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How did you implement a "Whats's new" feature in your SaaS?

I just went for a walk to think about the next steps for the SaaS I am currently developing and started to think of some kind of "What's new" feature.

As a user I love it when I get informed about new features/fixes/enhancements in the softwares I am using. But how to manage this as a founder for your own product? Implement it yourself? Takes away time from your core features. Use some tools? But which?

How do you solve that?

Edit: For example, Checkly does a combination of using intercom an https://headwayapp.co/ but that just does not feel right to me.

  1. 3

    https://www.getbeamer.com/

    Really useful, and allow to notify customers about a new feature

    1. 2

      that looks really cool, has a lot of features, but is also quite expensive. Maybe use headway first and then we you have enough paying customers and need more "whats' new" features switch to beamer....

  2. 2

    I send a newsletter to all the subscribers of https://www.colorsandfonts.com
    I post on:

    • Instagram
    • Dev. To
    • Dribbble
    • Twitter
    • Facebook.

    I do this manually so I can adapt the message to the platform and audience.

  3. 2

    I've been thinking about something like this for divjoy.com and also making it available to my users as part of the app templates they can export. Headway looks pretty nice though and seems to have a decent free plan. Any reason it doesn't feel right to you?

    1. 2

      I took a bit closer look at headway and I think I will try it out, especially since their free plan is quite nice!

  4. 1

    Hey Marty—

    We built what you describe for ourselves as we needed to note updates and provide customer support on https://www.campnab.com.

    For us it was important to have this functionality all in one spot—and not be as costly as Intercom (which we found prohibitively expensive as past projects grew).

    You can see where we’re at, here: https://www.emetti.com. We still have lots of work to do, but it’s getting better all the time.

    If you want to give it a spin, let me know. I’d be eager to help you out with it—and make it work around your needs. :-)

    1. 2

      Thanks for the information! I have not reached the point where I need such a tool, but I will definitely keep it in mind :)

      1. 1

        If you do end up going with one, I recommend starting with a content strategy for what you’ll put in it. Even some basic groupings (e.g. Changelog, Offers, Issues, etc.) can help. :-)

  5. 1

    I went very low profile with that for the time being. I googled "timeline CSS" and customize the simplest one I could find. I don't have web notifications or badges but I felt it was enough for the beginning https://roleuproleup.com/en/latest-updates/

    1. 1

      Yeah, I will probably go for an easy win first and later on upgrade to something like headway :) Looks really good!

  6. 1

    I have been using headway and it never turned me down.
    Simple, easy to use and integrate.
    https://headwayapp.co/

  7. 1

    I have just released beta version of my app https://feedfront.me where i also offer change log and you can embed it to your website for free...

    1. 1

      Nice, congrats in the launch! Sell me, what is the difference to headway? ;)

  8. 1

    Does it even have to be notification-based? The simplest solution would just be to make a page at yourdomain/changelog and update it like you would a blog. Super easy, nothing to integrate and people who want to can see what you've been doing recently.

    1. 1

      that definitely would be my first step, but having a notification on the "What's new" link would definitely drive more customers towards that, at least that's what I do :D

  9. 1

    We used to do it from our own notifications. And when they click on them, it gives them a pop up on New Feature!

    1. 1

      I would do the same, but I don't want to spend time on developing a notification feature when I don't actually need one :D

  10. 1

    This comment was deleted 7 months ago.

    1. 1

      yeah, that's why I want to have such a page:)

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