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Why do companies release new products? What's the key to a successful launch and how do leaders approach these critical decisions to guide their organization in the right direction? To find out, on today's episode we'll be discussing the release of Jform's biggest product launch of the year, Jform Sign, with none other than our founder and CEO himself, Heidi Kan. You don't want to miss it.

Welcome to Momentum, a podcast by Jform where we talk about technology, productivity tips, insights, and best practices that help us move forward in business and in life. Let's get started.

Two, one.

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Maintaining momentum.

All right, welcome everyone. We are here for the second time with Jform's founder and CEO. Welcome to the show, it's so great to have you here again.

Thank you, it's great to be on this show, it's great.

I want to dive right in because at the time we're recording this week, we are launching one of our biggest product releases ever, Jform Sign. Can you talk a little bit about what makes this product so important for Jform and for users?

Sure. We always see our job as completing the journey for our users. The journey starts with a form. People start creating forms on Jform, and then when that form is filled, other things start happening like emails, document generation, data reporting, automation, approvals, and all these things. We didn't just come up with that idea from day one; Jform has been around for 16 years. We started with forms and then discovered it's a sequential journey and forms are just the beginning.

If we listen to our users and find out what they are doing, we interview them and find lots of different pieces of the puzzle. One piece that was missing was e-signatures. People were using Jform for some form types that require signatures. We had an e-signature field on our forms and people were using that a lot, also generating documents using our PDF editor feature. Those things came together and that's how we decided this is a good product for Jform users. We did a better product as well and people love the new product. That's why this is a really important release for us.

I like what you said about puzzle pieces. Forms are just the first piece of the puzzle, but there are many aspects and dimensions after someone collects data about what they do with it. We already have a signature widget but this builds on that so much more and we'll get into that a little bit more. Can you go back a little bit and tell us when did you decide Jform Sign was something we needed to bring to market? How long has this been in process and what led to that initial decision?

I think the first time we thought about it was 2018, a long time ago. The reason was we already had this signature field in our forms, but those signature fields were not completely compliant to meet legal requirements of e-signatures. It was just a signature field where people could draw on it and use it on their phones. People needed more formal, better e-signature products. When we solved that, about 10 percent of our active users were actually using the signature fields. When we saw all these forms that had signature fields, we thought we have to do a better job and make sure we have digital certificates, history, and all features required for a more formal, legally binding e-signature product.

That's how we started working on this product. It's been a journey and we did a better program for a long time. Sometimes when we launch products, people say they've been using the product for a year and we say they were in a better program. It's really important for us because it's a learning opportunity. When we release a product, we want it to be good, so we release it to a small group of users, get feedback, and increase the percentage of users with the better version. That's how we make sure we have a good product.

People might not realize when they see a product launch that it has been tested for many months in a beta program, optimized, tweaked, and made as good as possible. It's staggering to think that 10 percent of all our forms have signature widgets, millions and millions. So obviously, this is a very important product to bring to market from that perspective.

I'm curious from your standpoint as founder and CEO of a successful SaaS technology company, how do you decide what new product or initiative to invest resources into next? There are so many options, obviously we have a great engineering and development team, so many things we could build. How do you decide this is going to be the next big thing, this is what I'm going to invest years of future resources into? How do you make that decision?

The one thing we have at Jform is focus. People ask if we are going to do another product, like a completely different product as a company. I feel like if we do that, we lose the opportunity to advance our existing product and might lose focus. We have responsibility to 70 million Jform users who expect us to advance, improve, and renew the product all the time. That's what we've been doing for 16 years. We didn't just create a completely new product; we create complementary products like Jform Sign that complete the existing Jform product.

When we look at our users and customers, we find lots of needs and discover new ideas. There's an ocean of new ideas, so finding ideas is not a problem. The biggest problem is deciding which idea or product or feature to work on next. There's always a resource issue; we have limited resources and product teams, so we decide based on existing usage, user interviews, and data. For example, with Jform Sign, we looked at people using the signature field and were surprised to find we were actually a signature product without knowing it until we looked at the numbers. Once we saw that, we knew we had to do better and put resources into it.

We have many upcoming great products and ideas. It usually takes many years for a product like Jform Sign to be completed, but we make sure to do a good job. Soon we have another launch, but we don't want to give it away beforehand because we love the excitement of launches. Launches are the best times for me, bringing all teams together, so many people working on launches, products, and marketing. It's incredible to unite.

We're here at Jotformers week with 450 employees over 26 countries. It's amazing and humbling to be here. I like what you said about our products being customer-led. We listen to our customers first and foremost and allocate resources carefully because we are a bootstrap company without VC funding to hire a bunch of new people. We have to be very selective about what we do, knowing our focus is on forms and building out from that. That philosophy has helped us significantly with our products.

Let's go further on the process. You've decided Jform Sign is a product you're bringing to market. Once you decide that, how do you begin the process? What does the journey look like? What are the first steps to starting a product as intensive as Jform Sign?

Once we decide to build a product like Jform Sign, we identify the biggest issues and problems we need to solve and the product's positioning. We consider what it will mean for existing users and for people who never used Jotform. Can we make a product that answers both and brings new users? Positioning is important and we think about it right at the beginning, not after the product is made.

After deciding the positioning, we build all capabilities needed for that positioning. For example, Jform Sign's positioning is the best automation product if you need essentials, automation, and e-signatures. There are over 400 e-signature products on the market, so we thought about what makes Jform Sign different. It comes with Jform's form builder, customizable email features, automation, conditional logic, approvals, PDF document generation, inbox and table features, all complementing the existing product. Adding these to an e-signature product creates a huge automation product, and that's what we solve.

We then decide the biggest problems to solve and start internal week-long hackathons. The first are design hackathons where product designers spend a week solving tough problems, like how to make a PDF signature product simple and easy because existing products are clunky and confusing. Designers look at other products, come up with new ideas, and one winner emerges. This competition breeds great ideas and products.

After design hackathons, we start engineering challenges with week-long hackathons solving engineering problems, like automatically finding where to put e-signature fields so users don't have to. These challenges help find the best solutions. We start with big problems first, then smaller ones. After that, a single product team takes over. For Jform Sign, it took about one and a half years of grinding work with daily demo days showing progress, trying, redoing, and continuously improving.

They release the MVP, the minimum viable product, to users to start the beta program and get feedback. Without users, we don't know if we're doing something worthwhile. Sometimes people can't use it because it's too complex or confusing, so we do beta programs, usability testing, and user interviews to improve. It's so much fun.

We're in October as we record this and launching Sign. When did the first beta product for Sign come out?

I think it was the beginning of this year, many months ago.

That's such an interesting process with hackathons, then giving it to a team working on it, and daily demo days. It breeds an environment of accountability where your idea might not be used but you still present it with effort and pride, holding yourself and everyone around accountable. Only one idea may be chosen but it breeds pride in the blood, sweat, and tears put into a product.

We care about contributions but also allow for failure. We allow people to fail and take ownership. These teams are cross-functional with designers, front-end developers, product managers, user researchers, UI developers, all working together. They try different things, get feedback, and pivot if needed. There's nothing wrong with going in the wrong direction temporarily and changing course to ensure the best product. That's accountability.

When you identify the biggest issues to solve during a product launch, what are common challenges? Do you often have to pivot entirely if the product isn't working as imagined? What are some biggest pitfalls encountered during a product launch?

We try to stay flexible. We usually say we are going to launch on a certain date but keep flexibility. We don't announce products beforehand to keep it a surprise, which makes it more fun. It also gives us flexibility to postpone if there's a big problem. Otherwise, announcing a date forces us to rush and cut corners. Flexibility is good for us and the team's morale. Launches are less stressful and more fun now. Of course, last minute there are some stresses but we're more organized now with dedicated people preparing launches.

The biggest challenge with launches is making sure we have good positioning and can communicate it well to users and the outside world. Our marketing team also does hackathons to find the right positioning and taglines. It's important because if people don't understand the product or even the name, they won't use it. It's not just words but also screenshots and pictures on product pages. When done well, people start using the product right away and get excited. It makes us happy.

The satisfaction from the harmony of marketing, developers, designers, engineers, and everyone working hard to finally release a product is inspiring. I like what you said about being flexible with launches. I've read about crunch time in other industries with harsh deadlines and terrible work environments. I'm glad we have a better culture where it's okay to punt a little to have happy employees and a good product.

You said 10 years ago you were still working on the product. How involved are you with development now? Are you coding or thinking from a broad holistic view as CEO of a 450-person company with product launches?

I loved working on the product in the past but now there's no time to work on the product. My position is like being in a high place where I see everything because I meet with all departments. My job is to make sure we have good direction, good decisions, and are going in the right direction to help users the most. I also make sure people communicate well with each other. Sometimes I see people have good ideas but aren't aware of each other, so I help communicate ideas and keep everyone aligned. Unfortunately, I have no time for coding now.

I tried coding sometimes but once you stop for a while, it's hard to get back in the zone. At some point, I gave up coding. I don't see myself just as a developer but also as a product person. Making a good product that people love and use is the most important thing for me, even before being a technical or developer person. That's how I was when I started Jform many years ago. I try to keep that by giving feedback to teams and talking about the product all the time.

As the company grows, it's easier to see it as managing things and people, but we are a product company and I remind myself that product comes first. We make sure to create good products and continue to improve them all the time.

That must have been a significant transition going from developer to overseeing everything. Being a developer helps because you understand what they're doing. How was that transition? Did you learn as you went from point A to point B?

The good thing is I had a lot of time. It was slow and gradual. The first year it was just me, then I hired my first employee, second year second employee, third year third employee. I gained experience on the way. It's a journey. Jform is a journey that starts with forms and helps users accomplish what they need. Jform as a company is also a journey. We are not here to get investment or exit. I was a bootstrapper and we never received investment. This allows us to do things the right way without rushing or hiring too many people at once. We take the long road and that makes Jform different from competitors.

We continue to improve our product and have a bright future. We talked about looking at the long term, starting Jform Sign four or five years ago and growing slowly but the right way, releasing the right products. It's a promising future indeed.

Is there anything related to Jform Sign or product launches in general that you feel we didn't cover here that's worth bringing up?

I really believe we have something here with Jform Sign. Our users need a formal e-signature solution. When we launched just two days ago, people are already coming to Jform Sign. I believe Jform Sign will be a successful product by itself, even without Jform, because it's a good, elegant solution. We did a really good job. There are hundreds of products in the market but I haven't seen a really good one like this. We see ourselves as a product company and invest in our products and team, which shows in Jform Sign and related features like PDF document generation. We have experience from many years to do a good job, and I'm really excited about that.

I am excited as well. This launch has been amazing. It's great to come together and celebrate as a team and company. Thank you for taking the time to come on the show and talk about it.

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