Product Discovery analysis of Redbooth

There are 4 phases to a player’s journey for your product:

1. Discovery: how a player learns about your product
2. On-boarding: how a player signs up and learns how to use your product
3. Scaffolding: the period when a player uses what they learned during on-boarding to achieve as many Win-States as possible
4. Endgame: the period when a player has done everything at least once and there are no longer unexplored Win-States

In this article, we will analyze the Discovery Phase of Redbooth, a product in a highly competitive market: the project management/team collaboration market.

Starting point for a Discovery analysis

The starting point for any Discovery analysis is at the top of the funnel. At Torre, we always survey our customers and ask them: “How did you learn about us?”.

By asking our customers this open-ended question, we get fantastic, actionable data about how to grow our top-of-the-funnel.

Redbooth hopefully has this data in-house, which is inaccessible to me. However, from my experience, SEO, Paid Search, and content (written or video) tend to be great Discovery channels for SaaS products.

Step 1: Google Keyword Planner analysis

First, let’s take the Redbooth home page and analyze it with the Google Keyword Planner.

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As you can see from the image above, we get in return a list of the relevant keywords for Redbooth, including their average monthly searches, competition, and suggested bid.

Step 2: take the keywords and search them on Google

Now that you have a list of keywords, take them and search them on Google inside of an incognito window.

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The project management space is incredibly competitive. Take a look at the screen shots above and you’ll see that everything above the fold is ads. And to top it off, the project management tools that I’m familiar with in the startup world aren’t even competing for these ad spots. I’m referring to JIRA, Asana, Trello, and Basecamp.

Step 3: high-level comparisons through Moz Open Site Explorer

Go to Moz Open Site Explorer and add your site and competitor sites to compare authority and links.

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As you can see from the images above, Asana and JIRA are kicking Redbooth’s butt in terms of links and Domain Authority. This is important because the higher your Domain Authority, the more likely you are to show up on the top of Google search results.

Home page Discover analysis

So far, we know that there are a lot of companies competing for Redbooth’s keywords and that Redbooth is behind in terms of Domain Authority against its biggest competitors.

Let’s now take a look at an Octalyais analysis of the Redbooth home page compared to its biggest competitors.

Note: I will reference the 8 Core Drives throughout this post. You can use the below as a reference guide:

• Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling
• Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment
• Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback
• Core Drive 4: Ownership & Possession
• Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness
• Core Drive 6: Impatience & Scarcity
• Core Drive 7: Unpredictability & Curiosity
• Core Drive 8: Loss & Avoidance

Above-the-fold home page analysis

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• CD2: Redbooth is focused on “getting more done”. This is fairly straight-forward for any project management tool, as the obvious function is to be more productive.
• Desired Action: clearly above-the-fold: “Get Started FREE”

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• CD1: Asana has found an interesting way to utilize a bit of CD1 with the header text: “Move work forward.” It’s as if by using Asana, you’re not just being more productive, but you’re actually part of moving work to the next level.
• CD2: Asana focuses on the phrase: “get results”
• CD5: Asana focuses on “teams to track their work”. Interestingly, because the focus is on the “teams”, I noticed it on Asana. I just looked up and Redbooth uses “teams” too, but they add it to the end of the phrase, so I didn’t notice it.
• Desired Action: the Desired Action to enter my email to “Get Started for FREE” is clear

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• CD5: there is a strong push for social validation by using the phrase “The #1 software development tool”. Also, by using the phrase “agile teams”, JIRA is segmenting the market and targeting their ideal user: “hey, that’s right, we are an agile team!”
• CD2: JIRA uses the phrase “ship early and often” to continue targeting their target demographic: agile teams.
• CD7: some slight CD7 here with the play button for the video: as a site visitor, I’m curious to learn through the video.
• Desired Action: could be a lot bigger. I almost missed it.
• Sub Desired Action: play the video

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Can I just say, the Basecamp home page is so cool. It really stands out and I think targets their user base very well: SMBs.

• CD5: Basecamp does a great job at being relatable. If you’re their target market, then you look at this image and think, “Yup, that’s exactly how I feel everyday at work.” Also, Basecamp looks like a fun product, so if you pride yourself on being a fun team, then you might think that you’ll like the product.
• CD8: Basecamp is the only one of these examples that is utilizing CD8 to create a sense of urgency: if your life at work is on fire, then you need to make the switch now.
• Desired Action: I almost completely missed the call to action on the top right. There is an email capture below the fold.

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• CD5 + CD2: Trello is utilizing CD5 and CD2 with their Heading phrase: “work more collaboratively and get more done.
  • Disappointingly, Trello feels so “corporate” right now instead of “fun”. It’s probably because Atlassian recently acquired them.
• Desired Action: there is a clear Desired Action to “Sign Up — It’s Free”.

Recommendations for Redbooth

First and foremost, you have to increase that Domain Authority. If you want to depend on the push method and acquire clients through sales, then it’s fine to trail the competition, but if you want to pull customers into your funnel, then it’s important to increase your Domain Authority.

Secondly, once you get visitors on your site, I recommend that you try an array of Core Drives to convert the site visitors.

Right now, you’re only using CD2 to convert users. Try using CD5, CD8, or even CD3 to get site visitors to give you a chance.

The more you can stand out from the competition, the better.