As I created, and then destroyed their company
Interesting story about how burnout the owner was able to kill quite promising it company.
Five years ago, with one label articles on "habré" began the history UXhot. Then with the filing of "Business Youth" is not only lazy did landings and the belief in them was so strong that very soon it was impossible to stick his arm in free space, not to get into a landing page. While the vast majority of the quality was so low that I wanted to poke my eyes out from another countdown timer or megabridge.
The article "Everyone at the Landing Page. Sore" was the cry of the soul, however, pursued a specific goal — to show that even the creation of seemingly simple and primitive landing page (so that there is something complicated?) must be accompanied by at least a minimal attempt to understand the nature of the business and the needs of the target audience. Hitting a sore point of public outrage, the article quickly gained a quarter of a million views was copied a dozen times, received a lot of expert responses and formed a tight stream of customers for several years ahead.
Clients liked my approach to developing a landing, so despite the very overheated market and higher than "the average hospital" price list, chose me.
In truth, I was not ready for such rapid developments. No office, no team. Was only I — UX designer with good technical background that enabled me in the beginning to close all stages, from the design to the layout of the landing page yourself.
Very soon the volumes began to exceed the capacity. So a team, and with it the first office is a small, walk-through room to sublease from stagnant outdoor advertising Agency.
Delegating visual design and frontend development, I focused on the most important things that allowed us to strongly discordant with the other offerings on the market. The process was structured in such a way that the UI designer was getting ready, in a high granularity prototype with almost final texts. And its design I did.
Contrary to current market trends formulaic approach, I individual approach to each project, paying great attention to research and interview with each of the participants of the business, from the CEO to sales managers.
Talking about actual experiences, in the process of deep tete-a-tete interview, I have managed quite a deep dive into the characteristics of each specific business and extract the really important knowledge that formed the basis for the subsequent interface.
This approach allowed us to move more consciously: don't copy blindly competitors or implement unnecessary wishlist of customers, and to create a really convenient and useful for the target audience products, which effectively decided the required business objectives.
For whatever topic we undertook, whether it is a service of SMS-mailing, travel Agency, cases for smartphones, stones for whiskey or assistance to students — each project was self-identity and effective. And landing for mechanized plaster has become almost an industry standardthat produced hundreds of direct and indirect copies.
The rapid growth
Quite quickly we formed a pool of clients who needed something more than just a landing page. So we came to the service support. For a guaranteed monthly remuneration, we have systematically continued to work on the development of the project and without realizing it, turned into a boutique Agency.
Wanting to withdraw from customers the shipment of Internet marketing, I wanted to provide a complete service from a single window. Therefore, the service development of website added search engine optimization, contextual advertising and crowd-marketing. Our customers can focus on developing your business without being distracted by ongoing discussions with different contractors. Many even stopped to wonder what and how we do. The main thing that was the result. And he was.
This period was the most entertaining in the history of the company. We moved into a new, spacious office in the business centre and has grown to ten employees, not including freelance.
The first day in the new office immediately after the repair
We have practically ceased to accept orders for landing pages, focusing on the development of permanent projects and the creation of large sites.
During the "coupon rush" when everyone first website of plastic Windows were full of severe dumping, we launched the "Windows of the Future", where, turning to the other values, was able to download to a full, and after a while again lifted the market, identifying and taking the absolutely free segment of the "Windows installation".
Much lifted the bar, making a new website for HR service provider Smart Solutions, forcing the competitors to catch up urgently. It's been three years since the launch, and the site is still one of the best in the niche of helping companies from year to year to grow several times.
Redefined the website of the manufacturer of coatings "Element Ukraine", helped to enter the international market, the call center Simply Contact, and then another and dozens of others from various companies.
During this period of development, I received an offer of investment. Successful serial entrepreneur and offered help and money in exchange for the share, but I'm being overconfident, politely declined. We grew so fast that I just could not believe in the possibility of failure.
The first problems
Along with the growth has started and the first problems. The increase in services and number of employees has created an increased load on me. As it turned out, I unknowingly had egocentrical all communication between staff and decision-making. This position has allowed us to grow rapidly in the beginning, without creating difficulties for several employees, but turned into a real problem with increased staff and growth objectives.
Realizing the problem, we began to learn how to interact and make decisions independently. It gave results, but the load was still high. All because I was still the only person in the company who sold, communicated with clients, managed projects and engineered interfaces.
Wanting to focus on the development of the company, I tried to delegate the UX, but none of the hired UX designers of different levels and did not come close to what is needed.
Being the "narrow neck" from time to time I was the cause of failure of promising prasalov or project deadlines. It was harder to follow the development of the company and the quality of services. Head appeared more often thoughts about burnout.
To stop moral stagnation, I changed my eating habits, joined a gym and began to learn English. After a while I managed to fall in love with salads, and lose 15 kg and to Upper-Intermediate level. Energy increased considerably.
In this photo I lost the first 7 lbs. there is still the same
At this time, "alpha-Bank Ukraine" launched a competition for the best interface for its mobile banking applications. I have long wanted something to design for mobile, and the chance was excellent. Throwing everything and plunged headlong into the task, just five days have developed the concept and designed key screens, details of which will be written on "habré". And still later, the team painted the prototypes and designed everything in a full case.
Working on the interface of the mobile application for "Alfa Bank Ukraine", I suddenly realised I have not felt such a powerful enthusiasm and condition of the stream. I realized that my daily tasks have become routine and no longer brings former enjoyment. However, the interface design of mobile apps gave a lot of new challenges and captures me entirely. I began to actively visualize a large mobile app project.
And in between visualizations amused usability audits of random projects. Writing "can money? Usability audit of the site to three million" and then "How marketers "Maksidoma" lose millions zaigryval Growth in marketing: independent usability audit", I could not imagine what a big role they will play in my render.
Crisis
Working with regular customers I unconsciously got into a comfort zone and have practically ceased doing anything to attract new. When some of the old customers, for various reasons, began to fall away, and all the old activity ceased to generate leads, the company faced a crisis spodvigshaya me to write again. By this time we already had a significant number of cases worthy of attention.
On behalf of the company we spoke about the experience of launching a new service for a long time formed the market, about creating a new niche in the window market in Moscow, the work on the website of the company on repair of apartments.
But the most successful and failed was "the Story of one landing has attracted clients for many millions of rubles and was copied a hundred times". Article all day hung on the main page vc.ru receiving large by the standards of site coverage (now over 40 thousand views) as well as on "habré" (48 thousand views) and attracted a total of more than 100 leads. The problem was that most of them wanted landing (which I was not interested in doing) with the same thorough and efficient approach, but for 500 rubles, of course.
However, the article worked, and we found customers that allowed to emerge from the crisis.
One of the new clients was the company Fornex. As it turned out to be a very successful hosting with a large pool of customers and excellent level of service. However, when visiting the website of the company a year earlier, the visitors without a recommendation could only guess at. Those rare lucky ones who still wanted to become a customer, faced lot of difficulties, forming a decidedly negative impression of the company as a whole.
While reviewing the flow of an order, without major changes, we were able in the first iteration to significantly improve conversion. And over time, reworking all the key landing pages to increase the number of new customers significantly.
The closing of the company
Out of the crisis only a short-term impact on my inner attitude. I'm still trying to completely surrender to the work and were given a high level of quality. It was spent much more energy and time than in the past. There are more frustration and cheap dopamine. The neighboring pastry shop has become a favorite place for lunch and informed to throw pounds began to return.
However, the real impetus to the decision to close the company was commissioned to design a mobile application-Wellness-the marketplace for the American market (keep in mind my render?). This was the mega project, full of new challenges, I've been waiting for. With unprecedented enthusiasm for a long time I literally snapped to work on it, giving at the mercy of the team the rest of the routine.
I began to come to the office before anyone else. Every day I experienced the exhilaration of flow. I gushed with energy and for the first time again, enjoyed the work.
And finally admitted to myself that UXhot long become a burden. I realized that the desire to grasp all at once was a mistake that led to my burnout. I realized that I wanted to focus on what I really always was more interested User Experience Design.
The thought of closing the company had been in the air for a long time, so the staff was not a big surprise when one morning, parked the car at the office, I suddenly felt that the time had come.
Dismissing the staff and successfully completing the work on the design of the app marketplace, I needed to be distracted. So after a few weeks my family went to winter on the island of Tenerife. Resting for several months under the warm sun, I suddenly realized that previously have never in my life have so long absented himself from work. Earlier even on vacation I can't stop thinking about work and related issues. I realized how much was truly free for the first time in many years, and once lost the energy again fills me.
Conclusion
In the five years we have launched a hundred projects, from static odnotrahniki to large, technically complex websites. Worked with a variety of businesses, from startups to large companies. Stepped on a slippery slope binary options. Fixed interface bugs Dating application with millions of viewers.
Never resorted to paid advertising and most of the time did not have its own website. Even what is now available on uxhot.com — next, a temporary palliative.
However customers have found us and was willing to wait in the moments when we could not take the project work immediately. With many of them we have built a long relationship and parted friends.
We were chosen not for ratings, the trend of design, or dumping. Business focus and understanding of the underlying purposes of the creation of a product is highly discordant with the fact that customers are heard before accidentally found us.
At the close we had enough clients and the means for operating activities. My management mistakes and wrong priorities, and finally kill the energy that was the only reason.
* * *
Now, after returning from vacation, I focused on consulting and usability audits helping to look at the project from a fresh perspective or introduce Custdev in the processes of the company. Continue to visualize the next ambitious project of a mobile application.
Also plan to resume the practice of writing public usability audits. You can propose your own project to the next.
