Kajabi Products
Team
Product Manager
Product Designer
Front-end Developers x 2
Back-end Engineers x 2
Role
Staff Product Designer
Duration
Nov 2021 — Jan 2022
When Kajabi first launched, the main focus was helping entrepreneurs create, market, and sell online courses. Since then, Kajabi has expanded the types of products you can create on the platform beyond just courses. Now you can sell access to things like online communities, coaching programs, and podcasts.
Kajabi customers upload their content into the admin and then their content is accessed by their members through a customizable front-end experience, called a product theme. However, customers had no way to preview the member experience of a product before they created it.
The current creation flow for each product was a vague form that collected basic details and an image but didn’t explain how they’d be used at all. This added to the ambiguity of what the end result would look like.
Then to set a price on a product, customers had to figure out on their own that they needed to navigate over to the Sales tab. Once they made it there they would have to go through another entirely separate process to set a price on a product. Setting a price sounds like a simple enough task, but because of the unique way Kajabi handles pricing, it was another hurdle customers had to jump over create a sellable product.
Leadership created a set of company-wide goals in preparation for a cheaper pricing plan that was set to launch in January of 2022. This new plan was aimed at people who had little to no experience running an online business, or with the Kajabi platform, so helping them see the value of the platform quickly was crucial for success.
Business Objective #1
Reduce the number of days it takes trialing customers to set up a product.
Our research showed customers with a Course and Community retained at a higher rate and earned more in 90 days than those with just a single Course.
Business Objective #2
Increase GMV for trialing customers and early accounts.
We had a hypothesis that if customers could create multiple sellable products earlier, it would lead to increased retention and GMV* for early accounts.
*Grand Merchandise Value (GMV) is calculated by multiplying the sale price of a product and the number of products sold over a period of time. Basically, if this number goes up, our customers are making money, which means they are more likely to stay on the platform.
I wanted to figure out how might we reduce the friction, ambiguity, and complexity of creating a sellable product. So, I created a few design goals to help guide the project.
Design Goal #1
Empower customers to create multiple products earlier.
Kajabi customers who created both a Course and Community retained at a higher rate and earned more in 90 days than those with just a single Course. So I thought that if this process was more intuitive it would encourage and inspire customers to create more products.
Design Goal #2
Keep customers moving forward toward success.
Part of this process involved customizing your product theme. This can quickly turn into a black hole, and stall a progress, even though it feels like you are being productive. I saw a lot of customers fall into the trap of over customize things early on and I wanted to find a way to strike a balance between being able to make your product feel like it was yours and launching quickly to start making some sales.
Design Goal #3
Reduce context switching.
Each step in the process to create a product, customize the look and feel, and set a price on it, all existed in different areas of the platform. We didn’t do much to guide you to those areas you kind of had to hunt around and learn for yourself. I wanted to find a way to pull these different features of the app together somehow.
I was tasked with shipping this in 3 months to support the launch of the new plans. Because of that I wouldn’t be able to address all the problem areas I wanted to. I really wanted to rethink the way pricing on Kajabi works, but the features related to that were owned by another team. So I would need to find alternative solutions to simplify that part of the process.
Customers also still have to create their content, which takes a lot of effort and time. For this project and the deadline I was on, I treated this as its own opportunity I would explore with the team later.
The redesigned flow now uses a repeatable pattern that can support the needs of any product type and makes the process feel more intuitive and predictable. It surfaces just enough customization features to make the product feel like it was yours, without being required to open the theme editor. Overall I felt like it drastically simplified the process of setting up your product and really all you have to do next is add your content.
When choosing a product to build, customers can now get a better idea of what the member experience will look like and view the features and capabilities of each product type.
As you create a product you now see how the information collected in the forms on the left of the screen are used in the live visual preview of the product on the right of the screen.
While customers adore the endless customization options in the Kajabi theme editor, sometimes too many choices can hinder their progress. That's why I prioritized surfacing the essential settings to help them own the look and feel without overwhelming details. I limited the options to choosing a primary brand color, accent color and a few images that would be featured in prominent areas of the theme.
In order to sell a Product, it had to be included in what is called an “Offer.” The simplest way to think about an Offer is like a box with a price tag. People can get access to the content, aka Products, inside this box with a one-time payment, multiple payments, or a subscription.
This box could also contain an unlimited number of other products. Its a really flexible feature but was a really confusing concept for new customers getting started on Kajabi.
Offers also fell under the responsibility of the Payments team and they did not have the time or appetite to make any improvements, so I had to work with the feature as is. In the new design I included the necessary information to create an Offer.
This process creates an Offer for this product, and shows up under the Offers tab in the admin, but did not require customers to leave the context of the product they were creating.
The new flow was successfully launched on time for the launch of Kajabi's new pricing plan. It simplified the process of creating a sellable product, making it more user-friendly and intuitive.
Outcome #1
15% increase in sellable products among new accounts.
Outcome #2
29% improvement in the average number of days it took for new customers to create their first product.
I felt really proud of what I designed, knowing that I had helped alleviate long-standing pain point for new customers, and achieved our business objectives at the same time. This project reinforced my commitment to user-centered design and that if you focus on the success of the people using your product, your business will succeed as well.
© Sam Croswell 2024