Onboarding project | Feather

About Feather

Feather is a (SaaS) blogging platform that uses Notion as the CMS. You write all your content on Notion, and Feather automatically publishes it on an SEO-friendly blog connected to your custom domain.

Feather handles everything for you, like:

Creating a professionally designed and SEO-friendly blog.
Hosting the blog and putting it on your custom domain.
- Your blog can be on a root domain like domain.com
- It can be on a subdomain like blog.domain.com
- It can also be on a subfolder like domain.com/blog

All you have to do is write your content on Notion, and Feather takes care of everything else.

Picking the Product

I am picking Feather as my choice for this project. I am the solo founder of Feather, which was launched in early 2022. I handle everything, including product development, customer support, and more. Since I am the only one working on the product, I know the ins and outs of the product, users, and the market.

ICPs

Note: I have already written in detail about the ICPs of Feather in the acquisition project. I will copy those things from there and then, at the end, list down the JTBD of the ICPs separately.

	ICP #1	ICP #2	ICP #3
ICP Name	Small SaaS Companies	Course Creators	Notion-Integrated Companies
Persona Position	Founder / Marketing Head	Independent Creator / Educator	Content Manager / Head of Marketing
Age	25-40 / Any	Any	Any
Goals	Increase brand visibility, drive website traffic, grow customer base, and enhance SEO performance.	Increase course sign-ups and build a personal brand.	Streamline content production and management, improve SEO, and enhance team collaboration.
Role Priorities	Lead Generation, Brand Awareness, SEO, Customer Engagement	Audience engagement, Content Marketing, Brand Building	Content Strategy, SEO, Team Collaboration
Role in the buying process	Decision Maker	Decision Maker	Influencer to Decision Maker
Reporting Structure	Self or Small Team	Self	Reports to the Marketing Head or CEO
Preferred Channels	Twitter, LinkedIn, Email, Tech, and Startup Forums	Twitter, LinkedIn, Email, YouTube	LinkedIn, Email, Professional Forums
Other Products used	CRM Tools, Email Marketing Software, Analytics tools, Notion, Live Chat Tools, SEO Tools, etc	Notion, Course Hosting Platforms, Video Editing Tools, Social Media Management Tools, Community Hosting Platforms	Notion, SEO Management Tools, Content Management Systems, Collaboration Tools
Where do they spend time?	LinkedIn, Twitter, SaaS and Startup Forums, Industry Conferences	YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Niche Forums, Online Learning Communities	LinkedIn, Professional Forums, Content Marketing Conferences
Pain points	Limited resources for content management and SEO optimization; need an efficient, streamlined process for publishing quality content.	Difficulty in consistently producing and managing quality blog content; needs a simple, effective way to leverage content for marketing.	Challenges in managing and collaborating on content efficiently; need for an SEO-optimized platform that integrates seamlessly with Notion
Company Size	1-50 (Mostly bootstrapped or Pre-Series A)	Solo to Small Teams	10-100 Employees
Industry Domain	Software / SaaS	Education / E-Learning	Any
Growth Stage	PMF / Early Scaling	Any	Early Scaling / Mature Scaling
Org Structure	Flat to minimal Hierarchy	Solo or Collaborative Teams	Dedicated teams for different functions
Features they mainly use/value in Feather	– Custom Domain – Subfolder Addon – Analytics – Code Injection – Design Settings	– Custom Domain – Subfolder Addon – Multiple Blogs – Analytics – Email Subscribers – CTA Button Setup	– Custom Domain – Subfolder Addon – Analytics – Code Injection – Design Settings – Localization – Redirects – Multiple Authors
Frequency of Usage	Daily / Several times a week	Weekly / Several times a month	Daily
Time spent utilizing Feather	1-3 hrs per day	2-4 hrs per session	10-20 hrs per week

JTBD

I have already written about the goals of each ICP in the ICP table above. I will detail them again below so that it's more clear.

Each of the three ICPs that use Feather has a functional goal.

For SaaS companies, traffic, and brand visibility are the main reasons they use Feather.
For Course Creators, their main job is to leverage content in some way to grow their personal brand and increase their course sign-ups.
For Notion-Integrated Companies who have dedicated content teams, they use Feather so that they can streamline their content creation process and all the team can easily collaborate on their blog right from Notion.

JTBD	ICP #1	ICP #2	ICP #3
	Small SaaS Companies	Course Creators	Notion-Integrated Companies
Functional Goals	Efficiently publish SEO-friendly content to drive website traffic and increase brand visibility. Streamline the content management process using Notion, reducing operational complexities.	Leverage content effectively for marketing and personal branding, directly impacting course sign-ups.	Streamline content production and management to improve SEO and online presence with minimal effort. Enhance team collaboration and efficiency in executing content strategies.

JTBD

ICP #1

ICP #2

ICP #3

Small SaaS Companies

Course Creators

Notion-Integrated Companies

Functional Goals

Efficiently publish SEO-friendly content to drive website traffic and increase brand visibility.

Streamline the content management process using Notion, reducing operational complexities.

Leverage content effectively for marketing and personal branding, directly impacting course sign-ups.

Streamline content production and management to improve SEO and online presence with minimal effort.

Enhance team collaboration and efficiency in executing content strategies.

Onboarding Teardown

I am uploading the PDF of the teardown I did for Feather below:

Activation Metrics

Metric #1

Hypothesis: Publish eight blog posts in 3 Consecutive Months

Reasoning: Publishing a blog post directly indicates that the user uses Feather for its primary function. Publishing eight blog posts in 3 months roughly equates to 3 blog posts every two weeks – which is a reasonable frequency for the ICPs that I have chosen,

Metric #2

Hypothesis: Enabling subfolder addon within the first seven days

Reasoning: Setting up the subfolder is a manual process and costs the user an extra $15/month. So if someone asks me to enable the addon and set up their subfolder, this likely means that the user is already convinced that they want to use Feather for their blog. It shows very high commitment.

Metric #3

Hypothesis: Connecting a custom domain within the first three days

Reasoning: Same as subfolder addon, but slightly less commitment. But if someone connects their custom domain in the first three days, then it is very likely that they are convinced to use Feather, and that's why they went through this process of setting up their custom domain.

Metric #4

Hypothesis: Engagement with Customer Support or Help Resources in the First 2 Days

Reasoning: Engagement with support or help resources early on suggests that users actively try to solve problems and continue using the product effectively rather than abandoning it at the first roadblock. It shows a commitment to overcoming initial challenges and finding value in the product.

Metric #5

Hypothesis: Subscription to a Paid Plan Before the Trial Ends

Reasoning: If users choose to subscribe to a paid plan before the automatic conversion at the end of the trial, it's a strong signal of perceived value. This early commitment can be seen as a vote of confidence in Feather's ability to meet their blogging needs.