Signals
OVERVIEW
Problem
Despite the theoretical product-market fit, clients are more confused than excited about the current Signals feature. Signals data helps investors approximate performance in absense of financial data. However, the visualizations and definitions of Signals data are confusing and unintuitive. Sales actively avoid demoing Signals to prospective clients.
Goals:
- Reduce confusion about how Signals data is presented
- Provide customers with the ability to compare similar companies
- Overcome the negative perception of Signals so sales can confidently demo Signals to prospective clients
My Role: Product Designer
Team: Product Manager, Healthcare Analyst, Project Manager, Engineering
Timeframe: 5 months
Tools: Figma, SQL, Gong, FullStory, MixPanel
BACKGROUND
Signals aims to help clients discover, analyze, and monitor companies more effectively than competitors, by providing them with a new data dimension (non-financial data) in addition to our financial data. Data points include social media count, web traffic, mobile reviews, and employee counts. It was released over 5 years ago and has been received negatively by both customers and internally.
Business Problem
Negative Internal & External Perception
Sales actively avoid demoing Signals to prospective clients due to its internal perception as being unreliable and confusing. Clients do not understand the information presented in Signals.
"Probably the thing in here that I've struggled with the most is signals. I have no idea what they mean." - James, PitchBook Client
"Signals is probably one of the least used things just because it's kind of a fluff piece"
- Bailey, PitchBook Account Manager
Support Costs
the confusing elements of the Signals feature repeatedly steal time from our Support and Customer Success teams
Low User Rentention
This confusion manifests in our Signals user retention data. Users enter the Signals feature, get confused by our methodologies and presentation, then leave and don’t return.
PERSONA & USER JOURNEY
Despite the negative perception, there is a use case for Signals. It aims to serve B2C investors and Service Providers who want early indicators to invest. By the time deal activity hits PitchBook for the first time, it's already too late.
B2C Investors
Some of the ways we're thinking about it is not just analyzing it financially but also its consumer connectivity, events, and digital presence.
Kelly, B2C Corp Dev investor at Renfro Brands
1. Discover
Signals can help B2C investors win by discovering the hottest consumer companies before competitors
2. Analysis
For later-stage companies without much publicly available data, Signals can help approximate company stage and momentum, allowing later-stage investors to win by reaching out at opportune times.
3. Monitoring
Signals can help B2C investors win by monitoring saved companies and emerging markets for breakout patterns.
RESEARCH
To understand why the retention rate is so low and the negative perception of Signals, we interviewed sales, listened to archived sales calls, and looked at tickets submitted by internal users of what customers are looking for in Signals Data. We also connected with users who were asking for specific non-financial data.
Customer Interviews
Interviewed B2C Investors and clients asking for social media signals, sentiment analysis, web signals by region, etc.
Support Interviews
Connected with customer support specialists to understand where the gaps are with Signals today
Competitive Analysis
We looked at different platforms that display company insights such as new hires, social media counts,
User Sessions
I watched user sessions to see how they are interacting with Signals and looked at trends by analyzing heat maps
Sales Call
Listened to archival sales calls with "Signals" as a keyword
Baseline Data
My PM pulled data on usage rates, click rates, and user retention in MixPanel
I grouped all the insights in the affinity map to define trends on user pain points and what users are asking for
User Pain Points
Comparisons Set Not Helpful
The default comparison set compares the base company against all 2 million companies within PitchBook which is not helpful when benchmarking early-stage startups
Confusion: Definitions & Visualizations
Users did not know how to interpret the bell chart and were confused by the definitions provided for Growth Rates and Size Multiples
Misinterpretation of Data Points
Users often confuse Growth Rate and Size Multiple with financial or revenue growth
SKETCHES & SITEMAPS
My PM and I wrote user stories and prioritized features into different release phases based on user needs and projected dev effort. We used the user stories to anchor our solutions as we started brainstorming.
Main User Story
As an investor, I want to approximate performance in absence of financial data so that I can discover, analyze, and monitor any company better than my competitors
Current Site Map
For MVP Designs, we are eliminating a lot of the confusing terminology and visualizations, repackaging the existing data, and reordering data points so the ones that customer value the most are at the top of the page
Old Site Map
Proposed Site Map
FINAL DESIGNS
Comparison Bar
Fixed Comparison Bar
Users can compare up to 4 different companies which provides more valuable information than comparing against over 2 million companies
Similar Companies
Our dropdown provides suggestions for similar companies if users do not have immediate companies in mind and aid with discovering new companies
Single View
Summary Stats
Users wanted to track changes over time. With our summary stats, we display the delta on a monthly or yearly basis depending on the stat
Employee Count
To address the pain point that our employee count data is inconsistent, we are partnering with a data vendor to get more accurate and timely counts
Comparisons View
Comparison
The top toolbar went through multiple iterations. It serves as a color-coded legend for the rest of the page
Track Changes
The change statistics in the summary section was changed due to user feedback that they like to see overall change
Proposed Native Mobile Designs
Default Comparisons
Since user-defined custom comparisons can be a big dev lift for mobile, I envision having defined similar companies
Filters
For MVP release, time series filters have been removed in the mobile version
IMPACT & NEXT STEPS
A micro release to modify the Signals Section in profiles was released in May 2022. The Profile section which historically made up about 15% of Tab opens increased to 24%, which validated users interest in Signals.
For future releases, we will be looking at retention rates and click rates for the Signals tab and the View All Signals button. The signals revamp will provide a more comprehensive view of a company and give investors early indicators.
Transforming Negative Perception
This is definitely exactly what I pictured in my head when people talk about this
Steph, Customer Support Specialist at PitchBook
Usually, someone has a direct competitor, maybe two in mind just to get a sense. So comparing to a single company is the most relevant. I think this is a very nice refresh.