DEREK EMBRY
I'm a problem-solver with 10 years of experience across marketing, growth, and design. I create software products that drive value and websites that tell their unique stories.
I formerly led product growth at Lattice, focusing on user activation and retention. Before then, I was a product marketer in charge of building and launching features, running campaigns, and leading Lattice's customer marketing through the company's growth from $4M to over $100M.
Now, I'm looking for my next product design gig! I'm interested in full-time roles, contracts, and internships at forward-thinking technology companies that care about their people.
Give users a soft landing on first login.
Roles |Product Designer, Product Manager, Product Marketer
![Screen 1 of the onboarding flow.](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/65de9df8076466df621dbcc4/660b6b11619f8fc0952f46a9_Screen%201.png)
Designed & built in-app onboarding from 0 to 1 for new Lattice users to quickly understand tools and get started.
User engagement stalled, customers were churning at an alarming rate, and our NDR was dropping.
Create an onboarding flow for new users and run an experiment to boost user activation.
A successful first iteration with room for improvement.
Since B2B companies onboard users much more slowly, Lattice’s experiment group was less than 10,000 users, so reaching statistical significance was a positive signal that we could continue experiments like this to improve the product.
Even so, a 2% lift was smaller than we’d hoped to achieve. It was clear that changing user behavior would be challenging, especially within the constraints from our EPD team, but it was a foundation that we’d continue to build on.
Embrace less-is-more and reduce cognitive load.
1. Decide on one primary metric and action.
For this project, I worked with Data Science to determine that successful user activation meant the user completed at least one of three key actions, depending on the tools that their company prioritized. I assumed giving users more flexible choices would be better, but it likely created more confusion. In the next version, I would test a flow that prioritized one core action to make it extremely clear what the user should do vs. what the user could do.
2. Provide some basic explanation of the tools.
In an effort to keep the onboarding flow quick and to the point, I assumed the actions I was highlighting to new users would be familiar enough in the broader context. Of course, nothing is that simple. In the next version, I would test adding messaging around, for example, what Lattice 1:1s does and why using it is valuable from the get-go.
3. Apply cleaner design with in-house code.
Being constrained by a third-party tool meant that I could only do so much to make the design clean and on-brand. In the next version, I’d spend more time working with other EPD team members to clean up the design more and, if resources allowed, creating the flow in-house so we could unlock a more creative and engaging UX.
Make Lattice implementation easy with on-demand video courses for all users.
Roles | Product Manager, Product Marketer
Design Partner | Luc Chaissac
![The home page of Lattice University showing 3 categories for videos: admin, manager, and employee.](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/65de9df8076466df621dbcc4/662096bcd19641ced6c45e21_LU%20home.png)
Create a hub for Lattice product education.
Learning how to use Lattice is time consuming and difficult.
Founded Lattice University and the Change Management Hub (CMH).
![A snapshot of the wireframing stage for lattice university.](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/65de9df8076466df621dbcc4/660b5368f3aacb655c8516db_LU%20-%20Inspiration%20%26%20Wireframes_2.png)
Lattice U. Wireframes: I studied the way many other successful companies created product education hubs similar to what we envisioned. Drawing inspiration from companies like Webflow, Shopify, and Hubspot, I created several layout concepts depending on how we wanted users to discover and find content.
![A snapshot of the wireframing stage for Lattice University.](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/65de9df8076466df621dbcc4/660b50c3ebace4f078813169_LU%20-%20Inspiration%20%26%20Wireframes.png)
CMH Wireframes: Many fewer companies have an internal resource for change management so I didn't have as strong a benchmark to refer to for the CMH. Even so, I sketched and wireframed concepts for different layouts depending on the content we wanted to prioritize for users.
Final Lattice U: We used Webflow to build Lattice University from scratch rather than a third-party platform which allowed us to match the look and feel to Lattice's brand without making many concessions. The final product felt very much like Lattice even though it was built in a completely separate platform.
Making it easy to learn the tool is a competitive differentiator.
As it turns out, not only were Lattice University and the CMH such a success in helping to make customer implementations more effective, they were also helpful in closing new enterprise customer deals. Soon after launching, the sales team started including them as product features in the sales process since our competitors didn't offer the same support. We even built marketing pages for Lattice University and the Change Management Hub to show just how important they were to the Lattice product suite!
![A screenshot of the waitlist page for You Dreaming while we were building the company.](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/65de9df8076466df621dbcc4/65de9df8076466df621dbcf6_youdreaming%20site%20cover.jpg)
People are in a crisis of poor sleep. Let's fix that!
Studies show that proper sleep health is associated with countless positive health effects, like promoting cardiovascular health, reducing the risk of Alzheimer's disease, and psychological wellness. We believe that dreaming should be a core part of a healthy life and offered a traditional organic supplement combined with an evidence based dream journal to track your dream adventures. Through dreaming, we can live a more healthy, exciting and widening world of endless possibility.
Make lucid dreaming more interesting and exciting than binging a tv show.
By teaching people how to access the infinite possibilities of their imagination and create wondrous dream worlds of their own, sleep could be something that people will actually look forward to at night.
Bedtime Story: As part of YouDreaming's launch strategy, we wrote an adult bedtime story to illustrate and narrate how lucid dream training works. Here are some of my favorite pieces of artwork from the inimitable artist we partnered with, Wenyi Geng.
Training program & herbal supplement to promote restful sleep and vivid dreaming.
![The bottle label for the YouDreaming supplement.](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/65de9df8076466df621dbcc4/65f48699894491fa115df377_bottle%20label.png)
![The YouDreaming herbal supplement product.](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/65de9df8076466df621dbcc4/66208df2d76620fd9e09feab_A692DDA6-FAA4-4312-A03A-3475EA168A96_1_105_c.jpeg)
Supplement Label: I designed this brand label featuring the Star, the protagonist's teacher in the bedtime story, as our primary brand asset. Here it is in real life!
Learning good lessons the hard way.
There were a lot of lessons in founding a company through this experience. One of the hardest lessons learned was how much pressure creating a company and bringing a product to market put on one's mental health. In this case, for one of our co-founders, it proved to be too much. Long story short, we were forced to close the company just months before we were going to open the online store. It was a devastating turn of events that has reinforced just how important co-founder relationships are and one's mental health when trying to start a business.
I'm a nerd and not afraid to show it.
But why talk about this silly game in my design portfolio?
Well, it turns out that building a deck actually has a lot in common with the design process. Let me break it down for you.
How do I win the game in a way that is both creative and fun for every player at the table?
It would be easy to make a deck that wins often. What's not easy is making a deck that hits the trifecta of being effective, personally unique, and is fun for everyone else, too. In a game, your audience is more than just you.
Gather inspiration and borrow like an artist (designer).
My research process typically starts with a card that draws my attention for its uniqueness or potential for fun. From there, I pore through the lists of other deckbuilders to see how they approached the strategy and uncover patterns. Do the patterns seem effective? Are they clever and creative? But most importantly, would the strategy be fun?
I gather the components that seem exciting and then start adding my personal approach. I tend to prefer strategies that take a little longer to develop, but lead to surprising and dramatic results.
A/B testing in a card game? Of course!
Once the deck feels good in my hands, it's time for the real test: actual games! I'm always excited to see how it performs in the real world and what I might learn.
A deck – like a product – is never truly finished, either. And with new cards coming out all the time, there are always things to improve on and adapt to meet the goals of function, creativity, and fun. At the end of the day, the constant cycle of brainstorming and experimenting is what makes this game so enjoyable.
![A picture of Atla Palani, one of my favorite Magic: The Gathering Commanders.](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/65de9df8076466df621dbcc4/660b72d3cfe490c443abb506_Card%20LVx1x.webp)
![A picture of Isshin, Two Heavens as One, one of my favorite Magic: The Gathering Commanders.](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/65de9df8076466df621dbcc4/660b72dd7c402e11e8032898_Card%20Pb4K8.webp)
![A picture of Seton, Krosan Protector, one of my favorite Magic: The Gathering Commanders.](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/65de9df8076466df621dbcc4/660b72e706d063b43f0bba1f_Card%20YNZOB.webp)
Snapshot: Just a few of my personal favorite decks that I've brewed over the years. Of course, there's plenty more where those came from. For those interested, you can find all my lists on Moxfield. 🧙