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Our design practice has never been better. Our 2022 case studies are absurd. We bumped conversion rate 41.97% with one test. We eventually accounted for two-thirds of a seven-figure business’s revenue. We quadrupled someone’s conversion rate with a teardown. We get impact.
And yet our sales pipeline hasn’t been this bad in 9 years. The feast-or-famine cycle is real. We spent most of this year losing leads, and chasing payment for the leads we didn’t lose. We went through 49 leads before we found a single one who signed a contract & paid us. A week later, we found another. We just closed a third. Draft reached break-even on its annual expenses last week – the latest we’ve done so since 2013.
Draft ends the year with one question: how can we structurally ruggedize the business, so that we can keep the psychic heat death of store owners from harming us going forward? I have never been more convinced that a deeper repositioning is necessary to our ongoing survival. After all, one must sell to payers.
I am excited to see what happens next for us.
This week, for paid members
- Our paid lesson this week is a full-throttle exploration of Shopify’s new query language for data analysis, ShopifyQL. As someone who has been flummoxed by dashboard design in the past, this is personal. You will not want to miss this lesson.
- Our design of the week talks about my new favorite masthead. Why does it work so well, and what lessons can it provide for you as your store enters the busy season?
- And our fortnightly teardown goes deep on local grocery brand Foxtrot. Can you pull off a smaller Instacart in 2022? Let’s find out.
Want in? Join us now – now named one of the best ecommerce communities going on the web.
Links & analysis
- Today in Betteridge’s Law.
- I’ve been on a big heuristics kick lately, since I’m writing that part of Store Design. Here’s a lovely post from Austin Henley on his approach.
- All Shopify-defaulty mobile navigation converts poorly. It must be optimized, and given its load-bearing nature you almost can’t put too much work into it. Vitaly Friedman has the lowdown on performant mobile nav.
- Airspace. The take: zig when everyone else zags.
This week’s paid lesson: What is ShopifyQL, and what does it mean for future data analysis?
This week’s lesson is for paid members. Sign into our community to read it, or join us today to get access.
Thanks for the sponsorship, Helium Customer Fields!
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