long. Order was the organ-player putting her heart and soul into every note. Order was a church-wide dinner in the gymnasium on Wednesdays before the midweek service.

Order was memorizing the Westminster Shorter Catechism for Kids, reciting them to my Sunday school teachers: “Q. 14. Where do you learn how to love and obey God? In the Bible alone. Q. 15. Who wrote The Bible? Holy men who were taught by the Holy Spirit.” Order was being freaked out about questions 10 and 11: “Q. 10. Where is God? God is everywhere. Q. 11. Can you see God? No. I cannot see God, but he always sees me.” Order was keeping it to myself like everyone else.

Order was attending a Christian school from Kindergarten through 12th grade. Order was learning colors, and words, and numbers. Order was learning how to write my name with an oversized red pencil. Order was seeing the same faces in class that were in Sunday school. Order was trying to make friends laugh during naptime, and getting in trouble for doing so. Order was just trying to make it to recess.

Order was a weekly Bible verse memorization for 13-straight years at school. Order was weekly sword drills, seeing who could find the chapter and verse the quickest. Order was winning the 4th grade sword drill competition, with the grand prize being – yes, you guessed it – a new and sharper “sword.” Order was more concerned with the “what” and “where” in scripture, not the “why.” Order was learning about the Bible the same way as learning our country’s 50 States and Capitals.

Order was being taught a literal six-day creation story with no room for an alternative theory. Order was every teacher giving a disclaimer when science videos hinted at the Earth being 13 billion years old – “Oh, before I press play, the stuff at the beginning about evolution and all is obviously not true, but the rest of the video is pretty good.” Order was hearing the same stories at church and school, giving no reason to question it because it was often coming from the same people.

Order was authority figures always having all the answers, regardless of the topic. Order was Bible teachers answering existential questions with the same certainty as questions about the Periodic Table. Order was having P.E. coaches tasked with teaching Bible classes. Order lacked mystery and the unknown. Order was building walls around me without my knowledge.

Order was then attending a large public university, but quickly finding a group that fit inside those walls. Order was having the same beliefs preached every week, but in a different state by different faces so that it felt like newer ideas. Order was meeting new people outside of the walls, but always returning and locking the door behind me. 

Order was moving to Chicago and meeting people from all different backgrounds, which didn’t poke holes in the mortar of the walls, but rather revealed the actual existence of the walls. Order knew to find a church immediately to ensure that friends would be on the same page, but even then Order started to look dated. Order was a small group that had open and honest discussions, but often the group’s honesty wasn’t to Order’s liking.

Order was moving to Nashville where it felt safe and sound. Order was reconnecting with old friends and making new friends that fit comfortably back inside of the walls, which put Order at peace. Order was going to a new church where the music was better and the people dressed well, masking that message hadn’t changed since the felt board. Order was still hearing preachers talk about who was in and who was out, how single people “needed to be rescued,” and how all were welcome, but with an asterisk next to “all” so large it could be seen from outer space. Order’s walls began to get exposed by personal experience, and the views from inside were bleak. Order became old and stale.

Order, however, was important and necessary. Order was learning right from wrong. Order was learning safe from unsafe. Order was great friends, mission trips, camps, lock-ins, white-water rafting and ski trips. Order was sports, movies, television, (heavily-guided) reading, singing, bad dancing, dating, and parties. Order was performed and taught by lovely people with good intentions. Order needed authority figures to have authority, just not the absolute kind.

Order was missing one key ingredient: curiosity. Order would encourage curiosity, but only if it fit within Order’s walls, because Order didn’t like to be challenged. Order had curiosity and mystery on a retractable leash, letting them have the feeling of running wild until they reached the threshold, then they were violently whipped back, returning to their origin.

Order was necessary because Order is always the beginning. Order is not to be tossed out, but for growth to occur, the walls of Order must come tumbling down.

DISORDER

Disorder doesn’t start with an explosion. Disorder begins like the first few sprinkles of an approaching storm, causing the glassy lake to lose its smooth reflection. Disorder is ripples, not waves.

Disorder, however, won’t start or go anywhere without the companion that Order kept on the leash: curiosity. Disorder has its learner’s permit, but it is not allowed to drive anywhere without curiosity in the front seat. Disorder will knock on the door relentlessly, but curiosity has to unlock the door from the other side. Disorder, for some, knocks on the door for years, exhausting the tenant who won’t let curiosity near the deadbolt. Disorder is the vehicle, but curiosity is the fuel.

Disorder began with an innocent book about a guide to creating a life worth living. Disorder knew I wouldn’t realize that it was spiritual at first, but later I would realize that everything is spiritual. Disorder knew that Order had installed a more passive approach to living: our time on Earth was a waiting room for the glory that’s to come, so speak the party line until you advance to the next level. Disorder needed to show me that the glory was here and now, and that God was looking for co-creators saying, “Psst – this is a gift, and you’ve had it the whole time.”

Disorder needed to start with adjusting my mindset before hitting the road. Disorder didn’t try to change my lens, but rather reveal the existence of the lens. Disorder turned on the lights, exposing just how high the walls towered overhead.

Disorder then tapped on my shoulder when my Uncle, a pastor of a large church in San Francisco, opened the doors of his 20-year-old church to the LGBTQ+ community, fully affirming and inclusive. Order had taught me for years about who was in and who was out, but with no research other than an authority figure saying, “Well, the Bible says…” Order loved to keep things black and white, stifling any resemblance of a counter-argument on such topics.

Disorder began by asking me not what I believe, but to consider why I hold certain beliefs. Disorder wasn’t trying to change my mind right off the bat; it just wanted me to be open to the idea of a change of mind. Disorder was setting the stage; ripples, not waves.

Disorder doesn’t force your hand, but it won’t do the dirty work for you.

Disorder was a book about re-examining scripture’s view and the history of the church’s relationship on the LGBTQ+ community, cracking the mortar of Order’s walls as I flew through each chapter. Disorder was then another book on the same topic, then another, and then podcasts full of stories from this community that had been treated as less than human by the church forever. Order had taught me a narrow, dualistic view that turned away so many, and doing so “in the name of God.” Disorder showed me that we are all beloved children of God, with no exceptions, and we have been the whole time – no matter what.

Disorder was always asking the question, “If so, then what’s next?” If Disorder stops asking that question then it’s no longer in the room, and you need to go open the door and let it back inside.

Disorder was then Rob Bell’s podcast with Richard Rohr about the Alternative Orthodoxy, causing me to write page after page of notes on the skinny balcony of my old apartment. Disorder was tearing through the rest of his podcasts, some causing me to accidentally sit through red lights while in deep thought, others leaving me teary eyed thinking about how I had spent the last 25 years treating this sacred life like a pit stop. Disorder was giving me a whole new approach on how things progress, on how the whole thing moves forward. Disorder cracked the foundation of the walls.

Disorder then introduced me to a whole new world of thought leaders, some religious, some not: Liz Gilbert’s Big Magic (both the book at podcast), Richard Rohr’s books and daily meditations, Suzanne Stabile and Ian Cron on the Enneagram, The Liturgists, Science Mike, Rachel Held Evans, Glennon Doyle Melton, Peter Rollins, Peter Enns, Brene Brown, Mary Oliver, Martha Beck, Mark Nepo – a list of names that would be a spooky hell dream of my conservative past. Disorder also gave me teachings from other religions, challenging me to connect the dots of what I had previously thought of as off limits.

Disorder gave me so many podcasts and books that challenged me to rethink every single thing I had been taught growing up. Disorder had me back on that skinny balcony reading Love Wins, crying as I turned each page thinking about how certain I had been that people in the “out” crowd were destined for an eternal, boiling fire by a monster, judgmental God – and all of the times that I prayed that this God wouldn’t send me there too; what kind of loving God would do that? Disorder was turning the ripples into waves.

Disorder wasn’t going to airlift me to safety out from inside Order’s walls as they crashed around me. Disorder left me in there and made me watch every last brick come crumbling down from the inside. Disorder wasn’t interested in the easy way out.

Disorder was sleepless nights, leaving me replaying all the ways that my previous beliefs hurt people when I thought I was helping. Disorder was an interior journey, demanding me to mine the soul to its core.

Disorder was brewing inside of me every second of every day, but it hadn’t bled into my surroundings yet. Disorder still had me at the same church, but leaving every Sunday upset and bitter at what felt a room full of people missing the point. Disorder made every church service and Bible study feel like I was showing up for a game in the wrong color jersey. Disorder then turned to cynicism, telling me that I’m the only one in this town – or even this part of the country – that thinks this way.

Disorder had me church hopping for a month or two, but it was only a distraction from the truth – I didn’t really want to find one. Disorder turned into taking a break from church, because why go somewhere for an hour and a half knowing that it’s just going to piss me off when I could stay home and watch the previous night’s SNL?

Disorder turned me bitter towards any people or organization who didn’t see things the way I did now: friends, family – aunts, uncles, cousins; previous schools, classmates, teachers, churches, pastors. Disorder ping-ponged back and forth from anger at how limited the belief system I was taught growing up to despair, making me wonder if any of it really mattered anyway.

Disorder had taken everything I had been told to be true and buried it in the rubble.

Disorder wouldn’t call the cleanup crew right away; it let it sit for a while as I laid watching the dust settle on the destruction. Disorder knew that I needed a break.

Disorder leaves you bloody and broken, because it knows the desire and hunger for growth is at its highest when you are at your lowest. Disorder knows you are most open to new life when you are at complete death.

Disorder then placed me in the front seat, tossed the car keys to curiosity, and hopped in the backseat. Disorder knows its time isn’t over – in fact, it’s never over – but it knows to lay low for a bit.

Disorder was and is to come.

REORDER

Reorder is harder to write and put into words because Reorder is still very new. Reorder is less of a reflection like Order and Disorder, but more like a stream of consciousness because Reorder is unfolding right now.

Reorder isn’t on my DVR. Reorder is live on the air.

Reorder found me in the rubble, but it only came after me because it saw that I was still holding onto curiosity. Reorder knew that as long as I had curiosity then I would be willing to answer the question, “What’s next?”

Reorder is being made new, not hitting the restart button. Reorder is a new birth, not reaching for the defibrillators.

Order is Palm Sunday. Disorder is Good Friday. Reorder is Easter Sunday. Reorder isn’t naïve though, it knows there are more Disorders to come, and in fact it welcomes them. Reorder doesn’t fear future Disorders because Reorder has experience as an ally; it knows how the cycle works. Reorder doesn’t exist without Disorder.

Disorder and Reorder are like the oars of a canoe. Disorder is when the oars come up out of the water, readjusting the paddle to a new angle. Reorder is when they re-enter the water and propel you forward; you can’t go anywhere without both working in perfect harmony.

Reorder is the one step forward to Disorder’s two steps back.

Reorder knows whom it’s dealing with; it has watched me since birth, so it’s never surprised by the handlings of Disorder. Reorder is the feeling of being fully known, and there’s such magnificent comfort in that. Reorder is out of the proving my worth business, it’s not keeping score. 

Reorder is the feeling of Divine connection; maybe Reorder is the Divine, or the closest we can get; maybe Reorder is the difference between being a Christian and being Christian – I don’t know. Reorder is acting my way into a new way of thinking instead of thinking my way into a new way of acting.

Reorder recognizes that the process of Order-Disorder-Reorder is all around us; it’s found in the seasons of the year in the same way as the seasons of life. Disorder was winter; Reorder is spring, aware that it won’t last forever, but knowing it will return. Reorder starts to see the Divine in everything. Reorder has me more interested in art, writing, comedy – any creative pursuit that helps with the ongoing creation of the world, which is when I feel most connected with the Divine.

Reorder is keeping an open mind about everything, always looking through a progressive lens. Reorder has taken this lens to the Bible, sparking a fascination about the Jesus story and what it means to be human than ever before. Reorder is realizing that the writers of the text were incredibly progressive at the time, and the best way we can honor the word is to keep pushing forward instead of trying to revert back to a literal interpretation. Reorder is making it hard for me to even talk to people about anything else.

Reorder is curiosity in action.

Reorder can be small things like seeing a t-shirt that says, “I met God, she’s black,” on it and then being excited when my sister got it for my birthday a few weeks later – a shirt I’m wearing while writing this.

Reorder can’t stomach conversations like: “How’s it going?” “Good, you?” “Good.” “Oh, Good.” Reorder has no interest in the surface level – it demands to go deeper. Reorder wants to know what gets someone out of bed in the morning – what makes them tick – and why?

Reorder can (and will) railroad friends and family with excitement and energy about this new way of being, but unlike Disorder it doesn’t get bitter when the feeling isn’t reciprocated because it knows that everyone else is on their own journey on their own timeline. Reorder knows that not everyone who doesn’t see the world the same as I do is a bad person – they are just as beloved as the rest of us, even when it doesn’t feel like it. Reorder is the constant practice of patience and understanding, but maintaining that an inclusive, progressive approach is the right way.

Reorder is looking back at my Facebook profile and hardly recognizing the person on there, like it was from a past life, often feeling horrified at some of my “This day in history” notifications of previous posts throughout the years, making me wonder, “Would the version of me today even be friends with former me?” Reorder, though, doesn’t wipe it out and start over because Reorder knows that everything belongs.  

Reorder now looks back fondly on Order, and is no longer upset with former teachers and pastors, it knows that they were doing their best with the information they had. Reorder has no desire to go back and change anything because Reorder knows that every Bible class, Sunday school lesson, and chapel service on Thursday mornings led to this specific journey. Reorder, again, knows that everything belongs.

Reorder is my same Uncle telling me about a progressive community like Gracepointe Church in Nashville, a place I had driven by 1,000 times and never noticed. Reorder introduces you to tons of like-minded people, restoring hope when Disorder made you feel like you were alone. Reorder’s excitement has me jumping in headfirst, sometimes forgetting that I’m new there and people don’t really know me yet, but the place felt like home the first time I walked in the building. Reorder is not the feeling of wearing the correct color jersey now, but realizing that the jersey color doesn’t matter, because a true representation of the Kingdom knows no labels.

Reorder longs to be around people who are fully alive, taking on life with the same level of curiosity and passion that Reorder knows so well. Reorder doesn’t have time for the mundane. Reorder is interested in those who have a desire to keep pushing forward, making me want to grab them by the hand and take off.

Reorder is still pursuing ideas that challenge my current way of thinking, understanding that I’m a perpetual student and the learning process is never over. Reorder is answering, “What’s next?” with even more books, poetry, meditations, podcasts – not staying still and waiting for the next Disorder, but rather lacing up my boots and going on the hunt for it.

Order, Disorder, Reorder is the pattern of growth, transformation, and any story worth telling. Reorder has the wisdom of knowing that the pattern really looks more like this: Order-Disorder-Reorder-Disorder-Reorder-Disorder-Reorder, and so on.

Reorder is the restoration of hope, and it has me excited for what’s to come.

Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Dane Jensen (u/dreamscientist) of Sock Club, a brand that makes custom socksSome stats:Product: custom socksRevenue/mo: $1,000,000Started: May 2011Location: AustinFounders: 2Employees: 31Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hi, Dane Jensen here, my business partner Noah and I run Sock Club. Our flagship product is socks of course. We started Sock Club as a monthly subscription where we would deliver a pair of unique socks to our customers every month. As we’ve grown we’ve developed a manufacturing supply chain here in the United States. Having the ability to make our own socks made it possible to enter the new market of custom socks. Now making custom socks is 90% of our business and the subscription 10%. Last year we did $12M+ in revenue and we plan to do more than that this year.imageWhat's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?I was living in Austin, TX running and biking around being a twenty-something-year-old working as a web developer. At the time when I started Sock Club, I had a few failed startups under my belt. I built Camm Security Inc., a cloud camera company, and GitHire, a software developer recruiting service, with co-founder Rhett Creighton. So, I had acquired some software development skills and some sense of what’s important in starting a company.I built the website for Sock Club over a weekend in kind of a flash of inspiration.Birchbox had been a big subscription success and I thought that socks were an item I wouldn’t mind receiving monthly and having more of. After I built the website,I kind of forgot about it for six months.When I checked back in, people had found the site and tried to sign up. The page after you signed up just said something like “we aren’t shipping socks yet but we’ll let you know when we start”. From my previous experience of starting companies and trying to get customers, I knew this was rare.So, when my friend Noah mentioned he would be interested in starting a company with me, I told him I had this idea that we could run as a side project. He was working at a finance company in Austin and I was still working as a web developer, so we didn’t quit our day jobs, but we would work on Sock Club on nights and weekends. Sock Club grew gradually and now we’re 30+ professionals in Austin designing and selling and manufacturing socks.Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.My business partner Noah Lee could definitely talk about this in more detail than I can. When we first started we would buy wholesale from other sock brands but we quickly got to the scale where we needed to manufacture our own socks. North Carolina, where Noah is from, has a rich textile history, and having this connection was a huge advantage. Noah pounded the North Carolina hills and built our supply chain.Manufacturing quality socks is a long process. Here's a simplified view of what happens. Cotton grown in the southeastern United States is shipped to our spinning facilities which spin raw cotton into yarn. Our yarn is sent to our dyehouse which dyes our 40+ unique colors. Our dyed yarn is sent to our knitters which uses modern Italian knitting machines to knit the yarn into a sock. The knit sock is sent to our fulfillment center to be boarded (washed in very hot water, etc.) and packaged and then shipped to the customer.Describe the process of launching the business.Launching Sock Club has been a super gradual process. I feel like we are still launching Sock Club. Jeff Bezos has a great saying: “it’s always day one.” You have to be as hungry and competitive for an opportunity as you were on day one. I try to think about that every time a new opportunity comes across my desk. If this was day one, would I jump at this opportunity?Noah and I have also become experts at convex optimization (a stolen term from Nassim Taleb), which basically means making improvements that can only help your business and definitely don't have any negative impact. When we launched Custom Socks by Sock Club (the custom arm of our business which is 90% of revenue now), we didn’t give up on the Sock Club subscription. We made an effort to make sure it took a little of our time as possible so we could focus on custom.Sock Club was completely bootstrapped and has always been profitable (excluding the cost of our time). We did everything we could ourselves. We packed socks for shipments. I designed, wrote the copy and built our website:imageWe did our own product photoshoots and product photography. Noah handled our finances and taxes and built our supply chain. Often we did stuff ourselves that we weren’t good at. It could have been easy to find someone better to do it for a reasonable price, but we learned so much by doing everything ourselves it was definitely worth it.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?We don’t do the best job with the analytics of our traffic so I can’t give you hard facts about where our traffic comes from but I think the marketing channels that have been best for us our SEO, Google ads, Facebook ads, email newsletters, radio ads and trade shows (not necessarily in that order). Most of the acquisition comes from the free channels of SEO, past customer reordering and word of mouth. When starting out to gain distribution (aka customers/market share) you really need to pound the pavement and do things that don’t scale. On the internet site, to get customers and SEO distribution I used my favorite free tactic a lot which is posting good content to content aggregators like Hacker News, Product Hunt, and Reddit. It takes some work to make something that those communities will like but if you do you get a big return on the content. To learn more about this I think priceonomics.com made the best resource on content marketing -> The Content Marketing Handbook. We also pounded the pavement in the person going to tradeshows and getting on reps in on perfecting our sales pitch. It worked perfectly for us because our product is made for tradeshows.Also, I think understanding when you need to sell harder than normal is important. Our business is super seasonal because, for the most part, we sell gifts so we run email campaigns, radio ads and lots of promotions around the holidays like Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day and Christmas.My advice for marketing would be to do all the free stuff you can, and Google and Facebook are the main avenues to buy customers.How are you doing today and what does the future look like?Sock Club has been profitable from day one. Most of our distribution is from Google and tradeshows. For our custom socks sales, we use the Hubspot CRM with a lot of custom modifications to fit our industry.Our operations department is constantly changing the software to keep up with our growth. Operations at Sock Club has the super difficult job of managing our supply chain and making it easy for our sales and design team to enter orders and know the status of their order. When we started custom, we were only doing a few orders a week and could keep track of everything through Trello. From Trello, we grew to try Airtable and then built a custom app in Zoho. The next step for operations is custom software built off the popular open-source application Odoo.Right now, Sock Club is focused on being number one in custom socks. When people see a custom sock or want to order one, we want them to think of Sock Club first. After we win custom socks, we want to see if we can bring the processes we use to design and manufacture socks to another product.Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?I’ve learned so much by starting a business. I believe business is the best way to put theory into practice. Business, unlike anything else, will weed out the ideas that don’t fit reality. I think Warren Buffett or maybe it was Patrick Collision talked about business being applied epistemology and that’s how I think about it now.Here’s a subset of the things I’ve learned from Sock Club that might be useful to your readers:If you have an idea the market wants, you will have lots of competition. Competition is a constant, even for a niche idea like a sock subscription. I could probably list 20 sock subscription companies off the top of my head. I know this idea is widespread, but it’s one thing to hear, and another to feel it when your competition starts eating up some of your market shares.This is like a corollary of the above point but if you don’t strike on an opportunity someone else will. I’ve seen lots of my ideas and opportunity better executed by other businesses. Business is mostly execution, not mostly ideas.I used to think business was all products. Seeing the success of internet companies like Google and Instagram building product with only a few engineers that can reach billions of people, I thought that product was everything in business. But in running a business that makes a physical product, you learn the other side and why MBAs exist. Business is also very much about managing people. Managing people is hard. I believe everyone has self-interest, so you have to figure out how to align personal goals with the goals of the business.https://www.instagram.com/p/B1MSxoLAZVP/What platform/tools do you use for your business?Ruby on railsExcelMac OSXOh my ZSHGithubHubspotShopifyWorkflowyPushbulletSlackCalendlyIndeedZohoOdooZapierWhat have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?Shoe Dog - if you want to go far, focus on building a team.Everything Ycombinator puts out - That community just has a very rational approach to business and cuts through the BS and figures out how to build something people want.Derek Sivers blog - Importance of customer service and execution.Creativity Inc - We went through a tough period last Fall/Winter of exponential growth that we weren’t necessarily prepared for. I got this book for all of the Sock Club employees as a Christmas gift. It includes great advice about scaling a business and investing in your employees.Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?I think the internet is such an echo chamber the pressure to cargo cult and do the things that you think successful startups do instead of doing the things your customers want is a mistake everyone makes from time to time. You have to think from first principles and listen to your customers, which is easier said than done.Speed is so important. And the trick to being fast is focusing so hard on a few things that you don’t do much at all. Everyone talks about focus, but no one talks about the other side that being fast means not doing too much. I learned this trick that being fast is about not doing much from Hacker News.I remember someone posted a blog to Hacker News about how they spent a year trying to make a faster grep (one of the most important Unix commands) and he/she just couldn’t do it. In the comments the creator of grep commented that the trick to making a fast program was to make the pro not do much at all. That kind of stuck with me. I think the same idea can be applied to business. It’s related to the idea that Steve Jobs talks about where good design is about saying no to a million good ideas to get to a great idea.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?We’re always looking for great people. We’re in Austin so if you’re around come see us. Right now we’re looking for Web/Software Developers, Designers, and Account Managers.Where can we go to learn more?Custom Socks by Sock ClubSock ClubFacebookTwitterInstagramIf you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.For more interviews, check out r/starter_story - I post new stories there daily.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM

The Writing Process

Whether you know it or not, there’s a process to writing – which many writers follow naturally.

If you’re just getting started as a writer, though, or if you always find it a struggle to produce an essay, short story or blog, following the writing process will help.

I’m going to explain what each stage of the writing process involves, and I’ll offer some tips for each section that will help out if you’re still feeling stuck!

1. Prewriting

Have you ever sat staring at a blank piece of paper or a blank document on your computer screen?

You might have skipped the vital first stage of the writing process: prewriting.

This covers everything you do before starting your rough draft.

As a minimum, prewriting means coming up with an idea!

Ideas and Inspiration

Ideas are all around you.

If you want to write but you don’t have any ideas, try:

  Using a writing prompt to get you started.

  Writing about incidents from your daily life, or childhood.

  Keeping a notebook of ideas – jotting down those thoughts that occur throughout the day.

  Creating a vivid character, and then writing about him/her.

See also How to Generate Hundreds of Writing Ideas.

Tip: Once you have an idea, you need to expand on it.

Don’t make the mistake of jumping straight into your writing – you’ll end up with a badly structured piece.

Building on Your Idea

These are a couple of popular methods you can use to add flesh to the bones of your idea:

 Free writing: Open a new document or start a new page, and write everything that comes into your head about your chosen topic. Don’t stop to edit, even if you make mistakes.

  Brainstorming: Write the idea or topic in the center of your page. Jot down ideas that arise from it – sub-topics or directions you could take with the article.

Once you’ve done one or both of these, you need to select what’s going into your first draft.

Planning and Structure

Some pieces of writing will require more planning than others.

Typically, longer pieces and academic papers need a lot of thought at this stage.

First, decide which ideas you’ll use.

During your free writing and brainstorming, you’ll have come up with lots of thoughts.

Some belong in this piece of writing: others can be kept for another time.

Then, decide how to order those ideas.

Try to have a logical progression.

Sometimes, your topic will make this easy: in this article, for instance, it made sense to take each step of the writing process in order.

For a short story, try the eight-point story arc.

2. Writing

Sit down with your plan beside you, and start your first draft (also known as the rough draft or rough copy).

At this stage, don’t think about word-count, grammar, spelling and punctuation.

Don’t worry if you’ve gone off-topic, or if some sections of your plan don’t fit too well.

Just keep writing!

If you’re a new writer, you might be surprised that professional authors go through multiple drafts before they’re happy with their work.

This is a normal part of the writing process – no-one gets it right first time.

Some things that many writers find helpful when working on the first draft include:

 Setting aside at least thirty minutes to concentrate: it’s hard to establish a writing flow if you’re just snatching a few minutes here and there.

  Going somewhere without interruptions: a library or coffee shop can work well, if you don’t have anywhere quiet to write at home.

  Switching off distracting programs: if you write your first draft onto a computer, you might find that turning off your Internet connection does wonders for your concentration levels! When I’m writing fiction, I like to use the free program Dark Room (you can find more about it on our collection of writing software).

You might write several drafts, especially if you’re working on fiction.

Your subsequent drafts will probably merge elements of the writing stage and the revising stage.

Tip: Writing requires concentration and energy.

If you’re a new writer, don’t try to write for hours without stopping. Instead, give yourself a time limit (like thirty minutes) to really focus – without checking your email!

3. Revising

Revising your work is about making “big picture” changes.

You might remove whole sections, rewrite entire paragraphs, and add in information which you’ve realized the reader will need.

Everyone needs to revise – even talented writers.

The revision stage is sometimes summed up with the A.R.R.R.

(Adding, Rearranging, Removing, Replacing) approach:

Adding

What else does the reader need to know?

If you haven’t met the required word-count, what areas could you expand on?

This is a good point to go back to your prewriting notes – look for ideas which you didn’t use.

Rearranging

Even when you’ve planned your piece, sections may need rearranging.

Perhaps as you wrote your essay, you found that the argument would flow better if you reordered your paragraphs.

Maybe you’ve written a short story that drags in the middle but packs in too much at the end.

Removing

Sometimes, one of your ideas doesn’t work out.

Perhaps you’ve gone over the word count, and you need to take out a few paragraphs.

Maybe that funny story doesn’t really fit with the rest of your article.

Replacing

Would more vivid details help bring your piece to life?

Do you need to look for stronger examples and quotations to support your argument?

If a particular paragraph isn’t working, try rewriting it.

Tip: If you’re not sure what’s working and what isn’t, show your writing to someone else.

This might be a writers’ circle, or just a friend who’s good with words.

Ask them for feedback.

It’s best if you can show your work to several people, so that you can get more than one opinion.

4. Editing

The editing stage is distinct from revision, and needs to be done after revising.

Editing involves the close-up view of individual sentences and words.

It needs to be done after you’ve made revisions on a big scale: or else you could agonize over a perfect sentence, only to end up cutting that whole paragraph from your piece.

When editing, go through your piece line by line, and make sure that each sentence, phrase and word is as strong as possible. Some things to check for are:

  Have you used the same word too many times in one sentence or paragraph? Use a thesaurus to find alternatives.

  Are any of your sentences hard to understand? Rewrite them to make your thoughts clear.

 Which words could you cut to make a sentence stronger? Words like “just” “quite”, “very”, “really” and “generally” can often be removed.

 Are your sentences grammatically correct? Keep a careful look out for problems like subject-verb agreement and staying consistent in your use of the past, present or future tense.

  Is everything spelt correctly? Don’t trust your spell-checker – it won’t pick up every mistake. Proofread as many times as necessary.

  Have you used punctuation marks correctly? Commas often cause difficulties. You might want to check out the Daily Writing Tips articles on punctuation.

Tip: Print out your work and edit on paper.

Many writers find it easier to spot mistakes this way.

5. Publishing

The final step of the writing process is publishing.

This means different things depending on the piece you’re working on.

Bloggers need to upload, format and post their piece of completed work.

Students need to produce a final copy of their work, in the correct format.

This often means adding a bibliography, ensuring that citations are correct, and adding details such as your student reference number.

Journalists need to submit their piece (usually called “copy”) to an editor.

Again, there will be a certain format for this.

Fiction writers may be sending their story to a magazine or competition.

Check guidelines carefully, and make sure you follow them.

If you’ve written a novel, look for an agent who represents your genre.

(There are books like Writer’s Market, published each year, which can help you with this.)

Tip: Your piece of writing might never be published.

That’s okay – many bestselling authors wrote lots of stories or articles before they got their first piece published.

Nothing that you write is wasted, because it all contributes to your growth as a writer.

The five stages of the writing process are a framework for writing well and easily.

You might want to bookmark this post so that you can come back to it each time you start on a new article, blog post, essay or story: use it as a checklist to help you.

We got 3.5x the paid conversions with this SaaS onboarding email copy

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The right users may be signing up for your free trials…

They may be activating.

They may be experiencing AHA moments and getting value out of what your SaaS offers. They may be the perfect candidate for a paying customer.

But here’s the problem: too many of them are not buying. They’re not converting from free to paid. They should convert. But they’re just… not.

Could be your free trial is too long. Could be your pricing is wrong. Could be your whole business model is wrong. Or it could be something much simpler – it could be this:

You’re still sending onboarding emails when your trial user is ready for sales emails

There comes a time when your prospect is actually ready to buy.

The nurturing stops. And the closing begins.

This is where it comes down to what you say and how you say it.

It comes down to copy.

As we work to grow Airstory, we see – time and again – that the biz gets stronger when our copy acts like our online salesperson… and results get crappy when our copy doesn’t realize it’s supposed to be selling. Now I know I’m talking about “selling,” which is a trigger word for a lot of people. (“Don’t sell! Teach, and they’ll convert.“) But the fact is that, eventually, you really do have to try to close your prospect. Yes, you’ve gotta have the right strategy, product-market fit, nurturing content, etc. But once that’s settled, it’s all about copy that closes.

Once it’s time to sell, your copy can triple your business… or cut it in half… or destroy it. Copy is that important.

Not long ago, we worked with Wistia on increasing paid conversions for their trial emails. If you know Wistia, you know:

Wistia’s product is great. (We’ve been hosting our videos with Wistia for the past 4 years and have happily paid them some $5000 for their service.)

Wistia’s brand is strong. If you’ve been to Wistiafest, you know they’re champions of video marketing, and people who make videos know that, too.

Wistia’s price didn’t show any signs of being problematic. They were doing some price testing while we worked, separately from our work.

The majority of Wistia’s trial users were good-fit users. That is, there was no cause for concern that the prospect was wrong.

But something wasn’t working. In spite of all of that. In spite of Wistia being Wistia.

It was a copy problem. Wistia’s email copy wasn’t acting like an online salesperson. It wasn’t closing. 

So we fixed that. Here’s how.

A side-by-side comparison of how we optimized Wistia’s SaaS email copy to bring in a 350% lift in paid conversions

I’ve spoken about this study at conferences like Mozcon, and I’m gonna keep mentioning it ‘cos it’s such a good study in closer copy. But I’ve never gone through all 8 emails like I’m about to do here. I’ve never shown the before-and-after for each of them. I’ve never gone much deeper than using these emails to teach folks how to “get specific” and stuff like that.

Today, I’m gonna share the long and the short of this SaaS onboarding email study with you. Consider this a crash course in writing copy for SaaS emails, where the goal is to increase paid conversions.

My hope: you’ll take what you read here and rewrite your emails to close.

First, here’s some background on this project.

(You can come back to this part after, if you just wanna skip ahead and see the copy changes.)

Wistia sends 3 tracks of emails to trial users. Each track is triggered by an action. You move off of and onto a track based on the actions you take. The first track is the essential onboarding sequence, triggered when a user starts a trial; the second is triggered after an AHA moment has been achieved; and the third is intended entirely to convert the trial user from free to paid.

We worked on the third set because that’s the one that’s supposed to close. And I can’t help myself – I wanted to work on it because I like coffee, and coffee is for closers. I get a rush off seeing what makes people buy. I love when the success metric is paid conversions, average order value, average revenue per user – all things revenue-y. So I didn’t want to work on the non-closer emails.

This email track contained eight (8) emails. The trial users who got as far as this email track were likely to be good-fit prospects.

The frequency of emails: 1 per day. When a user converted to paid, they were removed from the track.

We conducted an assessment of the emails before starting the hands-on rewrites. You can find some of that here

We rewrote all eight emails; the core of the changes here were copy changes. The offer didn’t change. We didn’t create any new incentives to convert. We didn’t change the positioning. We didn’t manufacture urgency with countdown timers or create scarcity with a limited number of X. Everything about our rewrites was in keeping with what the controls were already doing. The only “conversion tricks” we used were copy optimizations.

We tested our copy against the control using HubSpot, where you can A/B test nurturing / drip campaigns (which is amazing). Wistia’s internal CRO conducted and monitored the test, showing the data to us and reporting the results with confidence.

The success metric: paid conversions for the entire sequence.

To help with comparisons, let’s look at all the Wistia emails (Variation A / Control) and then the Copy Hackers rewrites (Variation B). You can click each to see full-size, with detail.

Control, by Wistia:

Variation B, by Copy Hackers: 

So that’s the lay of the land. Now here are the 7 primary ways we edited and optimized this track / sequence, with before-and-afters to illustrate.

Before we dive in, two points.

The first: Wistia’s emails are very well written and smart. We were starting with a strong control. We were also really lucky to be working with entrepreneurs that test risky stuff instead of playing it safe. Swinging for the fence = always the better way to run a copy test.

The second: All the emails labeled Treatment B were part of the sequence that brought in 350% more paid conversions. So when you’re reading through and going “meh, that’s too long” or “there’s no way this would work for us, ” remember: all together, these emails more than tripled paid conversions. So is it worth a test for you? Methinks so.

K, let’s optimize some emails…

1. They’re not emails – they’re sales letters

When I invited Andrew at Wistia to see my proposed copy to test, his first reaction was this:

“It’s longer than we’re used to.”

But he knew we were testing. And he trusted me. So he rolled with it.

Every single email we wrote used more copy than the control. In 7 of the 8 emails, our versions were at least 3x as long as the control. And that’s not because we’ve got major issues with self-editing.

It’s because we weren’t thinking of an email as an email. We were thinking of an email as a sales letter for a single feature.

More about this in the next point. But for now, when you’re reviewing your copy, ask yourself:

How is the way I’m thinking about emails limiting what this email can do?

How is my fear of losing subscribers limiting this email’s ability to close?

If I didn’t have a nagging voice in my head telling me to play it safe, how would I actually write this? 

And when you start writing longer emails, your worry should NOT be that your copy is “too long.” Your worry should be that your copy “doesn’t sell for shit.” Make it sell. Make it close. Use as many words as it takes to earn your cup of coffee.

2. It’s not a collection of random emails – it’s a funnel

A paid conversion happens once you’ve convincingly moved a prospect through the 5 primary stages of awareness, all the way to Most Aware.

Source: Search Engine Land

By the time a trial user started to receive the emails in the Wistia sequence we were optimizing, we had good reason to believe they had strong Product Awareness and were moving toward Most Aware. So the job of the emails was to nurture the prospect the rest of the way. It was to move the prospect from Product Aware to the far end of Most Aware, where closing happens. That was it.

But the control emails weren’t organized to push the prospect along the awareness spectrum.

Instead, they hovered in the Solution Aware > Product Aware space. This is what they were each about:

Email 1: Video analytics (Product Aware)

Email 2: Timeline actions (Product Aware)

Email 3: Wistia vs the competition (Solution or Product Aware)

Email 4: Turnstile case study (Solution or Product Aware)

Email 5: Video analytics case study (Solution or Product Aware)

Email 6: Turn off Wistia branding (Product Aware)

Email 7: Support is available (Product Aware)

Email 8: Player customization (Product Aware)

They needed to be organized to round out Product Awareness and move the prospect to Most Aware. Because we wanted to increase paid conversions. So we reordered them like so:

Email 1: Ego: the vanity play with data (Product Aware)

Email 2: Ease: tweaks (Product Aware)

Email 3: Direct tie to outcome: growth (Product Aware)

Email 4: Differentiator: CTAs (Product Aware)

Email 5: The Pitch (Most Aware)

Email 6: PAS (Most Aware)

Email 7: Incentive: upgrade to annual (Most Aware)

Email 8: New segment: courses

Note that, as we moved the prospect through Product Awareness, we focused not on the features but on the outcome / benefit for the prospect. It wasn’t until Email 4, where the prospect was Most Aware, that we framed our focus around features and incentives.

Emails 1 through 4 were for a Product Aware prospect.

Emails 5 through 7 were for a Most Aware prospect.

And email 8… well, that was our throw-in. We felt confident that emails 5 through 7 would convert, and we hypothesized that, if it didn’t convert a user, it may be that that user had specific needs not yet addressed in the emails. For the test, that unknown non-converting user was a course creator using Wistia. And that’s why email 8 feels more like an offshoot of the sequence than a part of it. By design. Here it is, for your reference:

Takeaway: Optimizing your email sequence may be as simple as reordering your existing emails along the stages of awareness spectrum, finishing always with closer emails for a Most Aware prospect.

3. Your copy shouldn’t be as slick as a used car salesman’s hair

In my experience, marketers are happiest with a message when it sounds polished.

But here’s why that’s a problem. What happens when you run your hands over something that’s polished? They slip right off. They don’t stick. Because there’s nothing to stick to.

Same is true for polished copy. If your copy sounds like it’s been reworked until anyone anywhere could say it, that’s a bad thing.

Lemme repeat for the enterprise marketers out there: polished copy is a bad thing.

We want copy that sticks. And that’s almost always going to sound raw. Because it will be pulled from voice-of-customer data and left largely unedited, like in our headline for this email:

The control email features a polished headline. The headline for Treatment B:

Plays off a familiar structure (i.e., the black-and-white-and-read-all-over joke) to nudge the reader to engage and actually read

Uses language swiped from customer reviews of Wistia and the cofounder’s own words (as said in a podcast he was once on)

Sets up a level of intrigue that can rarely be achieved with stock, too-polished phrasing

Both emails are about comparing Wistia to the competition in order to convert the trialist. But only one of the emails makes you care about – and engage in the act of – comparing the two. Only one of them makes Wistia sound like the better option. Only one of them tries to sell the upgrade to paid.

4. At this stage, do NOT ask questions your prospect may not answer the way you want them to

If you ask a yes/no question hoping for a “yes” answer… what happens if your prospect answers “no” instead? You need to phrase all your questions in such a way that the prospect has to answer in agreement with you. And if you can’t do that, delete the question.

Why? Because you do NOT want your prospect to shake their head at you. That ‘no’ interrupts the seduction. It makes them think you don’t actually understand them after all.

In this control email, the opening line of the body copy finishes with this question:

Ready to dive into some data?

Few marketers and video-pros using Wistia and receiving these emails would answer “Yup, I cannot WAIT to dive into some data!” Instead, they’d answer with a shrug, a soft no or a hard no (i.e., close the email, never to return again).

So our version of this email asks questions with more controlled answers.

The first question is this: People are watching your video. Fantastic, right?

Unless the prospect is using Wistia for private videos no one is intended to watch (in which case this email wouldn’t trigger), the answer to that question is very likely going to be “yes.” Even an eyerolling yes. Even an omg-I-hate-myself-on-camera yes.

The next question our copy asks isn’t a yes/no. It’s a question that requires the reader to think about the answer, and it allows us to help her arrive at the right answer.

The question is this: How can you put your new video data to work for you?

We follow that question with an entire paragraph of questions that agitate or dig deep on the topic, with the idea being that the marketer is unlikely to have thought of all the ways video analytics can help them optimize their video content. We’re showing – not telling – that Wistia is stellar because it arms you with optimization-aiding analytics. We’re nudging the prospect to see Wistia as a powerful data solution.

We finish the email by answering the questions we’ve asked.

5. At this stage, do NOT waste time on stories people don’t care about

Case studies are great. As long as you tell the story right.

And by “tell the story right,” I mean be a good storyteller:

Open with a hook

Lure the reader from one line to the next

Start in the middle of the action

Create compelling characters

Set the story around a central conflict

If you don’t have conflict, you don’t have a story.

If you don’t have a hook, who would read?

In these emails, you can see that the control was based around a case study for a business called Zeeblu. It’s a perfectly fine study. But because we didn’t find the story compelling, we dropped the study and put our hero (the prospect) at the center of the story:

Compare the two emails.

The control wants to tell a story.

Treatment B actually does tell a story. (Hell, it’s even got dialogue.) If our version had a working title, it would be “How you can use Wistia to get more leads.”

It opens with a hook

It lures the reader from one line to the next

There’s no preamble – it starts in the middle of the action

It features the most compelling character: you

It features a central conflict: how to get more leads without spending more money or creating more content

Wistia’s a brilliant solution, so little wonder they have a lot of case studies. A second case study-based email – this one for MailChimp – appears in the same sequence:

We decided to scrap the Mailchimp story entirely. That’s because we’d already talked about video analytics in this sequence. In its place, we wrote a short closer-focused last-chance ‘offer’ email, where we repositioned an existing offer to sound like a one-time promotion; we scheduled it toward the end of the sequence, when the non-converted trial user is likely to be Most Aware.

It can be hard to say no to using a case study – especially great ones from known names. But if it’s not a compelling story, you will bore your prospect. So don’t waste a sales email on a non-converting email.

Remember: Every email your subscribers open but don’t care about is an email that widens the gap between you and them.

6. Bring your message, value and product to life with specific copy – not vague messages

What does your brain see when you read this line:

Customize the color of your video player appearance.

And what does your brain see when you read this line:

The Wistia video player defaults to grey. Which is nice. But grey. Why stick with grey when you can go with hot pink… or dollar-bill green… or, well, Wistia Blue?

Each of those statements is conveying the same message. But your brain has an easier time grasping one over the other. Is the vague first one easier to grasp… or is the more specific one more likely to form an image or two in your brain?

Okay, let’s try another one.

K, tell me how your brain makes sense of this statement:

18% is a lot. 

Now how does your brain make sense of this:

Getting 18% more views is pretty major. Videos that used to get 100 views a day now get 118 views a day. In a month, that’s an extra 500+ views. 

One is a statement that leaves the reader to figure stuff out. (And maybe even argue that 18% is not a lot.) The other is so specific, it removes the burden of thinking, calculating, pausing, trying to make sense of the numbers. The prospect can just absorb the info. No work required.

The specific copy outperformed the vague copy.

That didn’t happen in just one email I wrote. That happened in all the emails I wrote.

Here’s another example:

As you can see in the two emails above, this control copy wasn’t as specific as it could be:

You can add annotations, create calls to action or collect emails through turnstile – all within the video player!

We unpacked the significance of each of the important points the control was glossing over. That turned into a bullet list filled with specifics about annotations, CTAs and turnstile.

This all goes back to Steve Krug’s old “Don’t Make Me Think” principle. Use specificity to bring concepts, product features, outcomes, benefits and more to life in the mind of your busy reader. When you tell yourself your reader is too busy to read a lot of copy, remember that specific copy is going to engage more than short, vague copy will.

Perhaps (or of course) Don Draper said it best:

“The greatest thing you have working for you is not the photo you take or the picture you paint. It’s the imagination of the consumer. They have no budget. They have no time limit. And if you can get in that space, your ad can run all day.”

7. Edit in the awesome

Your first draft will be crap.

It should be.

This is always true.

You should never expect the first draft of anything you write or someone else writes to be great.

The real magic happens once the first draft is knocked out. Without Wistia’s control emails to work with, we would’ve had to go through God knows how many iterations to get a strong first draft ready to optimize. Thankfully, Wistia’s got stellar marketers and copywriters on their team – so it was easy for us to ‘edit in the awesome.’

With these lessons, it should be easy for you to edit the awesome into your email sequences, as well.

And if you feel like this post is just scratching the surface of what you can do with your email copy (because it is), click here to be notified when our copywriting program 10x Emails reopens

FINAL NOTE: There is no such thing as optimized copy.

The very term “optimized copy” suggests a finality – but optimization is an ongoing thing. It’s never done. Wistia is still optimizing these emails.

That said, when you A/B test your copy, you have the benefit of data to tell you if your optimization efforts paid off in that one moment in time. Did your new copy work? Should you push harder on a new focus in your messaging? That’s what testing can tell you – not necessarily which message is best but where you should keep applying energy…

~jo

PS: When I present this study, I often hear that we didn’t just change the copy – we changed the design. People say I should talk about the design changes, too. That’s cool… but our philosophy is that copy leads design. So when copy changes, design changes. We can’t separate the two. But what I can say, as a copywriter and the lead on this project – as the person who typed the copy into the HubSpot email templates – was that copy changed, and what you’ve seen above are the copy changes.

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Simple Guidance for you in Dotnet

There are heap methods for composing poor code. Gratefully, ascending to the level of composing quality projects includes only 15 rules. Tailing them won't make you an ace software engineer, yet will enable you to counterfeit one convincingly.

 Lead 1: Follow the Style Guide

 Each programming dialect has a style manage that lets you know in awesome detail how to indent your code, where to put spaces and supports, how to name stuff, how to remark—all the great and awful practices. For instance, the style manage reveals to you the 12 botches sneaking in this code piece:

  for(i=0 ;i<10 ;i++){

 Read the guide painstakingly, take in the nuts and bolts by heart, look into corner cases, apply the guidelines religiously, and your projects will be superior to those composed by the greater part of college graduates.

 Numerous associations modify style advisers for mirror the association's particular practices. For example, Google has created and discharged style guides for more than twelve dialects. These aides are well thoroughly considered, so look at them in case you're searching for help programming for Google. Aides even incorporate manager settings to enable you to apply a programming style, and custom apparatuses can confirm that your code sticks to that style. Utilize these apparatuses.

 Govern 2: Create Descriptive Names

 Compelled by moderate, inconvenient prints, software engineers in the past used to get the names of their factors and schedules to spare time, keystrokes, ink, and paper. This culture holds on in a few groups, for the sake of in reverse similarity; consider C's tongue-curving wcscspn (wide character string supplement traverse) work. In any case, there's no reason for this training in present day code.

 Utilize long illustrative names, as complementSpanLength, to help yourself, now and later on, and additionally your partners to comprehend what the code does. The main special case to this govern concerns the few key factors utilized inside a strategy's body, for example, a circle file, a parameter, a middle of the road result, or an arrival esteem.

 Considerably more imperatively, take some time to consider before you name something. Is the name exact? Did you mean highestPrice, instead of bestPrice? Is the name sufficiently particular to abstain from taking more than what's coming to its of semantic space? Would it be advisable for you to name your technique getBestPrice, as opposed to getBest? Does its shape coordinate that of other comparative names? In the event that you have a technique ReadEventLog, you shouldn't name another NetErrorLogRead. In case you're naming a capacity, does the name portray what the capacity returns?

 At long last, there are some simple naming standards. Class and sort names ought to be things. Techniques names ought to contain a verb. Specifically, if a technique restores an esteem showing in the case of something remains constant for a question, the strategy name should begin with is. Different techniques that arrival a question's property should begin with get, and those that set a property should begin with set.

 Govern 3: Comment and Document

 Begin each standard you compose (capacity or technique) with a remark illustrating what the routine does, its parameters, and what it returns, and also conceivable mistakes and special cases. Outline in a remark the part of each record and class, the substance of each class field, and the real strides of complex code. Compose the remarks as you build up the code; on the off chance that you think you'll include them later, you're joking yourself.

 Moreover, guarantee that your code all in all (for instance, an application or library) accompanies no less than a guide clarifying what it does; demonstrating its conditions; and giving directions on building, testing, establishment, and utilize. This record ought to be quick and painless; a solitary README document is frequently enough.

 Lead 4: Don't Repeat Yourself

 Never reorder code. Rather, conceptual the basic parts into a routine or class (or large scale, on the off chance that you should), and utilize it with proper parameters. All the more comprehensively, keep away from copy cases of comparable information or code. Keep a complete form in one place, and let that rendition drive every single other utilize. Following are some great cases of this training:

 Production of API reference guides from remarks, utilizing Javadoc or Doxygen

 Programmed recognition of unit tests through a comment or a naming tradition

 Age of both PDF and HTML documentation from a solitary markup source

 Deduction of protest classes from a database pattern (or the inverse)

 Administer 5: Check for Errors and Respond to Them

 Schedules can come back with a blunder sign, or they can raise an exemption. Manage it. Try not to expect that a circle will never top off, your setup document will dependably be there, your application will keep running with the required authorizations, memory-allotment solicitations will dependably succeed, or that an association will never time out. Indeed, great mistake taking care of is difficult to compose, and it makes the code longer and less lucid. Be that as it may, disregarding mistakes and special cases just hides the issue away from plain view, where a clueless end client will definitely think that its one day.

 Manage 6: Split Your Code into Short, Focused Units

 Each strategy, work, or consistent code piece should fit on a sensibly estimated screen window (25– 50 lines in length). In the event that it's more extended, split it into shorter pieces. An exemption can be made for basic redundant code groupings. Be that as it may, in such cases, consider whether you could drive that code through an information table. Indeed, even inside a standard, partition long code arrangements into hinders whose capacity you can depict with a remark toward the start of each piece.

 Besides, each class, module, record, or process should concern one single thing. In the event that a code unit embraces differing duties, split it as needs be.

 Control 7: Use Framework APIs and Third-Party Libraries

 Realize what usefulness is accessible through an API in your programming system, and furthermore what's usually accessible through develop, broadly embraced outsider libraries. Libraries bolstered by your framework's bundle chief are regularly a decent wagered. Utilize that code, opposing the impulse to reexamine the wheel (in a useless square shape).

 Manage 8: Don't Overdesign

 Keep your plan concentrated on the present needs. Your code can be general to oblige future development, however just if that doesn't make it more mind boggling. Try not to make parameterized classes, processing plant strategies, profound legacy chains of command, and arcane interfaces to take care of issues that don't yet exist—you can't think about what tomorrow will bring. Then again, when the code's structure never again fits the job that needs to be done, don't modest far from refactoring it to a more suitable plan.

 Administer 9: Be Consistent

 Do comparable things in comparable ways. In case you're building up a normal whose usefulness looks like that of a current schedule, utilize a comparative name, a similar parameter arrange, and an equivalent structure for the code body. A similar administer applies to classes: Give the new class comparative fields and strategies, influence it to hold fast to a similar interface, and match any new names with those effectively utilized as a part of comparable classes. Make the request and number of case explanations or if else pieces take after the relating definition in the particulars you're utilizing. Keep random things in sequential order or numerical request.

 Your code ought to embrace the traditions of the structure in which you're customizing. For example, it's basic practice to speak to ranges half-open: shut (comprehensive) on the left (the range's start), however open (select) on the right (the end). In the event that there's no a tradition for a specific decision, build up one and tail it religiously.

 Lead 10: Avoid Security Pitfalls

 Present day code once in a while works in disengagement. In this manner it will unavoidably chance turning into the objective of malignant assaults. They don't need to originate from the Internet; the assault vector could be information encouraged into your application. Contingent upon your programming dialect and application space, you may need to stress over support floods, cross-site scripting, SQL infusion, and comparative issues. Realize what these issues are, and stay away from them in your code. It's not troublesome.

 Manage 11: Use Efficient Data Structures and Algorithms

 Straightforward code is regularly more viable than comparable code hand-tuned for productivity. Luckily, you can join viability with effectiveness by using the information structures and calculations gave by your programming system. Utilize maps, sets, vectors, and the calculations that work on them, and your code will be clearer, more adaptable, speedier, and memory-cheap. For instance, on the off chance that you keep a thousand esteems in a requested set, a set convergence will discover the qualities normal with another set in a comparative number of operations, instead of playing out a million correlations.

 Lead 12: Include Unit Tests

 The many-sided quality of current programming makes it costly to convey a framework and hard to test it as a black box. A more beneficial approach is to go with each little piece of your code with tests that confirm its right capacity. This approach improves investigating by enabling you to get blunders early, near their source. Unit testing is basic when you program with powerfully wrote dialects, for example, Python and JavaScript, on the grounds that they'll just catch at runtime any mistakes that that a statically wrote dialect, for example, Java, C#, or C++ would get at aggregate time. Unit testing likewise enables you to refactor the code with certainty. You can utilize a xUnit system to rearrange composing these tests and mechanize running them.

 Control 13: Keep Your Code Portable

 Unless you make them force reason, abstain from utilizing usefulness that is accessible just on a particular stage or system. Try not to expect that specific information sorts, (for example, whole numbers, pointers, and time) are of a given width (for instance, 32 bits), since this varies between different stages. Store the program's messages independently from the code, and don't hardcode social traditions, for example, a decimal separator or date organize. Traditions need to change when your code keeps running in different nations around the globe, so keep this adjustment as effortless as could reasonably be expected.

 To learn more about the major topics Dotnet, Join the course at Training in Marathahalli

17 Mobile PM Challenges and How to Overcome Them

Between interfacing with multiple teams, coordinating release schedules, prioritizing customer happiness, driving the mobile product roadmap, messaging product announcements internally and externally, and myriad other activities, the list of “to-do’s” for mobile PMs may seem endless, and the job is ever-changing.

To understand just how complex the role of a mobile PM can be, we asked respondents in our 2017 mobile product management survey to share the main words they use to describe their jobs. Here’s what they had to say:

As you can see from the word cloud above, mobile product management is nothing short of a challenge, no matter what industry you work in. But with great challenge comes great opportunity, and most PMs thrive on regularly taking on new tasks and solving difficult problems.

To understand specific challenges, we asked survey respondents to weigh in on their biggest challenges. Not having enough time in the day (44%), not testing enough with users (36%), having too many responsibilities (34%), and having a small team (33%) topped the list of challenges.

Every challenge listed above is valid, and we can definitely empathize. However, none of the challenges in the list are unsolvable!

Rather than responding just to our respondents’ top challenges, we want to share tips on how to approach each. There is no challenge too big or too small to address, so here are our tips to face them head-on—with color commentary from everyone’s favorite co-worker, Michael Scott, to help lighten the mood. :)

17 tips to conquer mobile PM challenges

Challenge #1: I don’t have enough time in my day.

We hear ya. You can’t get more hours in the day, so it’s important to use the ones you have as efficiently as possible. The key to rearranging your day to give yourself more time is to figure out which productivity method works for you, and to stick to it as much as possible. Whether you need chunks of meeting-free time blocked off, are better working in sprints, or find that Tuesdays are better spent working off-site, there are plenty of ways to hack your day to give you more time to get things done. LifeHacker has endless tips and practices to experiment with. Pick one you think that works for you and give it a shot!

Challenge #2: We don’t test with users enough.

What better time to start than now? If you’re a PM, you’re in a great place to suggest new types of user tests throughout your mobile experience, especially if you plan the strategy and goals ahead of time. Your mobile customers are the best focus group you can learn from, and there are plenty of cheap, quick ways to give them a place to share their experiences. Consider using in-app surveys to gather feedback on a new feature, open-ended text fields to learn more about an in-app engagement experience, or proactively reach out with in-app messages to encourage customers to engage. To start, check out how one of Apptentive’s international retail customers leveraged in-app feedback to help with testing that ultimately drove their product roadmap.

Challenge #3: I have too many responsibilities.

Similar to not having enough time in your day to get tasks done, feeling overwhelmed with tasks and responsibilities can become paralyzing. If you feel like you have too much to do, it might be time to restructure your to-do lists in order to adjust the priorities of your responsibilities. Perhaps you rephrase your tasks as questions, or maybe you start following the 1-3-5 to-do list rule, but whatever you decide, be sure to constantly question the priority level of the work you must complete. Also, be transparent with your manager if you truly feel like you have too many responsibilities to manage. Speaking up might spur a conversation around how to adjust your role to better fit your needs, or better yet, to bring in another team member to share your workload.

Challenge #4: My team is too small.

Here’s the thing: No matter the size of your team, you will likely always feel as though you need another teammate (or five!) to reach your goals. When you feel this way, it’s a good sign you’re setting BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals), which is what every team should strive for. If you truly have resourcing issues, it’s always worth talking with your manager to understand your team’s hiring plan as your insight will be helpful in putting together a job description for your next teammate. If you’re in management, be sure to work directly with your teammates to figure out where your biggest resource constraints lie before asking for additional headcount. Which leads us to our next challenge…

Challenge #5: I don’t have a budget.

When it comes to budget, gaining access to more is all about proving your product’s ROI. Because mobile teams typically struggle to acquire budget, even at large companies, every dollar spent and returned on the mobile product is under incredible scrutiny from executives. By supporting your product through proving ROI ahead of time, you have a stronger business case for scaling your scope, team, budget, and product positioning within the company. But modeling ROI takes time, patience, and a whole lot of number crunching. For detailed calculations around how to model mobile ROI, check out our in-depth post on the topic to help you make the case for a bigger budget.

Challenge #6: Our competitors are moving faster/earlier than us.

This challenge primarily affects folks in leadership roles, but keeping momentum flowing and accelerating is an all-company effort. When your competition seems to jump ahead of you, it can be easy to get discouraged. Instead, try to use your frustration as fuel to take a step back and realign your goals and mission. Be flexible to change, and be willing to reorder priorities and projects based on what it will take to get ahead in the market. Above all, remember that it’s not just about the competition; shifting priorities can help you better deliver a product your customers will love.

Challenge #7: We only get a small volume of customer feedback.

As we’ve previously mentioned, gathering and implementing customer feedback is vital to the success of a mobile product. First, take a look at your current efforts to see where you can turn up the volume. Can you reach out to a larger segment of your customer base? Is there a better place to prompt customers for feedback within your mobile experience? What do you offer customers for their time once they share their feedback? All of these places are typically full of low-hanging fruit that can allow you to gather more customer feedback, which gives you a better sense of what customers want to see improved and changed.

Challenge #8: We have too many ideas and choosing one is hard.

Prioritizing features and product ideas is definitely challenging. We recommend gathering stakeholders and spending a morning (or even a full day) going through all of your current and upcoming project ideas. Once the room sees how many projects or ideas exist, it can be easier to prioritize based on a realistic amount of time. Also, be sure to invite your co-worker who is great with dates and scheduling to the meeting—it always helps to have a regimented planner in the room to keep the conversation on track!

Challenge #9: I don’t have the data I need to make educated decisions.

It sounds like you could benefit from setting up a mobile product management dashboard. An important element of any mobile product is being able to track, measure, and report on its progress, and a product management dashboard is a great way to do so as it keeps all of your relevant data in one location that’s shareable, easy to access, and (typically) updated regularly. We wrote a post covering five steps to set up a product management dashboard you’ll want to read before you begin. It might take a bit of time in the beginning, but tracking down the data you need to make decisions is entirely possible when approached strategically.

Challenge #10: I don’t have enough technical skill.

Have no fear! Boosting your technical skills can be the most intimidating place to start, but is one of the areas we get most excited about helping people tackle. Head back to the How to Improve Your Technical Skills section of this guide to take another look!

Challenge #11: I want a better work/life balance.

It’s as important (if not more!) to take care of yourself as it is to take care of your mobile product. If you’re feeling stretched too thin by your work, take time to seriously consider how to better balance your home life and professional life. If you don’t take the time to focus on you when you start feeling work/life balance stress, burnout is sure to follow. To start, we recommend checking out this list of 37 tips for a better work/life balance.

Challenge #12: Fragmentation in the market.

Fragmented markets occur when no one company is influential enough to move the market in a new direction, and typically affects small to mid-size companies. It may seem helpless, but you can actually leverage a fragmented market to your advantage within your product if you have the right mindset. If you’re battling market fragmentation, use it as an opportunity to differentiate your company and product, or to take advantage of the low barrier to entry customers will have with your brand. Your marketing expenses will typically be less than they might be in a more competitive market, so work with your marketing team to come up with some great campaigns highlighting the uniqueness of your mobile product.

Challenge #13: We hire out our development.

We all hear the horror stories of hiring out development, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Overseas developers can be your pocket aces, but only if you build and manage the team the right way. There are plenty of actions to take to ensure your hired out developers are truly invested in your product, like scheduling regular in-person meetings, offering company stock, and pay them a fair wage for your market. Check out this TechCrunch article for more great tips.

Challenge #14: I don’t have the authority to make decisions.

You might not have the final say, but most mobile PMs have more authority and influence than they might think. When it comes to signing off on or prioritizing new features, products, bug fixes, etc., let the data do the talking instead of allowing the decisions to be made with emotion. As a mobile PM, you have amazing insight into your mobile customer experience, and you have plenty of metrics to help support and rationalize your decision-making. Challenge yourself and challenge your team by finding data points to support your thoughts, and your influence might surprise you!

Challenge #15: We release with too many bugs.

Code reviews, beta tests, automated tests; there are many ways to test software and squash pesky bugs before they wind up in production. Take a look at the current process your engineering team follows in order to see where quick improvements can be made. The more technical you are, the better you’ll be able to understand how to fill the gaps in this process, so if this is a challenge you’re facing, we recommend brushing up on your developer-speak before you start.

Challenge #16: My product hasn’t hit product/market fit.

Once you hit market fit, everything generally becomes easier: expanding product usage, shortening your sales cycle, boosting your prices, etc. But while you’re waiting to hit market fit, learn as much as you can about what would make your product better from your customers. This is the time to dig into churn and understand why people are leaving, and what might have kept them around and paying for your product. Ask questions, gather feedback, and re-prioritize your product roadmap based on what you learn.

Challenge #17: People aren’t finding our app in the stores.

Discovering new apps in the sea of the app stores can be tricky, but with the right app store optimization strategy, you’ll be surprised at how much more discoverable your app can be. App store optimization, or ASO, requires thinking strategically about all components of your app’s descriptive content, including your title, description, keywords, screenshots, videos, and more. For some serious ASO knowledge, check out our guide The Guide to App Store Optimization.

_______________________________________________

And there you have it! Hopefully the 17 tips above will help you conquer whatever mobile product management challenges are thrown your way.

To read more about facing mobile PM challenges head-on, and to level-up your mobile product management skills, grab your free copy of our guide, Mobile Product Management: New Trends & Data for 2017.

The post 17 Mobile PM Challenges and How to Overcome Them appeared first on Apptentive.

from Blogger http://gustavowilh.blogspot.com/2017/07/17-mobile-pm-challenges-and-how-to.html via IFTTT

17 Mobile PM Challenges and How to Overcome Them

Between interfacing with multiple teams, coordinating release schedules, prioritizing customer happiness, driving the mobile product roadmap, messaging product announcements internally and externally, and myriad other activities, the list of “to-do’s” for mobile PMs may seem endless, and the job is ever-changing.

To understand just how complex the role of a mobile PM can be, we asked respondents in our 2017 mobile product management survey to share the main words they use to describe their jobs. Here’s what they had to say:

As you can see from the word cloud above, mobile product management is nothing short of a challenge, no matter what industry you work in. But with great challenge comes great opportunity, and most PMs thrive on regularly taking on new tasks and solving difficult problems.

To understand specific challenges, we asked survey respondents to weigh in on their biggest challenges. Not having enough time in the day (44%), not testing enough with users (36%), having too many responsibilities (34%), and having a small team (33%) topped the list of challenges.

Every challenge listed above is valid, and we can definitely empathize. However, none of the challenges in the list are unsolvable!

Rather than responding just to our respondents’ top challenges, we want to share tips on how to approach each. There is no challenge too big or too small to address, so here are our tips to face them head-on—with color commentary from everyone’s favorite co-worker, Michael Scott, to help lighten the mood.

17 tips to conquer mobile PM challenges

Challenge #1: I don’t have enough time in my day.

We hear ya. You can’t get more hours in the day, so it’s important to use the ones you have as efficiently as possible. The key to rearranging your day to give yourself more time is to figure out which productivity method works for you, and to stick to it as much as possible. Whether you need chunks of meeting-free time blocked off, are better working in sprints, or find that Tuesdays are better spent working off-site, there are plenty of ways to hack your day to give you more time to get things done. LifeHacker has endless tips and practices to experiment with. Pick one you think that works for you and give it a shot!

Challenge #2: We don’t test with users enough.

What better time to start than now? If you’re a PM, you’re in a great place to suggest new types of user tests throughout your mobile experience, especially if you plan the strategy and goals ahead of time. Your mobile customers are the best focus group you can learn from, and there are plenty of cheap, quick ways to give them a place to share their experiences. Consider using in-app surveys to gather feedback on a new feature, open-ended text fields to learn more about an in-app engagement experience, or proactively reach out with in-app messages to encourage customers to engage. To start, check out how one of Apptentive’s international retail customers leveraged in-app feedback to help with testing that ultimately drove their product roadmap.

Challenge #3: I have too many responsibilities.

Similar to not having enough time in your day to get tasks done, feeling overwhelmed with tasks and responsibilities can become paralyzing. If you feel like you have too much to do, it might be time to restructure your to-do lists in order to adjust the priorities of your responsibilities. Perhaps you rephrase your tasks as questions, or maybe you start following the 1-3-5 to-do list rule, but whatever you decide, be sure to constantly question the priority level of the work you must complete. Also, be transparent with your manager if you truly feel like you have too many responsibilities to manage. Speaking up might spur a conversation around how to adjust your role to better fit your needs, or better yet, to bring in another team member to share your workload.

Challenge #4: My team is too small.

Here’s the thing: No matter the size of your team, you will likely always feel as though you need another teammate (or five!) to reach your goals. When you feel this way, it’s a good sign you’re setting BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals), which is what every team should strive for. If you truly have resourcing issues, it’s always worth talking with your manager to understand your team’s hiring plan as your insight will be helpful in putting together a job description for your next teammate. If you’re in management, be sure to work directly with your teammates to figure out where your biggest resource constraints lie before asking for additional headcount. Which leads us to our next challenge…

Challenge #5: I don’t have a budget.

When it comes to budget, gaining access to more is all about proving your product’s ROI. Because mobile teams typically struggle to acquire budget, even at large companies, every dollar spent and returned on the mobile product is under incredible scrutiny from executives. By supporting your product through proving ROI ahead of time, you have a stronger business case for scaling your scope, team, budget, and product positioning within the company. But modeling ROI takes time, patience, and a whole lot of number crunching. For detailed calculations around how to model mobile ROI, check out our in-depth post on the topic to help you make the case for a bigger budget.

Challenge #6: Our competitors are moving faster/earlier than us.

This challenge primarily affects folks in leadership roles, but keeping momentum flowing and accelerating is an all-company effort. When your competition seems to jump ahead of you, it can be easy to get discouraged. Instead, try to use your frustration as fuel to take a step back and realign your goals and mission. Be flexible to change, and be willing to reorder priorities and projects based on what it will take to get ahead in the market. Above all, remember that it’s not just about the competition; shifting priorities can help you better deliver a product your customers will love.

Challenge #7: We only get a small volume of customer feedback.

As we’ve previously mentioned, gathering and implementing customer feedback is vital to the success of a mobile product. First, take a look at your current efforts to see where you can turn up the volume. Can you reach out to a larger segment of your customer base? Is there a better place to prompt customers for feedback within your mobile experience? What do you offer customers for their time once they share their feedback? All of these places are typically full of low-hanging fruit that can allow you to gather more customer feedback, which gives you a better sense of what customers want to see improved and changed.

Challenge #8: We have too many ideas and choosing one is hard.

Prioritizing features and product ideas is definitely challenging. We recommend gathering stakeholders and spending a morning (or even a full day) going through all of your current and upcoming project ideas. Once the room sees how many projects or ideas exist, it can be easier to prioritize based on a realistic amount of time. Also, be sure to invite your co-worker who is great with dates and scheduling to the meeting—it always helps to have a regimented planner in the room to keep the conversation on track!

Challenge #9: I don’t have the data I need to make educated decisions.

It sounds like you could benefit from setting up a mobile product management dashboard. An important element of any mobile product is being able to track, measure, and report on its progress, and a product management dashboard is a great way to do so as it keeps all of your relevant data in one location that’s shareable, easy to access, and (typically) updated regularly. We wrote a post covering five steps to set up a product management dashboard you’ll want to read before you begin. It might take a bit of time in the beginning, but tracking down the data you need to make decisions is entirely possible when approached strategically.

Challenge #10: I don’t have enough technical skill.

Have no fear! Boosting your technical skills can be the most intimidating place to start, but is one of the areas we get most excited about helping people tackle. Head back to the How to Improve Your Technical Skills section of this guide to take another look!

Challenge #11: I want a better work/life balance.

It’s as important (if not more!) to take care of yourself as it is to take care of your mobile product. If you’re feeling stretched too thin by your work, take time to seriously consider how to better balance your home life and professional life. If you don’t take the time to focus on you when you start feeling work/life balance stress, burnout is sure to follow. To start, we recommend checking out this list of 37 tips for a better work/life balance.

Challenge #12: Fragmentation in the market.

Fragmented markets occur when no one company is influential enough to move the market in a new direction, and typically affects small to mid-size companies. It may seem helpless, but you can actually leverage a fragmented market to your advantage within your product if you have the right mindset. If you’re battling market fragmentation, use it as an opportunity to differentiate your company and product, or to take advantage of the low barrier to entry customers will have with your brand. Your marketing expenses will typically be less than they might be in a more competitive market, so work with your marketing team to come up with some great campaigns highlighting the uniqueness of your mobile product.

Challenge #13: We hire out our development.

We all hear the horror stories of hiring out development, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Overseas developers can be your pocket aces, but only if you build and manage the team the right way. There are plenty of actions to take to ensure your hired out developers are truly invested in your product, like scheduling regular in-person meetings, offering company stock, and pay them a fair wage for your market. Check out this TechCrunch article for more great tips.

Challenge #14: I don’t have the authority to make decisions.

You might not have the final say, but most mobile PMs have more authority and influence than they might think. When it comes to signing off on or prioritizing new features, products, bug fixes, etc., let the data do the talking instead of allowing the decisions to be made with emotion. As a mobile PM, you have amazing insight into your mobile customer experience, and you have plenty of metrics to help support and rationalize your decision-making. Challenge yourself and challenge your team by finding data points to support your thoughts, and your influence might surprise you!

Challenge #15: We release with too many bugs.

Code reviews, beta tests, automated tests; there are many ways to test software and squash pesky bugs before they wind up in production. Take a look at the current process your engineering team follows in order to see where quick improvements can be made. The more technical you are, the better you’ll be able to understand how to fill the gaps in this process, so if this is a challenge you’re facing, we recommend brushing up on your developer-speak before you start.

Challenge #16: My product hasn’t hit product/market fit.

Once you hit market fit, everything generally becomes easier: expanding product usage, shortening your sales cycle, boosting your prices, etc. But while you’re waiting to hit market fit, learn as much as you can about what would make your product better from your customers. This is the time to dig into churn and understand why people are leaving, and what might have kept them around and paying for your product. Ask questions, gather feedback, and re-prioritize your product roadmap based on what you learn.

Challenge #17: People aren’t finding our app in the stores.

Discovering new apps in the sea of the app stores can be tricky, but with the right app store optimization strategy, you’ll be surprised at how much more discoverable your app can be. App store optimization, or ASO, requires thinking strategically about all components of your app’s descriptive content, including your title, description, keywords, screenshots, videos, and more. For some serious ASO knowledge, check out our guide The Guide to App Store Optimization.

_______________________________________________

And there you have it! Hopefully the 17 tips above will help you conquer whatever mobile product management challenges are thrown your way.

To read more about facing mobile PM challenges head-on, and to level-up your mobile product management skills, grab your free copy of our guide, Mobile Product Management: New Trends & Data for 2017.

The post 17 Mobile PM Challenges and How to Overcome Them appeared first on Apptentive.

from WordPress https://darincjohnson.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/17-mobile-pm-challenges-and-how-to-overcome-them/ via IFTTT

17 Mobile PM Challenges and How to Overcome Them

Between interfacing with multiple teams, coordinating release schedules, prioritizing customer happiness, driving the mobile product roadmap, messaging product announcements internally and externally, and myriad other activities, the list of “to-do’s” for mobile PMs may seem endless, and the job is ever-changing.

To understand just how complex the role of a mobile PM can be, we asked respondents in our 2017 mobile product management survey to share the main words they use to describe their jobs. Here’s what they had to say:

As you can see from the word cloud above, mobile product management is nothing short of a challenge, no matter what industry you work in. But with great challenge comes great opportunity, and most PMs thrive on regularly taking on new tasks and solving difficult problems.

To understand specific challenges, we asked survey respondents to weigh in on their biggest challenges. Not having enough time in the day (44%), not testing enough with users (36%), having too many responsibilities (34%), and having a small team (33%) topped the list of challenges.

Every challenge listed above is valid, and we can definitely empathize. However, none of the challenges in the list are unsolvable!

Rather than responding just to our respondents’ top challenges, we want to share tips on how to approach each. There is no challenge too big or too small to address, so here are our tips to face them head-on—with color commentary from everyone’s favorite co-worker, Michael Scott, to help lighten the mood. :)

17 tips to conquer mobile PM challenges

Challenge #1: I don’t have enough time in my day.

We hear ya. You can’t get more hours in the day, so it’s important to use the ones you have as efficiently as possible. The key to rearranging your day to give yourself more time is to figure out which productivity method works for you, and to stick to it as much as possible. Whether you need chunks of meeting-free time blocked off, are better working in sprints, or find that Tuesdays are better spent working off-site, there are plenty of ways to hack your day to give you more time to get things done. LifeHacker has endless tips and practices to experiment with. Pick one you think that works for you and give it a shot!

Challenge #2: We don’t test with users enough.

What better time to start than now? If you’re a PM, you’re in a great place to suggest new types of user tests throughout your mobile experience, especially if you plan the strategy and goals ahead of time. Your mobile customers are the best focus group you can learn from, and there are plenty of cheap, quick ways to give them a place to share their experiences. Consider using in-app surveys to gather feedback on a new feature, open-ended text fields to learn more about an in-app engagement experience, or proactively reach out with in-app messages to encourage customers to engage. To start, check out how one of Apptentive’s international retail customers leveraged in-app feedback to help with testing that ultimately drove their product roadmap.

Challenge #3: I have too many responsibilities.

Similar to not having enough time in your day to get tasks done, feeling overwhelmed with tasks and responsibilities can become paralyzing. If you feel like you have too much to do, it might be time to restructure your to-do lists in order to adjust the priorities of your responsibilities. Perhaps you rephrase your tasks as questions, or maybe you start following the 1-3-5 to-do list rule, but whatever you decide, be sure to constantly question the priority level of the work you must complete. Also, be transparent with your manager if you truly feel like you have too many responsibilities to manage. Speaking up might spur a conversation around how to adjust your role to better fit your needs, or better yet, to bring in another team member to share your workload.

Challenge #4: My team is too small.

Here’s the thing: No matter the size of your team, you will likely always feel as though you need another teammate (or five!) to reach your goals. When you feel this way, it’s a good sign you’re setting BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals), which is what every team should strive for. If you truly have resourcing issues, it’s always worth talking with your manager to understand your team’s hiring plan as your insight will be helpful in putting together a job description for your next teammate. If you’re in management, be sure to work directly with your teammates to figure out where your biggest resource constraints lie before asking for additional headcount. Which leads us to our next challenge…

Challenge #5: I don’t have a budget.

When it comes to budget, gaining access to more is all about proving your product’s ROI. Because mobile teams typically struggle to acquire budget, even at large companies, every dollar spent and returned on the mobile product is under incredible scrutiny from executives. By supporting your product through proving ROI ahead of time, you have a stronger business case for scaling your scope, team, budget, and product positioning within the company. But modeling ROI takes time, patience, and a whole lot of number crunching. For detailed calculations around how to model mobile ROI, check out our in-depth post on the topic to help you make the case for a bigger budget.

Challenge #6: Our competitors are moving faster/earlier than us.

This challenge primarily affects folks in leadership roles, but keeping momentum flowing and accelerating is an all-company effort. When your competition seems to jump ahead of you, it can be easy to get discouraged. Instead, try to use your frustration as fuel to take a step back and realign your goals and mission. Be flexible to change, and be willing to reorder priorities and projects based on what it will take to get ahead in the market. Above all, remember that it’s not just about the competition; shifting priorities can help you better deliver a product your customers will love.

Challenge #7: We only get a small volume of customer feedback.

As we’ve previously mentioned, gathering and implementing customer feedback is vital to the success of a mobile product. First, take a look at your current efforts to see where you can turn up the volume. Can you reach out to a larger segment of your customer base? Is there a better place to prompt customers for feedback within your mobile experience? What do you offer customers for their time once they share their feedback? All of these places are typically full of low-hanging fruit that can allow you to gather more customer feedback, which gives you a better sense of what customers want to see improved and changed.

Challenge #8: We have too many ideas and choosing one is hard.

Prioritizing features and product ideas is definitely challenging. We recommend gathering stakeholders and spending a morning (or even a full day) going through all of your current and upcoming project ideas. Once the room sees how many projects or ideas exist, it can be easier to prioritize based on a realistic amount of time. Also, be sure to invite your co-worker who is great with dates and scheduling to the meeting—it always helps to have a regimented planner in the room to keep the conversation on track!

Challenge #9: I don’t have the data I need to make educated decisions.

It sounds like you could benefit from setting up a mobile product management dashboard. An important element of any mobile product is being able to track, measure, and report on its progress, and a product management dashboard is a great way to do so as it keeps all of your relevant data in one location that’s shareable, easy to access, and (typically) updated regularly. We wrote a post covering five steps to set up a product management dashboard you’ll want to read before you begin. It might take a bit of time in the beginning, but tracking down the data you need to make decisions is entirely possible when approached strategically.

Challenge #10: I don’t have enough technical skill.

Have no fear! Boosting your technical skills can be the most intimidating place to start, but is one of the areas we get most excited about helping people tackle. Head back to the How to Improve Your Technical Skills section of this guide to take another look!

Challenge #11: I want a better work/life balance.

It’s as important (if not more!) to take care of yourself as it is to take care of your mobile product. If you’re feeling stretched too thin by your work, take time to seriously consider how to better balance your home life and professional life. If you don’t take the time to focus on you when you start feeling work/life balance stress, burnout is sure to follow. To start, we recommend checking out this list of 37 tips for a better work/life balance.

Challenge #12: Fragmentation in the market.

Fragmented markets occur when no one company is influential enough to move the market in a new direction, and typically affects small to mid-size companies. It may seem helpless, but you can actually leverage a fragmented market to your advantage within your product if you have the right mindset. If you’re battling market fragmentation, use it as an opportunity to differentiate your company and product, or to take advantage of the low barrier to entry customers will have with your brand. Your marketing expenses will typically be less than they might be in a more competitive market, so work with your marketing team to come up with some great campaigns highlighting the uniqueness of your mobile product.

Challenge #13: We hire out our development.

We all hear the horror stories of hiring out development, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Overseas developers can be your pocket aces, but only if you build and manage the team the right way. There are plenty of actions to take to ensure your hired out developers are truly invested in your product, like scheduling regular in-person meetings, offering company stock, and pay them a fair wage for your market. Check out this TechCrunch article for more great tips.

Challenge #14: I don’t have the authority to make decisions.

You might not have the final say, but most mobile PMs have more authority and influence than they might think. When it comes to signing off on or prioritizing new features, products, bug fixes, etc., let the data do the talking instead of allowing the decisions to be made with emotion. As a mobile PM, you have amazing insight into your mobile customer experience, and you have plenty of metrics to help support and rationalize your decision-making. Challenge yourself and challenge your team by finding data points to support your thoughts, and your influence might surprise you!

Challenge #15: We release with too many bugs.

Code reviews, beta tests, automated tests; there are many ways to test software and squash pesky bugs before they wind up in production. Take a look at the current process your engineering team follows in order to see where quick improvements can be made. The more technical you are, the better you’ll be able to understand how to fill the gaps in this process, so if this is a challenge you’re facing, we recommend brushing up on your developer-speak before you start.

Challenge #16: My product hasn’t hit product/market fit.

Once you hit market fit, everything generally becomes easier: expanding product usage, shortening your sales cycle, boosting your prices, etc. But while you’re waiting to hit market fit, learn as much as you can about what would make your product better from your customers. This is the time to dig into churn and understand why people are leaving, and what might have kept them around and paying for your product. Ask questions, gather feedback, and re-prioritize your product roadmap based on what you learn.

Challenge #17: People aren’t finding our app in the stores.

Discovering new apps in the sea of the app stores can be tricky, but with the right app store optimization strategy, you’ll be surprised at how much more discoverable your app can be. App store optimization, or ASO, requires thinking strategically about all components of your app’s descriptive content, including your title, description, keywords, screenshots, videos, and more. For some serious ASO knowledge, check out our guide The Guide to App Store Optimization.

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And there you have it! Hopefully the 17 tips above will help you conquer whatever mobile product management challenges are thrown your way.

To read more about facing mobile PM challenges head-on, and to level-up your mobile product management skills, grab your free copy of our guide, Mobile Product Management: New Trends & Data for 2017.

The post 17 Mobile PM Challenges and How to Overcome Them appeared first on Apptentive.