Off to the Valley

Peter Loving: We like to mirror the
product, the user journey to the

user's preferred buying process.

We don't really want to, give them,
forms for feedback, and we don't want to

put things in front of the user in that
journey that's going to create friction.

Rather, we create a journey that mirrors
how they want to review a product and

takes them through their process as
quickly as possible so that they can

validate or determine whether this
product is the best fit for them.

Prateek Panda: Hello and welcome back
to Off to the Valley, the podcast

where we explore the journeys of
entrepreneurs, innovators, and creators

shaping the SaaS landscape and beyond.

I'm your host Prateek Panda, and today we
are thrilled to be joined by Peter Loving,

a product design visionary and the founder
of UserActive, a UI and UX design agency

dedicated to enhancing SaaS experiences.

Peter founded UserActive with the mission
to help B2B SaaS companies elevate their

product experiences and drive growth
through thoughtful, user centric design.

Using a unique subscription based
model, UserActive doesn't just provide

design solutions, it becomes an integral
part and extension of your SaaS team.

Peter is also passionate about sharing
insights with the SaaS community,

helping founders and designers tackle
the unique challenges of scaling.

He runs an active community of
over 15000 members, and we are very

excited to have him here to share
his learnings and experiences.

Peter, great to have you on the show.

Peter Loving: Great.

Thank you for having me.

Prateek Panda: All right, let's get
started by knowing you a little bit more.

Can you tell me about your background?

Where were you born?

Where were you brought up?

What was your, environment like?

And what's gotten you
to where you are today?

Peter Loving: Well, I'm
from, the UK, from London.

And, I grew up there.

I'm currently based in Barcelona,
but we can talk about that

a little bit more later.

I feel I identified myself as a
creative person very early on.

I've always been interested and very
engaged in creative topics and activities.

Design was something that stood
out to me as, a really great, field

that, was very engaging for me.

I also enjoy some other
aspects of the arts.

So music, art, literature.

So, most creative topics
I excelled at in school.

For me in my direction, through
working through career, It's design

that appealed to me and I went
through to study design at university.

Once I finished, my university studies,
I worked in the field of design.

I translated from, being in the product
design sector and industrial design, so

3D, 3D products, consumer product design.

And I, transferred over to
designing for the web, for digital.

So, that was, at the beginning of my
career when I finished university and

I've been designing in the digital
space for 20 years, now and also run

UserActive, design agency for B2B SaaS.

So, that's my background and my interest
in creative, activities and the creative

field is what brought me into design
and subsequently to launching my agency.

Prateek Panda: That's amazing.

I have a few follow up questions.

One is you did mention that you
studied design in university.

Since you've gone to university to study
design, do you think a formal education

in design is necessary to build a good
career in design or what would be your

advice to people who are young and still
starting out in the field of design?

Peter Loving: Yeah, for design, because
it's a trade, a craft and a skill, I see,

qualifications in design as very valuable.

You certainly can have self taught
designers, but, my background in

design through academic studies in the
university, it taught me some really

strong design thinking, design principles,
design processes, which stayed with

me throughout my whole working career.

We also hire a lot of designers.

So I go through screening candidates,
reviewing their CVs and portfolios.

Quite consistently the top
designers have some kind of

qualification or education in design.

They come from a design background.

Most often that could be a university
degree in some design discipline,

but often we find good candidates
who've gone through a UI UX or product

design boot camp, and they've done
some intensive course or studying.

And at least then they have the
grounding for good design thinking

and good design principles and theory.

We find it very difficult to take a
candidate who doesn't have that and, train

them because, that takes a big investment.

And often, some resistance to the
design thinking from a candidate who

hasn't been exposed to it before.

I would advise on a formal qualification
doesn't have to be a university

degree, although they are very good,
the principles, the theories of design

processes and an understanding of
design thinking, how to communicate your

designs, a lot of those strong skills
come from a good academic background.

Prateek Panda: Awesome, talking
about principles of design, can

you share something about design
that seems pretty obvious, but

people tend to miss it very often.

Like often people might think it being
a very obvious thing, but maybe it's

not, anything that stands out to you.

Yeah, I would say, the thing
that stands out the most of all

is about simplicity in design.

People who are interested in design
and they want to become good designers

Peter Loving: have or understand
the skill completely and they

quite often misinterpret it.

Quite often a designer who hasn't got
a lot of theory and background and

skills will, um, try to style something.

They go for stylizing something
and they might make the something

look, very styled in a certain way.

But that's not necessarily good design.

Often that can contribute to bad design.

What's very difficult is to make
something simple but also make it very

usable and enjoyable and easy to use.

So the functionality being simple
and easy to use and the form of

something being very intuitive,
not confusing at all to use.

A good example of this might be some of
the design that Apple has been, doing for

the last two decades from the iMacs to
the iPads to the iPhones, the products

themselves are incredibly simple.

The tablets and everything, they're
really just the screen and casing.

But to design something that simple
with good functionality is incredibly

difficult task, and it takes a lot
of design iterations and hard work.

That's really the key to having something
that's well designed and simple is a

big part of our challenge and it often
gets, overlooked or, underestimated.

Prateek Panda: Yeah, the moment you
said that, one thing came to my mind

and it's covered heavily in this book
called The Design of Everyday Things.

They talk about the door.

If you have to write, whether somebody
has to pull or push the door, then that

itself beats the purpose of good design.

If you have to tell people how
to use a door, it means that

you've not built it simple enough.

Peter Loving: Exactly.

So for people who have an interest
in design, they might read this book.

In university, we were given this book
as part of our syllabus we all read

that book and that's what I mean about
having the academic background, you

learn the core principles of design one
of those is in the form of something

should tell you how to use it, the way
that it's designed and the way it looks

should make it intuitive for your brain
to push on a door rather than pull.

And we've all, come across doors
where you push or pull and find out

that you've done the right thing.

You try to push it when you can only
pull and sometimes they have a sign.

That's part of design thinking
that, it's good to learn some of

those simple lessons and theories.

Prateek Panda: That's awesome.

You worked with a lot of SaaS
founders and, I've worked with a

lot of SaaS founders, primarily
helping them on the marketing side.

I've also experienced this, that, they
are, amazing as far as, their technical

strengths are concerned, but more often
than not, they invest a lot of their

mental bandwidth, into the technicality
of the product, and often miss out on

how do you message it for your audience?

Or maybe in your experience,
how do you make it more usable?

Have you had any experiences as such
where you've come across amazing products

technically, but very poor usability.

And that's what is, hampering growth.

Peter Loving: The outcome of some
of our work, we measure the impact

that we've had on behavioral
metrics and usability metrics.

The impact of our work usually
helps software founders to increase,

signups improve utilization.

Improve conversion rates,
such as free trial to paid

conversions, or, account expansion.

So, we can measure the impact of design
with these things, but ultimately what

we're doing is taking a product, making it
much more enjoyable to use, better to look

at, easy to understand and more intuitive.

Prateek Panda: That's great.

Let's take one of those examples,
because it might help the audience

understand a little bit more
about how to think about design.

Let's say somebody comes to you with the
idea that they want to know whether their

free trial to paid conversion is good
enough or not, and then figure out a way

to increase the amount of conversions
they get from free trial to paid.

When they come to you, what would you

typically start to see, and what are
some metrics you start measuring to

get a sense of where they are at?

And then how do you think
about what areas to improve on?

Peter Loving: So what we usually
do is there's some form of review

or audit through the software
we spend a few sessions together

getting to know the product and
understanding, the signup flow.

This is how users go through the product.

And we basically make observations
and suggestions on things to improve.

It's quite easy for us to identify
areas or potential issues, because

we're very familiar with best
practice and good user flows for SaaS.

And what we then do is, look for areas
which we perceive will have the biggest,

negative impact on their conversion rates.

So typical things that we look
out for is, how is the onboarding?

Is the onboarding good?

Is it engaging?

Does it help users to understand
the value in the product?

Does it help them to experience the
value in a product quickly and easily?

Then we also look at what is the product
experience like when a user lands in

the product after they've signed up and
they're free to start using the product

and, going through tasks and workflows

We find when there's a lot of friction
or when things are confusing or

when the design, the UX is not very
intuitive or it's hard for users to

understand what the best features
are or how to find those features.

All of these things have a big impact.

So we're really just applying our kind
of blueprint of what makes a really

great onboarding and usable product.

And

applying that to each SaaS company
we come across sometimes we see areas

where we can make a huge impact and,
redesign those particular elements

of a product and, measure the race.

So.

some of our metrics that we
measure, in SaaS they can measure

a lot of metrics in their product,
but we like to keep it simple.

We like to, sometimes view session
recordings, but we also look at the

main conversion rates, free trial
to paid, what activity they're doing

during their free trial, how much
time they're spending in the software,

how many times they're logging in.

These simple metrics, can tell us a lot.

Prateek Panda: That's interesting.

Do you have any tips on this is coming
from an experience and I've heard

other marketers and product folks
also deal with this a lot of times you

have a variety of free trial users.

You're observing their sessions, and
you want to reach out to a few people.

You're struggling to get responses.

Are there any design methods in
product that can encourage feedback

collection or a way for people to get
on a call like you want to talk to

them about what's not working for them.

How do you do that more effectively?

Peter Loving: That depends on your model.

So the two main models are a sales led
approach or a product led approach.

With a sales led approach, you
have much more face to face time,

more, you know, points of contact.

So that might go through
demos, through sales calls.

And then you're also doing
onboarding the customer success.

So usually you have a higher kind of
touch approach and you are able to.

understand your prospects, concerns
and, objections, as they come up, with

a product led approach, we're really
making the product, do the heavy lifting

of, taking you through that journey.

What we like to do is mirror the
product, the user journey to the

user's preferred buying process.

We don't really want to, give them,
forms for feedback, and we don't want to

put things in front of the user in that
journey that's going to create friction.

Rather, we create a journey that
mirrors how they want to review a

product and takes them through their
process as quickly as possible so

that they can determine whether this
product is the best fit for them.

It's great to get feedback, but we don't
want to get feedback at the expense of

the, product experience and friction.

So, what do we do?

We might incentivize the user based
on things that are of value to them.

Could we offer them a free, 20 minute
setup call or onboarding call where we

provide them with support to help them
get their product, their account set up.

Is there any, kind of, free features
that we can let them try that they can

get value from to figure out if this
product is the right choice for them?

So we take that route rather than
the requesting information and

trying to get feedback from them.

We want to leave it in the hands of
the user to validate, if this product

is the right choice or not for them.

And by understanding the user completely
and what they want to achieve, we can

design the product so that it does
fulfill their requirements and, lead

towards them selecting that product
over the competitors in the market.

Prateek Panda: I think
that was very helpful.

Peter, let's switch gears a little bit.

You did mention.

The fact that you are currently based
in Barcelona, what got you to Barcelona?

You grew up in London, one of the
most metropolitan cities in the world.

What encouraged you to move.

Peter Loving: So like you say, London,
it's a great place to live and grow up.

If you're from London, you can
spend a lot of time living there.

You have your life, in the city and
your, friends and social group, people

who move there in their adult life,
they usually, what I've noticed is they

stay for say two or three years and then
move because the fast pace, of London

life is a great experience, but not
everybody wants to have that long term.

So, I did live there most of my life
until I was around 34 years old, and

then I decided that, I would work very
intensive, long hours and have a quite

demanding working week, but also, a
busy social life and you're always in

this fast paced metropolis kind of city.

And I got to a point in life where
I wanted to change from that.

So I wanted something a little more, how
could we say a more relaxed lifestyle with

more outdoors, more time, outside with a
better climate and better weather I have

family background from Barcelona, so my
mum's actually from here, and for me it

made sense as a place to relocate to.

It just has a slightly slower pace of
life, a healthier lifestyle, I think,

and more opportunities to be outdoors
and active than I found in London.

It just felt like a good
move for me at that time.

Prateek Panda: As business owners, we tend
to make a lot of decisions based on what's

going to be useful for the business.

Do you think by implanting yourself
in this environment that is more slow

paced, more relaxed, more outdoors,
more outdoor time, does it help

you work better as an entrepreneur?

Peter Loving: There have been some
aspects that have, been a lot better.

I think there's a healthier balance.

I also feel healthier physically with the
ability to be outdoors and more active.

You certainly have that in London,
but it takes a bit more discipline.

And based on whether you tend to spend
more time in the gym and the culture

in London is more around work and
social people would go for a drink.

The drinking culture is much
more prevalent in London.

Healthy, physically healthier.

I definitely feel that's
more here, in Barcelona.

Also just having more of a slower pace.

I think that's also good
for entrepreneurs because.

You have more of a, conducive environment
to reflecting or having time outside of

work, not everything's super fast paced.

So it also means your working
life, can adapt a little bit.

You can be more thoughtful.

However, I found some
challenges with it too.

Definitely, London is a much better
city to start a business and network.

And, I find that potentially would be much
easier for an agency to be based there.

And also culturally the pace of work from
my experience of Spanish companies in the

working culture is a little different.

We're much faster paced and I feel
like decisions and things move faster,

for, businesses in London and the UK.

There's a bit of a trade off there,
but one thing that helped balance

that out for us is that we focus on
SaaS and it means that our niche has

a, you know, a global customer base.

So.

When I was in London, a lot of business
came from network and contacts and,

being in the environment where we'd
be working with corporate companies.

However, since I've been here, most
of our customers come from online

activities, digital marketing outreach,
and we don't get to meet them as much.

We work more through, zoom or Google meet.

It means that we've had
more of a global reach.

So, yeah, there's trade offs.

But overall, I'm, I'm much happier with
the move and it just was at the right

time as well at that stage for me.

Prateek Panda: That's amazing.

I've been to Barcelona once and it
was definitely one of my favorite

places, but it's been a while.

It was maybe about eight
years ago, 10 years ago.

Hopefully, another trip
is on the card soon.

Tell me a little bit about
the agency business, right?

It's hard.

It's grueling.

You know, customers come and go.

What are some tips for agency founders
to make their businesses stand out?

What are you doing to make yourself stand
out, and make yourself more resilient?

Peter Loving: That's a really
good question because I think

this type of business is
particularly challenging to run.

You have high fixed costs
because you employ a workforce.

That is the majority of the overhead.

There's always a demand to
find new clients, replace

clients as contracts finish

or come to an end.

They're generally high ticket projects,
so the things to keep in mind is,

definitely finding a good route to
market that works for you, that you

can get a reliable stream of leads
and understand your close rate.

You know, if you have, 30 leads,
how many of those turns into, you

know good sales opportunities.

And then how many do you close
and finding good channels that

help you make that consistent.

For me, that's been the hardest
part of running this business.

And it always, I mean, I never
feel like it's completely solved.

That's why I think it's certainly
a place for me where I put a lot

of emphasis and a lot of priority.

The other side to this is making sure
that the delivery is really high quality

and you're delivering a great service.

So we're focusing on
really those two areas.

It's like the route to market,
the customer acquisition, but

also the fulfillment, making
sure that we do a great job, that

customers are really happy with us.

To answer your point about

Prateek Panda: how we stand
out, I think the key area

Peter Loving: for that is niching as
much as you can, finding a really good

niche, and, focusing on that niche
and always going deeper to, focus on

one key message or one key problem
that makes you stand out because the

agency world is, very competitive.

There are many agencies, but if you
are focusing on one specific thing,

then you don't really compete with
all the other agencies You're just

really building out your own value
that you bring and that's what we've

worked on to achieve that ourself

Prateek Panda: And that's great advice.

Peter.

Thanks for sharing that.

From a design perspective, do you
think there is a timing where you start

investing more heavily into design?

Or is this something that should be
like, whatever day zero principle?

Peter Loving: What I see is software
companies often start building a product

and they start off with a technical
team with engineers and they need to

get their product out into the market.

They want to see, if they can sign
up customers, if they can start

to grow and get some traction, and
what we call product market fit.

If they can get to that stage,
they start getting revenue.

They also, might look for funding,
either they go the bootstrapped route

where they, invest some of their own
money and they try to build based on,

customer revenues, which is, challenging.

You always need investment for
software for product business.

What we've seen is that software companies
usually if they have a technical team

they've started off with engineers, they
usually need to engage with design around

the seed stage because they will have a
product that, is functional, technically

it could be really strong, but it might
not have the best UI, UX, and some of the

early customers start to notice that, and
the team will start to prioritize design.

In bootstrapped companies, we see
that may come a little later down

the line as they, take a little
longer to build that revenue.

And for companies that have a sensibility
for design, maybe they have a founder

who has a background or an appreciation
for design, they will try to engage with

that and prioritize that sooner as well.

But generally what we see is around
the seed stage funding period.

Prateek Panda: That's interesting to know.

You did share an example
from Apple about good design.

Are there any SaaS products that you
take a lot of design inspiration from

that you think are really well designed.

Peter Loving: Yeah, we tend to
really look at some of the industry

leaders because, you know, they'll
have big budgets that they can spend

on talented product design teams.

They've got great product
teams, great designers.

Ones that we like on our team
are the usual kind of software

companies that everybody aspires to.

So, products like Notion,
ClickUp, Monday, tools like that.

We also like Loom, they have
good UI, UX, certainly ClickUp

and Monday are complex products.

So to maintain a good UI and good user
experience gets more and more challenging.

The more complex the product is, but
the products with less functionality and

features like Loom, or like Calendly,
keeping the design simple, but also having

an appealing, easy to use interface.

We like the way that they've
managed to maintain that.

Also, Notion has quite a clean design,
and it has, heaps of functionality

and features, but the UI is pretty
intuitive and pretty neat and tidy.

Prateek Panda: Yeah, have you
had any experience helping out a

customer reduce churn using design?

Peter Loving: So we've done,
product improvements to help,

make the product stickier.

Help provide a better user
experience so that companies

stick with the product longer.

We've also designed some cancellation
flows When users are thinking about

cancelling or they want to explore it,
we've designed some flows to see if we

can provide them with support and resolve
any challenges they're having so they

don't necessarily go through with their
cancellation process And if they really

want to cancel we also would ideally like
to get some feedback from them So that's

how we've had some experience there, too

Prateek Panda: Okay, that's great.

Thanks, Peter.

As we come to the end of this
session, I want to ask you

something fairly unconventional.

If you had the chance to take
someone out to lunch or dinner,

who would that person be?

And why?

Peter Loving: Okay.

So from a design context, I think
it would be Johnny Ive from Apple

because, he came from a traditional
product design background he studied

industrial product design at university.

And then his experience at Apple, some of
his designs were, observed by Steve Jobs

who started to get into discussions with
Johnny Ive about designing the iMac and

they released the new colorful versions
that were iMacs in all different colors

and the transparent, you know, see through
iMacs tinted with the different colors.

So, that was a really
pivotal moment in Apple.

When Steve Jobs returned to the
company and later they really

doubled down on, They're, they're
prioritization of great product design.

And I think that made all the difference.

Since then, Johnny and I have
had a huge pivotal impact in,

the design ethos at Apple.

So it'd be interesting to
hear from him about that.

Prateek Panda: That's amazing.

Can you think of someone non design also?

Peter Loving: Non design would be good.

Does it have to be somebody alive or
does it have to be somebody living?

Prateek Panda: Not necessarily.

If you could go back in time, it could
be somebody who is not living anymore.

Peter Loving: One of my other
passions that I really love is music.

So, I think I would pick, one of,
the musicians that has made a big

impact on me from appreciating
their music and creativity.

So I'd probably pick one of the Beatles
and I think I'd pick, John Lennon

Prateek Panda: That's amazing!

Do you know what you would ask him?

Peter Loving: I'd ask him how
he wrote the song Imagine.

What was the inspiration?

How did that song come to him?

Prateek Panda: You mentioned, when we
started off the conversation, that,

ever since your early childhood,
you had this inclination towards

creative, activities, right?

Do you think there was something that
helped you sort of sharpen that, or

do you think that was innate in you?

Peter Loving: I think that, If I look
at my family background, there are

creative people, there are art directors,
architects, photographers, so there seems

to be a creative streak in my family.

Also I think my parents were,
also, had passion for, for

literature and art, and music.

So, as a, young person, I think I was
exposed to a lot of, those, you know,

that kind of subject matter and those
kind of fields, and that definitely,

I think that, had an impact on my
appreciation for creativity in the arts.

And, also when I found an
interest in it, it certainly felt

encouraged or natural to pursue it.

I also feel that somehow the way I
think and the way, my brain operates

means that I'm well suited to creative
tasks and problem solving, it seems

to come naturally for me, whereas
more practical subjects that don't

have the creative element, I struggle
with those kind of tasks much more.

So I definitely think I'm more
inclined, to creative tasks.

Probably I perform better
in creative tasks than, than

practical non creative tasks.

Prateek Panda: Thanks for sharing, Peter,
as we wrap up, do you have any last piece

of advice for SaaS founders listening
to this, especially about design?

Peter Loving: About design, think
about design as early as you can afford

to and also when you do think about
design, think about it from the context

of, making life easier for the user,
designing for them, what will be a

good experience for them, removing.

any thinking difficulty or challenge
they might have in using your software.

So that takes skill to be
able to think and do that.

But, definitely designing from
the point of view is bringing

value that you can to the user.

Sometimes people design thinking about
what they would like from the user

so they try to guide them through
paying or something else before

but we really need to give them a
great experience with the product.

So that I think that'll be my advice
from design on it in other areas.

I mean I have never built and run a
software company, so those are not skills

that I'm able to advise on, but certainly
for design, we do it day in, day out, and,

I can always give great advice on design.

Prateek Panda: Awesome.

Thank you so much, Peter.

This was a great conversation.

Thank you so much for taking out time.

I'm sure people listening to this
episode have taken, a lot of, bits of

information that can be very actionable.

Thank you so much again
for spending time with us.

Peter Loving: Yeah, thank you Prateek,
I really enjoyed the conversation and

appreciated some of your questions
there, not just focusing on design and

career, but also a bit of background, so
that was fun, thank you for having me.

Prateek Panda: And that
wraps up today's episode.

Before we sign off, I would like
to thank you for your support

and thanks for tuning in.

If you loved today's episode.

Then don't forget to subscribe to this
podcast and never miss an episode.

Be kind, be happy, challenge the norm.

I'll see you folks again for the next one.