Pillow

@darrenux I'd love to hear stories about your prototype strategy (or lack thereof) and learnings. What you were surprised to learn? Was measuring CTR in the digest intended to guide your content production focus in the app?

@joshbenjamin love this question :) I'm planning on writing a blog post about the learnings soon, too. The Pillow Talk digest started as a way of giving me rhythm. Start small, but keep executing. I also used this an opportunity to learn as much as I could about sex, relationships, intimacy etc. whilst building an audience who received value from the Friday afternoon emails. The "sex positions" link was by far the most popular (partly because it was the first link in the email, but it also related to the majority of the readers). Other links, less relevant to everyone. The digest was never the end goal, and I used this audience to get feedback about potential product ideas using Typeform. I also used the project as a genuine conversation starter to talk about intimate relationships with everyone that I could... and learn as much as I could. I'm UX guy, I over did the research ;) Over the course of the first 6 months, it became apparent there was a gaping hole in the way we learn about Sex, Intimacy, and Relationships. In other parts of life we take classes, lessons and have guided instruction - we learn in real-time, as opposed to reading THEN putting it into practice. We don't with sex. I also started seeing similar "follow-along" apps in the fields of meditation, workouts and yoga... This led to the release of Blindfold.club this time last year. I bootstrapped this from Chiang Mai in Thailand using audio talent I found on Fiverr, and sold the mp3 adventures on Gumroad. Proper MVP style. I gained a little traction, proved that people would buy it, and received tons of positive feedback about the episodes. I learned that getting the voice, tone, pace, and language 'right' is exceptionally important, and very difficult. Our users found Blindfold to be like Marmite - they either LOVED it, or HATED it. Digging in, we found those that hated it were already very sexually explorative couples and were expecting something - given the name "Blindfold" - much kinkier than what we offered. Blindfold has many associations with Fifty Shades Of Grey... and that isn't what were trying to do. Those that loved it were couples who were open enough to try something new, but not already into (or expecting) kink. It was a branding problem. So I went back to London, found the youngest sex therapist in the UK (the long overdue expertise I needed), a small amount of investment, a developer, female co-founder w/ biz bg, and here we are... an iOS app named Pillow with our focus on helping couples be better together by providing a way to more easily try new things in the bedroom, and improve intimate communication. We all want to feel closer to our partner, right?.. :)

@mdekuijper that's how it started as I remember correctly

@bramk @mdekuijper It certainly was :) ...but we were previously using MailChimp but they banned us because, well, sex. Old school rules. Things are changing, but slowly. We want to accelerate this cultural change in attitudes towards sex and intimacy..

@steve228uk Yeah, it's an interesting problem and I'd love to hear how similar products have solved this. On the one hand, the biggest market is straight couples - and we've already received similar feedback from MF couples regarding images of same-sex couples, "is this episode for us, as there's a photo of 2 women?". But on the other hand, the app is crafted for all couples to nurture their intimacy, irrelevant of their gender. We hope to figure this out in the coming months. My hunch is that we'll need a light level of personalisation... and we are listening, promise! Thanks for the feedback!

@darrenux Really love the idea of personalisation, I'm 100% sure you guys will figure it out. ✌️

@darrenux I was surprised I didn't get to pick what the details of my relationship during on boarding. I'd love to give the app the info (I'm a woman, my partner is a woman) and have the photos/content change dynamically based on the answers. Regardless, the app is great. 😍

@_rsamuelson great to hear, and to confirm all the content IS for all couples. We don't use gender pronouns, nor do we reference sex specific parts of the body.. 😄 😄

@davidjbland Ana is fantastic!!! =)