Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is an effective method for evaluating the feasibility of a product or project. By defining core features, resource requirements, market demand, risk assessment, and budget considerations, the direction and scope of product development can be determined, and the feasibility of the product can be validated. MVP analysis helps reduce waste of resources and time, speeding up the product's time to market, while also increasing the chances of success.

Utilizing the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach is crucial for the design and launch of a new product. The concept behind MVP is to develop a basic product prototype in the shortest time possible to validate the product concept and market demand. Designing Pagebuilder, a page editor, using the MVP methodology can bring about several benefits:

- Time and Cost Savings: The MVP design approach allows teams to focus on developing core features, avoiding unnecessary functionalities and complexity, thus saving time and costs.

- Rapid Feedback and Iteration: Through MVP, products can be quickly launched to the market, enabling the collection of user feedback and data for timely product adjustments and improvements, facilitating rapid iteration.

- Ensuring Market Demand: MVP helps teams validate product concepts and market demand, preventing the development of products that lack consumer interest and ensuring the effective utilization of resources.

A comprehensive and effective user experience design is indispensable during the MVP launch phase. Its importance lies in ensuring the usability of core product functionalities, collecting user feedback to validate assumptions, enhancing user engagement and retention, and reducing product risks and costs. By focusing on user experience design, a solid foundation can be laid for the success and continuous development of the product.

Next, I will introduce the efforts we have made in the MVP design process. Through carefully crafted Minimum Viable Product (MVP) design, we will present to you a meticulously polished product prototype aimed at validating the product concept and market demand. Not only have we saved time and costs (completing the project from inception to launch in just two months!), but also ensured that the product meets user needs and remains competitive through rapid feedback and iteration. Let us explore together the efforts made in the MVP design process, hoping to bring you some inspiration.

In 2021, AfterShip, a B2B SaaS company serving the international e-commerce sector, secured a substantial $66 million funding from Tiger Global and Hillhouse Capital. The company's product offerings span various aspects of pre-sales and post-sales processes for merchants, including logistics tracking, email marketing, and return services. Its primary clientele are businesses on the Shopify platform.

Within its post-sales operations, AfterShip's Tracking service is responsible for parcel inquiries, while Returns handles the returns and exchanges processes. Pre-sales activities involve Email and Review Dropshipping, among others. By aggregating a variety of products that cover most stages of e-commerce sales, AfterShip has established a product matrix.

However, it appears that there is a missing hub within this product matrix, which could potentially serve as a central point connecting and enhancing the functionalities of the various services provided. Identifying and filling this gap could lead to a more comprehensive and seamless user experience, as well as potentially unlocking new opportunities for AfterShip's growth and market positioning.

Why focus on the majority rather than all? It is because there has been a missing link in the B2B e-commerce sales process, where direct involvement in building their e-commerce websites has been lacking. This gap has resulted in our products not covering the entire e-commerce sales process, hence the need to fill this void.

The significance of this aspect lies in providing retailers with an agile page editor for brand promotion and conversion. Well-designed landing pages can enhance lead acquisition and sales conversion rates, helping B2B merchants achieve success. By having such a page editor, we can offer customers a more comprehensive solution, enabling them to better manage their e-commerce websites and improve business performance. Filling this gap will add value to our product matrix, enhance customer satisfaction, and expand our market share.

Our entry into the market also signifies the potential for increased ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue).

By aggregating our product matrix, we can fill in the areas that are currently not covered by our products, enhancing the comprehensiveness and competitiveness of our product line. For example, directly integrating email and review functions for marketing activities, recommending dropshipping for order fulfillment on the B2B side, and providing after-sales one-stop support can all help improve our product matrix and better meet the needs of our customers.

In 2020, with the arrival of the pandemic, e-commerce entered a period of vigorous development. In the situation of people being isolated from each other, a large number of individuals flocked to platforms like Shopify to set up their own independent websites, hoping to realize their entrepreneurial dreams.

Through data comparative analysis, we found that in 2021, the vast majority of users using our product are small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Therefore, the initial target of our Page Builder is to serve this group. These small and medium-sized businesses aim to use our tools to create personalized web pages, enhance user experience, attract more customers, and achieve business growth goals. Let's delve deeper into understanding these target users and provide them with better service and support!

Based on the results of user research, we have summarized the common characteristics of our target user group:

- Mainly individuals or small B2B businesses (SMBs)
- Have a certain level of design skills but are not familiar with coding
- Lack design skills or cannot afford to hire a designer, hoping to create attractive websites
- Lack time to learn complex page editors

By gaining a deeper understanding of the needs and pain points of our users, we are committed to providing a simple and user-friendly Page Builder tool for this group. Our goal is to help them quickly and efficiently create websites that meet their needs, enabling them to achieve their business growth and brand-building objectives.

With a focus on simplicity and ease of use, our Page Builder will empower individuals and small B2B businesses to design and customize their websites without the need for coding knowledge or expensive design services. By offering intuitive features and templates, we aim to streamline the website creation process and support our users in achieving their online presence goals effectively.

After thorough preparation, the team conducted a workshop and mapped out the user journey.

The results of the mapping exercise revealed that novice users become overwhelmed when faced with complex editors, leading to potential decreases in willingness to pay and increased user churn.

In response to this discovery, we need to focus on the simplicity and usability of the user experience, striving to provide an intuitive and straightforward interface that helps users easily and quickly complete web page editing tasks. This will enhance user satisfaction and retention rates.

By prioritizing a clean and user-friendly design, streamlining the editing process, and offering clear and easy-to-understand instructions, we can make it easier for users, especially novices, to navigate the platform and accomplish their tasks efficiently.

Additionally, incorporating user-friendly features such as drag-and-drop functionality, inline editing, and real-time previews can further enhance the editing experience and empower users to create and customize content with ease.

PLG, short for Product-Led Growth, is a strategy that focuses on driving user growth and market expansion through the product itself. The core concept of PLG is to make the product an engine for attracting, retaining, and growing users by continuously improving the product, optimizing user experience, and providing value-added services to achieve growth goals.

PLG emphasizes the critical role of the product in user growth, highlighting the continuous optimization of usability, functionality, and user experience. Compared to traditional marketing and promotion strategies, PLG places greater emphasis on the quality and value of the product itself, advocating for attracting users through the product's appeal and word-of-mouth effect to achieve sustainable user growth and market expansion. PLG has become one of the primary growth strategies for many internet and tech companies, considered to be an efficient and sustainable growth model.

By collecting design proposals, setting evaluation criteria, conducting comparative analysis, and organizing voting, we have identified the best design solution for the MVP. This solution aligns with the needs of the target users and market trends.

In order to better assist the growth of the Page Builder, we have planned and designed the product interaction development stages as follows:

After the launch of the Page Builder, we have gradually improved common website layouts, various feature (work with Zoe), and provided a wide range of preset templates.

Same time, we are continuously maintaining a design component library in Figma to ensure consistency and reusability of design styles.

After a year of development, the Page Builder team has doubled in size, and product updates are running smoothly. The team collaboration has improved significantly, including product managers, UX designers, FE/BE engineers, QA, sales team, and customer support staff. The collaboration of these different roles has provided strong support for the continuous optimization and development of the product.

After one year of Page Builder being live, in order to adapt to the changes in the product lifecycle and the evolving user demands, we have decided to revamp the product completely. Through in-depth user research and market studies, we will introduce more innovative features and optimize the user experience in the new version to enhance user satisfaction and increase the product's competitiveness. In the following showcase of our efforts and contributions during the revamp process, we have dedicated a significant amount of time and effort to design, develop, and test new features, ensuring that users can enjoy a smoother and more powerful page building experience.

In response to the changing market environment and the company's development needs, the company has decided to shift its pre-sales development strategy from targeting Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMB) to focusing on Small and Medium Enterprises (SME). This transition is based on in-depth market analysis and a profound understanding of customer demands. We believe that dedicating ourselves to serving SMEs will contribute to greater growth and more robust business development for the company.

During this transition, we will prioritize the needs and pain points of SMEs, providing more specialized and personalized solutions.

As we focus on the small and medium enterprise market, Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) and Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) will continue to grow, providing the company with a more stable and sustainable source of income.

The PLG (Product-Led Growth) strategy that we set during the MVP stage can now be taken to the next level. Over the past year, we have completed the development of common page functionalities modules, and now we need to further optimize the product based on PLG. By leveraging the methodologies and tools of PLG, we can better understand the evolving needs of the product at different stages, make targeted optimizations and adjustments to ensure that the product continues to meet user needs and remains competitive.

Over the past year, our team has collected a significant amount of user feedback and issues through user interviews and feedback. In order to better address this feedback, we have compiled these experience issues and are prepared to make targeted adjustments and optimizations to the product.

For some complex functionalities, allowing users to customize based on elements may lead to unnecessary complications and increase user understanding costs. For complex features such as countdown timers and product sales pages, we have temporarily retained their interaction logic as blocks inserted into the page, and optimized their visual presentation on various devices.

Previously, a large number of Block/Section functionalities were added by dragging and dropping through the left editing bar. Zoe has optimized this process by allowing users to directly add Block/Section on the right side of the web page. This improvement not only provides a clearer layout of information on the left editing bar but also enables users to maintain focus on the visual effects of the web page.

The optimized version of the Page builder has significantly improved the user experience, with feedback indicating that the page layout is clearer, operations are smoother, and overall usability has been greatly enhanced.

The system's response speed has notably increased, allowing users to access information more quickly, reducing wait times, and enhancing the user experience with the Page builder.

The increase in user traffic and retention rates indicates that the optimized version of the Page builder has attracted more attention from users, while also increasing user stickiness and loyalty, laying a solid foundation for the long-term development of the website.