ABOUT
pennypost was a small, boot-strapping start-up that had built a progressive web app that helps users send real postcards. Users can customize printed postcards with personal photos and send to friends & family anywhere around the world from their phone or PC. The website had never been touched by a designer and was built by developers into a lean functional product. They wanted to move past the seed round onto the next step of funding from angel investors.
As the company's first lead designer and researcher, I was tasked with doing whatever was necessary to make the prelaunch a success. My objective was to optimize design in order to increase traffic and users during the prelaunch of the website in order to make pennypost a more attractive investment for potential seed investors. I led the whole design process from start to finish working with the founder and lead developer and a team of 3 other remote developers.
In a very competitive market for postcard making apps, I researched and identified the specific niche and need for pennypost. I also designed and tested the layout of the landing page to tell a compelling, personal story about using pennypost as a heartfelt way to strengthen relationships.
THE PROCESS IN BRIEF
THE BUSINESS GOAL
Design a successful prelaunch to attract investors at the angel stage.
THE PROBLEM
At least 11 postcard making-apps already exist. The novelty and excitement that is critical to a successful prelaunch on Product Hunt is gone.
Also major usability issue: how to collect addresses without ruining the surprise of receiving a postcard?
RESOURCE CONSTRAINTS
Designs must be quick simple and easy to implement due to limited man power and funding.
SOLUTION: Use high quality, free stock photos from Unsplash.
COMPROMISE: improve the current existing method by removing simple to fix pain points and table a bigger fix for later.
THE STRATEGY
Carve niche with clear branding and message; and lower expectations.
DESIGN QUESTION 1
Are users motivated by narcissim or desire to strengthen relationships?
ANSWER: Strengthen relationships.
DESIGN QUESTION 2
Do users prefer glossier high fidelity photos or more authentic lower fidelity photos?
ANSWER: High fidelity.
DESIGN QUESTION 3
How to translate identity as brand?
ANSWER: See style guide.
THE RESULTS
199 up votes
23 Reviews
We didn't get top 3 but we were in the top 10-20 products on the main landing page for over 15 hours. For the last 10 hours of the hunt, Amazon's new product and pennypost battled it out with us ahead until the 25th hour.
A message from the founder:
"I wanted to thank you again for all your help with Product Hunt. Your ideas, docs, and insight helped me to solo launch pennypost to much success. We didn't get top 3 but we were in the top 10-20 products on the main landing page for over 15 hours. For the last 10 hours of the hunt, Amazon's new product and pennypost battled it out with us ahead until the 25th hour. It was hectic!
PH is defs like a game and Im glad we made the leaderboard with help from Matthew Brimer and the founder of Product Hunt!"
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Similar postcard-making app competitors' taglines and niches. Many similar concepts were already released on Product Hunt, decreasing the chances of the popularity for pennypost since the novelty aspect has long since been taken.
At least 11 other similar products have been released on Product Hunt. The most recently released Skip the Stamps received poor reception, with only 56 upvotes and comments about similar pre-existing products. However, Mailjoy, the physical mail form or Mailchimp, which was released only a week before that received a record 929 upvotes and the 2nd spot on the coveted Product of The Day list, indicating that there are more complex factors such as niche and brand familiarity can also boost popularity.
I looked at each of the competitor's website to determine what demographic and niche they were targeting.
QUESTION 1: WHAT MOTIVATES USERS TO SEND POSTCARDS?
NARCISSISM OR FRIENDSHIP?
After we had decided to target Millennial travelers, one of the first questions we needed to answer was what need does pennypost fulfill exactly? Are postcards being used as bragging rights or trophies for recent travels, or is a desire to connect and strengthen relationships the impetus motivating the users?
I interviewed and tested the 2 different mock-ups on 4 potential users and found that message of nurturing friendships was more appealing. We also found that, although the lower fidelity photos were more authentic and closer to what they would be sending themselves, they preferred to see examples of professional quality photos used for the example postcards because it gave the website a more professional and luxurious feeling.
TRANSLATING THE BRAND
Personality: Fun & Effortless
We decided to reflect the founder's own story of circumnavigating the world and personality in pennypost's brand. It was important to make pennypost stand out visually and in story in order to maximize every aspect we could to make pennypost stand out from its competitors and feel compelling to potential users.
I created this decision making map for the typography to help decide what font to use. The founder and I decided that G. "Permanent Marker" and H. "Neutra Text" conveyed the right amount of the casual, modern and easy vibe that we wanted to brand pennypost with.
THE DELIVERABLES
