Turn the people who use your product into the stories that sell it.
I interview your customers and turn their stories into case studies, newsletters, and social posts, without adding work to your team.
“I like tools the way I like cars: close to the ground, built for a particular kind of driving.”
“When you can design and build almost anything very quickly, a bigger part of the job becomes deciding what’s actually worth making.”
“The longer I’ve been a designer, the more I relax about creating a great thing right away. If I start moving, I’ll get where I need to go.”
From Workspaces, the weekly interview series I’ve published since 2020. Your series would feature your customers.
From the person behind Workspaces, the weekly interview series read by designers at the companies you know.
Sponsored by Figma, Granola, Elgato, and more.
Case studies get skimmed. Interviews get read.
A case study is written for a buyer who's already halfway through a deal. It has a challenge, a solution, and a results box, and nobody reads it for fun.
An interview is about a person. How they work, what's on their desk, what they'd tell someone starting out. Your product shows up because it's part of their day, not because it's the headline. People share those, reply to them, and come back for the next one.
Your product, in your customers’ words.
In an interview, the product comes up the way it does in real life: as part of how someone works. That’s more convincing than anything you could write about yourself. These are from a five-part Workspaces series about how designers use their tools.
“The tools I built in Figma evolved into a full visual composer that I now use everyday to create static and moving halftone textures.”Grace Walker, Creative director at Spellbook
“I still design better than AI, so I do most of my design manually in the Figma canvas.”Matt D. Smith, Founder of Shift Nudge
“I create a mess of divergent ideas, quickly iterate through layout, hierarchy, and visual design, and use Figma Slides to help share and describe my thinking.”Gavin Nelson, Designer at OpenAI
“More recently, I’ve been using Figma Agent to make plugins directly in the file. … The capability travels with the work.”Yann-Edern Gillet, Designer at Linear
“Whenever I’m building an app with AI tools, I still design it in Figma first.”Rachel How, Designer and YouTuber
Specific features, in their own voice. None of it reads like an ad.
How it works
Ten or so customers you’d be proud to feature. That’s the only access I need.
I draft a one-paragraph intro for you to send. Being featured in a series is flattering, so most people say yes.
A 30-minute call and a few photos from them. I write it up in a format your readers will recognize.
Every customer signs off first. You get the full story plus a newsletter version, social posts, and quotes for sales.
Fair questions
Why not do this ourselves?
You can. Most teams plan one a month and ship two a year, because it’s nobody’s job and interviewing well takes practice. I’ve done more than 550.
Do you need access to our customers?
Only the ones you choose, through an intro you send. I never touch your CRM or your list.
What if a customer says no?
That’s why you send ten names, not three. The pilot is priced on three published interviews, not on how many asks it takes.
Pricing
- Three customer interviews, fully written
- A shorter version of each for your newsletter
- Social posts and pull quotes, with photos
- Short quotes your sales team can use
- A one-page wrap-up of what ran and how it did
About six weeks. Every customer approves before anything goes out, and you own everything.
Start with a 20-minute call.
It’s free, and there’s nothing to prepare. We’ll talk about who your customers are, where you’d publish, and whether a pilot makes sense. If it’s not a fit, I’ll tell you.
Book a free 20-minute callRather email? Send a note to ryan@outboardstudio.com