Zach Stevens is one of the co-founders of Conversion Factory, a marketing agency that works with growth-stage software companies. He runs their design team and has spent years helping SaaS brands go from scrappy to polished — without losing what makes them unique.

I wanted to talk to Zach because he's a growth-focused designer. He doesn't just make things look good — he thinks about how design serves the business. And in this episode, we get into how to define your brand's vibe, why stealing from the right references matters, and how to make sure your design supports your marketing instead of fighting against it.

🧠 What you'll learn in this episode:
0:00 - Intro
0:25 - Who Zach is and what Conversion Factory does for SaaS companies
1:00 - Zach's origin story: from almost joining the Marines to meeting mentors who shaped Amazon's brand strategy
4:45 - The difference between a designer who just makes things pretty and one who solves business problems
7:15 - Aphantasia: why some people can't visualize ideas and what it means for design
11:50 - How Zach defines taste as a designer
13:58 - The Gap by Ira Glass: why your taste develops faster than your skills
17:27 - Why great brands are stolen, not created — and how Liquid Death proves it
21:20 - How AI changes the role of creative direction (you don't need to draw it yourself anymore)
23:40 - When beautiful design hurts conversions: the Adeline website breakdown
30:06 - The fine line between design that serves marketing and design that's just art
34:35 - How to add humanity to SaaS websites without looking like a stock photo catalog
38:43 - Why the emotion you want to convey matters more than how technical your audience is
43:12 - The branding spectrum exercise: masculine vs feminine, luxury vs affordable, subtle vs expressive
47:09 - Brands on fire vs brands on ice: how to stay creative without losing consistency
50:43 - Why typography alone can completely shift your brand's vibe
53:53 - The Mentor Cruise rebrand: from utilitarian to premium using vintage Porsche ads as inspiration
1:00:04 - How much should founder taste influence brand direction?
1:04:04 - Zach's favorite products right now: Cora, Mile IQ, and ChatGPT for thinking out loud

💡 Actionable takeaways from Zach
Steal these quick wins:

Define the feeling before the visuals. Before picking colors or fonts, ask: "How do I want people to feel when they interact with my brand?" Everything else follows from that answer.

Use the branding spectrum exercise. Map where your brand sits on spectrums like masculine vs feminine, luxury vs affordable, subtle vs expressive. It helps you spot mismatches before you start designing.

Steal from what makes you feel the way you want others to feel. Zach's team pulled from vintage Porsche ads for Mentor Cruise because Dominic wanted that timeless, premium vibe. Find your reference points outside your industry.

Design should serve marketing, not lead it. If your website looks amazing but the message gets buried, you've prioritized aesthetics over conversions. Copy first, then design around it.

Add humanity carefully. Photos of people can make your SaaS feel more relatable — but only if the vibe matches. A playful brand like PostHog uses pixel art hedgehogs instead of faces. Match the emotion, not the tactic.

Typography sets the tone. The same sentence in a geometric sans-serif feels modern and clean. In a serif with thick-to-thin contrast, it feels wise and nostalgic. Pick fonts that match your intended feeling.

Stay between fire and ice. "Brands on fire" are chaotic — nothing matches. "Brands on ice" are boring and rigid. The best brands have consistency with room for spontaneity depending on context.

A scarf shaped like a receipt. Random Amazon finds.

People took screenshots and shared it on Twitter and LinkedIn.

That's the kind of marketing brain I wanted on the podcast.

Marc's path: magazine journalist → SaaS founder (live polling tool) → Head of Growth at Powered by Search (working with $10-100M ARR clients) → Growth at Podia → now independent lifecycle marketing consultant.

What I appreciate about him: he doesn't look or feel like a typical marketeer. More playful, more artistic. He understands the fundamentals but puts a creative twist on everything.

🧠 What you'll learn in this episode:

0:00 - Intro
1:01 - Marc's journey from journalism to SaaS marketing
9:51 - Why tactical playbooks are dead by the time you hear them
15:25 - The Senja annual upgrade email that went viral
19:27 - How Podia found undervalued influencers in their own user base
26:07 - How Marc defines taste (and the Tony Wilson / Factory Records story)
31:00 - Habits for developing your creative taste
34:47 - Why filtering yourself kills your best ideas
37:49 - The "money moments" framework for lifecycle marketing
40:13 - How Podia restructured onboarding based on actual buying behavior
44:29 - Why you're probably not sending enough email (and the data to prove it)
47:31 - How many emails to send in an onboarding sequence
50:54 - The key emails every trial sequence needs
54:09 - Marc's favorite tools: Sunsama, Whisper Flow, Manus

💡 Steal these quick wins from Marc:

1. Separate strategic from tactical playbooks. Strategic = "emails help because people live in their inbox." Tactical = "do this exact LinkedIn ad format." Strategic playbooks stay valuable. Tactical ones are saturated by the time you hear about them.

2. Find your money moments. Any moment where someone could give you money or take it away deserves a dedicated email sequence. Not just onboarding and win-back.

3. Send pricing early. Don't wait. Day 2 or 3 of your trial, send an email explaining your plans and who each one is for. People don't look at your pricing page as much as you think.

4. Send more email than feels comfortable. At Podia, they went from 4 emails/month to 12. Result: 12% bump in paid conversions on email days, with a trailing effect for days after. Another client saw 60% revenue increase on email days.

5. Front-load your onboarding. Day 1 and 2 are the most important. Marc sends 2-3 emails on day 1 alone for some clients. Then taper off: daily for week 1, then less frequent through day 30.

6. Make your emails worth sharing. The Senja email worked because it was useful AND entertaining. Brand win + referral win in one.

She's worked with 100M+ brands, founded The Initial to help companies build experimentation in-house, co-founded Women in Experimentation, and teaches at CXL.

I invited her on Love at First Try to talk about something most SaaS teams get wrong: how to actually make data-driven decisions without overcomplicating it.

This episode is for you if you've ever thought "we don't have enough traffic to test" or "A/B testing is too expensive for us." Lucia challenges both of those assumptions.

🧠 What you'll learn in this episode:

0:00 - Intro: what this podcast is about and who it's for
0:25 - Who is Lucia and why experimentation matters for smaller SaaS teams
2:59 - The real difference between random testing and building an experimentation culture
6:36 - Why experimentation is actually about scaling leadership (insight from Booking.com)
9:15 - What counts as an "experiment" beyond simple A/B tests
11:32 - How a news website validated a 6-month feature before building it
12:57 - Why starting with removing elements is one of the biggest growth levers
16:22 - How to validate your data before trusting any experiment
19:05 - How to prioritize what to test (and where to start)
21:34 - Why you shouldn't segment your tests when you're just starting
25:41 - How to measure the right KPIs (including delayed metrics)
31:28 - Why you should never measure just one metric
36:45 - Real example: reducing churn in the first two weeks with a get started page
43:10 - Why "obvious UX improvements" still need testing (the humbling 20-30% win rate)
48:09 - The biggest mindset shift from junior to senior in experimentation

💡 Actionable insights from Lucia:

1. Start by removing, not adding
One of the biggest growth levers is removing elements from your pages. Most tools let you hide elements without code. Try removing a field, a section, or a step in your funnel. You'd be surprised how often less friction means more conversions.

2. Run an AA test before any real experiment
Before you trust your data, run an empty test (control vs. control). This tells you if your tracking actually works. Skip this and you might be making decisions on broken data.

3. Measure multiple KPIs, not just one
Pick a main metric, but always track 2-3 supporting metrics. If you're testing onboarding changes, measure signups AND activation AND delayed metrics like paid conversions. One number never tells the full story.

4. Consider negative testing
Instead of building a big new feature to test, try removing the opposite. Want to know if onboarding calls help? Test what happens when you remove them. You learn faster and cheaper.

5. Calculate the business case for "losing" metrics
Sometimes a test hurts one metric but helps another. If showing a phone number increases support calls but also increases conversions, do the math. The revenue might cover the cost.

What this episode is about

This is Love At First Try — a podcast about building SaaS products people actually love.

I sat down with Lewis Dingley, Senior Product Designer at VEED.io — the AI-powered video editor that's making video creation accessible to everyone.

Lewis has a wild background. Design school in France. Vehicle dashboards at Renault. TV products at Sky. Physical products at Dyson. And now — AI video tools at VEED.

What made me want to talk to him: VEED is building generative AI features you simply cannot design in Figma. Text-to-video. AI avatars. Image-to-video editing. Real AI models doing real things.

So how do you design for that? Lewis vibe codes. He prototypes with real APIs. He rebuilt an entire product in a day using Google AI Studio.

If you're designing AI-powered products (or thinking about it), this one's for you.

🧠 What you'll learn in this episode:

0:00 - Lewis's journey from French design school to Renault, Sky, Dyson, and VEED
5:22 - Why he left big corporations for startups and what changed
10:45 - Why product designers need to be closer to leadership
15:26 - Vibe coding: how Lewis rebuilt VEED's text-to-video product in one day
18:13 - Google AI Studio vs Lovable — which is actually useful for prototyping
21:04 - Why you should always present prototypes, never static screens
26:44 - The trick to making AI tools understand your design system
29:15 - How VEED's AI Playground integrates 30+ image and video models
34:00 - Why Kling's new model made months of their work obsolete overnight
36:29 - The biggest barrier for users is starting from scratch
44:01 - VEED's AI agent that nobody used and what it taught them
50:18 - Why education can't keep up with AI and what that means for designers
55:07 - Short-form video addiction and why Lewis uses Do Not Disturb mode
1:00:10 - Why some industries will never adopt new tech and that's okay
1:08:27 - How Lewis defines taste as a designer
1:12:25 - How he develops his taste with Mobbin, competitors, and adding his own ingredients
1:14:12 - His least favorite SaaS (Slack) and why he pitched them a podcast feature

💡 Actionable takeaways from Lewis

→ Prototype, don't design static screens. Present interactive prototypes to leadership instead of static Figma screens. Lewis says it's the difference between getting a "maybe" and getting a "wow, yes." Seeing is believing — especially when you're trying to get buy-in for new ideas.

→ Start with functionality, then UI when vibe coding. When using AI tools like Google AI Studio to prototype, build the working functionality first. Don't try to make it look pretty from the start — the AI gets confused and loses the functionality. Get it working, then refine the visuals.

→ Describe your design system in words, not just screenshots. AI tools are bad at replicating your UI from a screenshot alone. Instead, describe your design system: "minimalist design, these kinds of buttons, this iconography style." Once the AI understands the theme, it can generate consistent UI without constant screenshots.

→ Give users presets, not blank canvases. The biggest barrier for users is starting from scratch. Instead of asking them to write prompts or create from nothing, give them templates, presets, and examples they can tweak. Lewis saw this work at VEED — users don't want to type "sunrise lighting," they want to click a visual example.

→ Use Do Not Disturb mode aggressively. Lewis realized he was addicted to his phone — checking it every 10 seconds for notifications he didn't need. Now he uses Do Not Disturb so he only checks his phone when he has time, not when it demands attention.

→ Look at competitors and make it better. Lewis's approach to developing taste: research direct and indirect competitors, see what they're doing, then add your own ingredients. Don't start from scratch — start from inspiration and build on it.

I invited her on the podcast because she's one of the few growth people who actually cares about delight — not just conversions.

She calls it "user-centric product growth." And after this conversation, I get why.

🎙️ 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁

Kate and I go deep on taste, activation, and how AI is changing the way we onboard users.

If you're a SaaS founder or dev without a designer — and you want your product to feel intuitive without hiring a full UX team — this one's for you.

🧠 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗹𝗹 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲:

0:00 - Why taste is built through exposure (and how to train it)
4:12 - How your prompt reveals your taste in the AI era
8:45 - The risk of chasing speed and shipping "good enough"
12:30 - Why the best onboarding is no onboarding at all
16:20 - AI voice assistants that onboard users in real-time (Obby by Core)
21:15 - Agentic AI: giving commands instead of clicking through menus
26:40 - How Miro used pre-recorded humans to blend self-serve with human touch
30:10 - Domain matching: the activation tactic that grew Mobin's expansion revenue by 20%
35:25 - Fixing your core value action vs. adding more tooltips
38:50 - Mini aha moments: getting users to value in under 60 seconds
42:30 - Why users need to invest (the IKEA effect in SaaS)
45:00 - Kate's favorite apps: Granola and Dream Notes

💡 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗞𝗮𝘁𝗲

→ 𝗔𝗱𝗱 𝗱𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝘂𝗽 𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘄
When someone signs up with the same company domain as an existing user, prompt them to join that team instead of creating a solo account. This is how you turn individual users into expanding teams — without extra marketing spend.

→ 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
Find the one thing users need to do to experience your product's value. If that experience is broken or buried, no amount of tooltips will save you. Fix the core flow first.

→ 𝗔𝗶𝗺 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗶 𝗮𝗵𝗮 𝗺𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝟲𝟬 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝘀
Use AI to pre-fill content, pull data from their website, or generate a proof of concept on signup. It won't be perfect — but it builds momentum and motivates users to invest further.

→ 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹𝘀
If your onboarding relies on explainer videos, test a hands-on flow instead. Users learn by doing, not watching.

This one question changed how I think about copy.

Talia Wolf dropped this on the latest episode of Love at First Try — and I had to sit with it.

Talia has been doing conversion optimization for 13+ years. She built the Emotional Targeting methodology and runs GetUplift, an agency that's helped SaaS companies stop guessing and start converting.

I wanted her on because she's the person who taught me (through Chris Silvestri) that customers should write your copy — not you.

Most SaaS founders are "data-driven." They know their users' job titles, company size, location.

But they don't know why people actually buy. So they default to talking about themselves. Features. Pricing. Technology. And their landing page sounds like every other SaaS in their space.

Talia's framework flips this. You stop optimizing elements and start solving emotional problems.

🧠 WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

0:00 - How Talia went from social media marketing to building the emotional targeting methodology

4:37 - The survey question that gets customers to write your copy for you

9:16 - Why "data-driven" companies still fail at conversion

13:35 - A landing page example that nails emotional resonance (Prompt Cowboy)

17:37 - How to do emotional targeting when you have multiple ICPs

25:33 - The "what would you miss" question that reveals what customers actually value

32:14 - Why retention problems are often research problems, not feature problems

44:29 - How to actually use AI for customer research without getting garbage

50:14 - Why buying decisions now happen off your website (Reddit, LinkedIn, communities)

58:36 - How CRO is changing in the age of AI and LLMs

💡 STEAL THESE QUICK WINS

→ Replace "why did you sign up?" with "what happened in your life that made you look for this?" This forces customers to tell you the trigger, not just the surface reason. You get emotional context, not "pricing" or "needed a tool."

→ Ask: "If you could no longer use this product tomorrow, what would you miss most?" Instead of "what do you like about us?" — this reframes around loss. People reveal what they actually depend on, not what sounds polite.

→ When using AI for research, demand quotes from your data Tell ChatGPT: "Support every claim with 5 direct quotes from this dataset." Otherwise it hallucinates patterns that don't exist.

→ Treat your homepage as a springboard, not a catch-all Different ICPs need different journeys. Let them self-select where to go next instead of trying to speak to everyone at once.

→ Optimize your narrative across the web, not just your website Buying decisions happen on Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube. If you're not shaping the conversation there, you can't influence what AI tells buyers about you.

That's one of the lessons from my conversation with Mitchell Tan, co-founder of Kondo.

Kondo is the Superhuman for LinkedIn DMs — a tool that turns the messy LinkedIn inbox into something you actually want to use. Keyboard shortcuts, labels, split inboxes, reminders. Built by a 3-person team. No public roadmap. And they say no to almost everything users ask for.

I've been using Kondo for months and it's genuinely changed how I handle LinkedIn. If you use LinkedIn professionally, you have to try it.

So I had to get Mitchell on the podcast to understand how they think about product.

🧠 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗹𝗹 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲:

0:00 - What is Kondo and how it started
1:40 - From recruiting firm to building a Superhuman-inspired SaaS
7:45 - Why "copying" great products is harder than it sounds
9:11 - The invisible UX details that make Superhuman feel faster (even when it's not)
13:52 - How LinkedIn DMs are fundamentally different from email
19:43 - Why Kondo has no public roadmap and ignores most feature requests
23:52 - The 3-question framework to decide what to build next
38:52 - How to define your aha moment (and why it's different for everyone)
49:33 - Why one-on-one onboarding calls still matter (and when to stop doing them)
55:51 - Forcing users through onboarding vs letting them explore freely
1:01:14 - Linear's hidden UX gems that inspire Kondo

💡 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗠𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗹:

→ 𝗕𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲, 𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝟯 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀
Does it let you charge more? Does it convert non-payers? Does it reduce churn? If all three are no — don't build it.

→ 𝗖𝗼𝗽𝘆 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘀, 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁
Superhuman tracks your mouse direction to adjust UI response times. You can't just copy pixels — you need to understand why things work before deciding what to borrow.

→ 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗽𝘆
Superhuman's split inbox works for email. But LinkedIn DMs are different — all conversations with one person live in one thread. So Kondo built labels that create split tabs instead. Same goal, different execution.

→ 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗼𝗻𝗯𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 — 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲
Superhuman blocks clicking during their tutorial — keyboard only. Kondo allows clicking because not everyone buys for shortcuts. Be opinionated, but match it to why people actually pay you.

→ 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗲𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗱 > 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗱
Kondo had the same response times as Superhuman but felt slower. The difference? Micro-animations. A subtle slide when you archive. Small details that make software feel alive.

My accountant has me on Exact Online for bookkeeping. It works. But the UX is so ugly I refuse to create invoices there.

So I pay for Moneybird every month — just to use one feature: invoicing.

I could skip it entirely. Save the money. But I don't want to. The brand, the experience, the attention to detail — it makes me want to open the app.

That's the power of great design in B2B.

And that's why I had to get Edwin Vlieg on the podcast.

Edwin is the co-founder of Moneybird — the #1 bookkeeping software for entrepreneurs in the Netherlands. 400,000+ users. 80-person team. 17 years bootstrapped.

🧠 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗹𝗹 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻:

0:00 - How Moneybird started in 2008 when everything was on-premise
2:38 - The market back then and why competitors didn't survive
5:19 - Starting with invoicing, not accounting (and why that mattered)
7:32 - Why they built for entrepreneurs, not accountants
10:26 - The positioning that made them #1 in the Netherlands
14:44 - Design culture and team structure at Moneybird
16:21 - How ShapeUp works with rotating teams (and why it prevents silos)
24:51 - Why process is the product that builds the product
29:16 - How they decide what to build next (hint: no feature backlog)
31:26 - Framing vs shaping: how they avoid wasting time on bad ideas
33:46 - Phased rollouts with feature flags and the surprising feedback they got
41:43 - Why good ideas bubble up and you don't need a backlog
44:15 - Support engineer rotation: why builders should feel their own bugs
45:24 - Their approach to AI: rule-based engines + AI, not pure hype
50:06 - Redesigning purchase invoices with AI (and what users did that they never expected)
56:56 - Why they launched an MCP instead of building a chatbot
1:03:32 - Edwin's favorite products and the terminal UI movement

💡 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀:

→ 𝗥𝗼𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀
Fresh eyes catch what the original team missed.

→ 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗲
If leadership isn't excited at the framing stage, don't waste weeks on detailed specs.

→ 𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘂𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗹𝗮𝗴𝘀
Start small. Get feedback. Scale to 100% after you've learned.

→ 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗳𝗶𝘅 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗯𝘂𝗴𝘀
When you might be fixing bugs next cycle, you ship better code this cycle.

→ 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗹𝗼𝗴
Good ideas bubble up. No need for a graveyard of feature requests.

In this episode I sat down with Alex James, a messaging strategist who helps B2B service companies stand out in crowded, look-alike markets.

His moto is "Your perspective is your product”

🧠 What you’ll learn in this episode

0:00 – Why most agencies and service firms all sound the same

02:11 – How competition creates the need for sharper positioning

03:57 – Why inspirational agency slogans fail (and what to say instead)

06:42 – Alex’s definition of taste and why it’s a strategic advantage

11:20 – How Alex developed his signature visual style (and why it works)

15:35 – How environment shapes your creative taste

18:43 – The competitive advantage of beauty in design & words

21:44 – Your perspective is your product (explained with real SaaS examples)

26:14 – How HubSpot used a perspective to win a market

29:27 – How to find your own perspective without sounding like a sales pitch

32:02 – The 3 types of perspective: mindset, method, tactic

36:45 – When to use each perspective depending on audience warmth

47:54 – Why selling services is harder than selling SaaS

55:33 – How to make believable promises without over-promising

59:26 – Why writing visually is so hard (and how to fix it)

1:02:15 – How Alex actually works with clients (and why his process changed)

1:14:24 – Why great collaborations need “escalating commitments”

1:15:33 – Alex’s surprising answer to: What’s your favorite SaaS?

💡 Steal these quick wins

1. Swap “what we do” for “what you’ll be able to do because of us.”

Most service pages talk about deliverables.

Clients buy outcomes.

This shift makes your message instantly more compelling and easier to visualize.

Why it works: It reframes your value around client impact — not your internal process.

1. Use metaphors to make abstract ideas visual.

If they can picture it, they’ll understand it.

If they can’t picture it, they’ll scroll.

Why it works: Metaphors turn invisible ideas (like “strategy” or “messaging”) into images the brain can actually hold onto.

2. Anchor your promise to something you can control.

“10x revenue” is not in your control.

“Make your SaaS more attractive and easier to understand” is.

Why it works: Believable promises build trust. Unbelievable ones trigger doubt — even if your work is great.

3. Identify your acquisition differentiator (not your retention differentiator).

Clients say they love you because you’re reliable.

But they chose you for a different reason. That’s your message.

Why it works: Retention features keep clients. Attraction features win them.

4. Document your perspective pyramid (mindset → method → tactic).

Mindset = great for content.

Method = great for your homepage.

Tactic = great for cold audiences.

Why it works: You’ll stop guessing what to say. Every channel gets the perspective it can actually convert with.

In this episode I’m talking with product designer Meylin Bayryamali, who’s worked on global products at Wise and now Cash App.

We dig into how she thinks about taste, why she started DJing to escape the Figma bubble, and how that led into one of the most interesting fintech rebrands of the last decade. We also talk about design process, research that actually ships, and how her team uses AI in a way that raises the quality bar instead of lowering it.

If you’re a SaaS founder or someone leading product in a “serious” space (fintech, ops, B2B), this one will give you a very practical way to think about taste, branding and AI without the hype.

🧠 What you’ll learn:

00:45 – Meylin’s story from agency life to Wise and Cash App
02:57 – What “taste” means to her and why average is the real enemy
04:40 – How DJing and music unlocked better product taste than staring at Figm
08:20 – Inside Wise’s rebrand and the moment customers loved the product but not the look
10:25 – Why tone of voice and culture mattered more than just new visuals
12:14 – Working with an external agency without losing in-house ownership
16:52 – The origin story of Wise’s tapestry visuals and the “lost art” of banknotes
21:12 – Balancing growth and delight when time is always the constraint
24:26 – How projects are scoped and shipped without rigid sprints
27:32 – Wise’s approach to research: when to talk to customers vs when to measure
33:06 – Why LinkedIn is a terrible place for design advice and how to avoid bad taste
36:16 – Very practical ways Cash App uses AI to speed up quality work
38:36 – Using AI imagery to sell an idea internally and get branding support
41:35 – Why Bump is her current favorite product and what it says about committing to a strong style
42:47 – Closing the loop on taste: good, bad, but never in the middle

💡 Steal these quick wins:

1/ Use “good or bad, but never average” as a design filter.

Before you ship a flow or a page, ask: *does this have any point of view or could it belong to any competitor?*

Why it’s worth it: this one question forces you to add at least one bold decision — in layout, copy, or visuals — that makes your product memorable.

2/ Stop looking at SaaS to design more SaaS.

Build a habit around non-digital inputs: art, photography, music, architecture, film. Treat it as part of your design work, not a hobby.

Why it’s worth it: you stop recycling the same rounded cards + gradients as everyone else and start importing ideas from places your competitors don’t look.

3/ Pick research methods to match the project, not the playbook.

For big direction changes (like a new home screen), talk to customers directly and roll out gradually instead of over-optimizing surveys. For mature flows, use more quantitative research to tweak.

Why it’s worth it: you save time on “performative research” and only dig deep where the upside is huge.

4/ Use AI to kill boring ops, not your taste.

Start with one workflow where your team wastes time (like sorting bug reports or drafting visual directions), and use AI to speed that up — while humans still decide what “good” looks like.

Why it’s worth it: you free up hours that can go into craft, details, and better decisions instead of ticket admin.

5/ Prototype vibes, not just flows.

For ideas that need a strong identity, generate one or two AI images that capture the feeling you’re after before the brand team is even involved.

Why it’s worth it: “seeing is believing” — visual vibes get stakeholders excited and pull branding partners in faster than decks and documents.

In this week’s episode, I sat down with Georgiana Laudi, co-founder of Forget The Funnel and author of Customer-Led Growth.

She’s one of the few people in SaaS who’s been shaping how founders think about marketing long before “PLG” became a buzzword. Her frameworks have guided hundreds of SaaS teams to connect the dots between customer insight, positioning, and growth — without the fluff.

🧠 What you’ll learn:

00:00: Why SaaS founders still overcomplicate growth
02:00: Georgiana’s journey from marketer to customer-led growth advocate
06:00: The real reason teams keep guessing instead of researching
10:30: AI, layoffs, and why marketers are more reactive than ever
16:50: The story of a social media SaaS that targeted the wrong audience
20:40: How to know *who* to listen to and filter bad feedback
28:00: Why old research data can quietly kill your growth
33:00: The UserVoice case: when your customer changes but your messaging doesn’t
37:10: Customer-led growth in plain English
40:20: Three steps to make it real inside your company
45:00: Building recurring systems to stay close to your customers
53:00: The SaaS wake-up call: why “good enough” products won’t survive
58:00: Mindset shifts founders must make to keep growing

💡 Steal these quick wins:

1/ Talk to 10 recent customers — not all your users

Focus on *recency + retention*. These people reflect today’s market reality, not last year’s. You’ll uncover what’s actually driving purchases *right now* and which problems are still worth solving.

2/ Record and review your last 5 sales calls

Stop guessing your messaging. Your customers have already told you what matters — how they describe pain, what made them choose you, and which results they value. Listening back reveals the exact words that should be in your copy.

3/ Filter customer feedback — don’t treat all of it as gold.

Most teams get trapped by the “vocal minority.” Learn to distinguish *who to listen to*: the ones with high retention, strong usage, and willingness to pay. This prevents you from building for noise instead of value.

4/ Run a weekly 1-hour onboarding audit.

Onboarding decay is silent but deadly. Products drift as features change, and first-time experiences quietly break. A weekly walkthrough keeps everyone close to the real user journey — faster activation, fewer cancellations.

5/ Turn customer research into a system, not a side project.

Insight compounds like product debt. Formalize it: recurring interviews, Slack summaries, quarterly synthesis. The teams that operationalize customer understanding outpace those who only do it “when growth slows.”

Keywords: SaaS, marketing, customer-centric, product development, customer feedback, growth strategies, user experience, marketing research, customer signals, product onboarding

Here’s what you’ll learn:

- How Buffer shifted from enterprise-style pricing to a simpler, usage-based model—and why it made them more profitable.
- What “iteration is key” really means in practice (and why you should stop over-polishing V1s).
- How to build in public, gather feedback early, and turn your users into collaborators.
- Why some features deserve to be “slow and polished,” while others should be “fast and scrappy.”
- How Buffer uses habits, streaks, and small wins to keep users engaged.

Steal these quick wins 💡

- Ship small, polished versions early—then improve them through feedback, not guesswork.
- Add a simple beta label to manage expectations and learn faster.
- Build a group of power users (Discord, Slack, or even Facebook) to test new features before launch.
- Make customer research part of your weekly routine, not a one-off project.
- Celebrate small releases publicly—momentum builds trust.

Chapters

00:00 Reconnecting and Career Paths

03:26 Buffer's Strategic Shift: From Enterprise to PLG

06:26 Transforming Pricing Strategies at Buffer

09:29 Navigating Pricing Changes: Insights and Experiences

12:26 The Power of Free Plans in SaaS

15:16 Building Habits: The Role of Gamification

18:16 Iterative Development: Learning from Feedback

21:25 Building in Public: Trust and Community Engagement

24:21 Balancing MVPs and Core Functionality

27:20 The Importance of User Experience in Product Development

33:46 Understanding User Experience Through Feedback

35:14 Continuous User Research Practices

38:11 Engaging with Customers for Insights

42:19 The Importance of Customer Empathy

46:59 Balancing Fast and Slow Product Development

57:32 The Role of Transparency in Product Management

We dive into how she built a $1.4 million cleaning business that runs remotely, and how she uses taste, empathy, and intentional design to create delight for both customers and employees.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• How working with customers during design sprints can 10× your product decisions.
• What “taste” really means in business — and why it’s about intentionality, not aesthetics.
• How to turn ordinary customer experiences into delightful ones (yes, even with mops and checklists).
• Why delighting your team is as important as delighting your customers.
• The one SaaS onboarding process that completely changed how Stephanie runs her own company.

Steal these quick wins 💡 

• Invite a real customer into your next design or strategy session — you’ll get clarity and speed you can’t find in a survey.
• Focus on show, don’t tell: let your brand’s actions and details speak louder than words.
• Add one small “unexpected moment” for your users — a thank-you note, a scent, or a tiny surprise that makes them smile. 

Remember: delight doesn’t require budget, just thoughtfulness.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Serene Clean and ZenMaid 
03:40 The Retreat Experience and Collaboration

06:17 Designing with Customer Feedback

09:22 The SOS Feature Development

12:21 Insights from Design Calls

15:22 The Impact of Design on Business

18:31 Understanding Product Development and Customer Needs

21:17 The Role of Taste in Business Branding

33:38 Show, Don't Tell: The Essence of Branding

37:18 Understanding the Customer: Empathy in Business

40:41 Delighting Customers: The Unexpected Touches

49:38 The UX of Employees: Internal Customer Experience

55:35 Favorite Tools: The Role of SaaS in Business

01:05:28 Personal Touch: How Small Details Matter

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background
02:28 Taste in Copywriting
08:35 Defining Taste in Copywriting
09:47 Authenticity in Copywriting
15:34 Voice of Customer (VOC) Research
41:05 Synthetic Research and AI in Copywriting
50:57 Common Mistakes in SaaS Copywriting
01:00:39 Favorite SaaS Tools and Recommendations