About

This place exists to document my ongoing exploration to answering this question:

I started this blog with the goal to document my learnings, experiments and thinking, and to give an honest take on the questions the founders I talk and work with ask me, with the hope it will benefit to others (like you maybe?).

It's fed by my experience, knowledge and constant exploration, and by my work with clients.

I'm François Simitchiev, and I work with B2B SaaS founders to help them turn user onboarding into a {system} that drives activation, conversion, retention and ultimately... true growth.

• senior product designer + product growth advisor
• specialized in B2B SaaS activation & onboarding
• 10 years in UX, incl. 5 in B2B SaaS companies
• worked in healthtech, HRtech, legaltech, AI
• certified in PLG and product psychology

As a product designer, I believe the user should always be at the core of all thinking. How do we make the solution as easy to embrace and use as possible, for them, based on their context, needs and goals.

As a behavioral psychology nerd, I believe product adoption is above everything a matter of behavior change. And behavior is driven by motivation. And motivation is driven by belief and value. That's why onboarding (and product design in general) isn't only about features, about logic. It's also and above all about psycho-logic.

As a growth practitioner, I believe succeeding in business can't be anything else but the consequence of getting our users/customers to trust us and succeed with our products.

And as a techno-romantic, I see user:product relationships as human:human relationships.

That's the lens I bring to every onboarding challenge. Because first impressions in products work exactly like first impressions between people. Nail it, and you earn trust, retention and growth. Miss it, and everything downstream becomes much harder.

~~~

When I'm not working, I'm nerding out on user psychology and the purpose of life. And when I'm not nerding out on user psychology and the purpose of life, I'm either walking super fast in the streets with a 10kilo plate on my back, alternating jump rope and "crazy stupid dancing" on some disco/funk music, hiking somewhere in nature or spending time eating delicious food with my tasty friends... discussing the meaning of life.

PS_

Something that matters a lot to me:

Although I do use AI for my work, all the writing here is done without it.

I don't want to alter my thinking, writing and personality to make it more efficient, or impactful or whatever. AI is not intelligence. It's high capacity at predicting the words we want most to hear.

As someone who's passionate about my topic, and who needs to find meaning and purpose in my work, I choose to not compromise myself when it comes to how I think and share my ideas, and instead, to remain true to myself even if it's gonna "cost" me more effort down the line.

Someone said to write is to think clearly, and since i started writing, I can only confirm this person was so damn right.

Ans as Kurt Cobain said, "I'd rather be hated for what I am than loved for what I'm not" (or something like that, didn't double check the quote lunch is ready).