City / remote work
Based in Shanghai and happy to work remotely; usually one in-person session every two months, the rest online.
ABOUT / GU YAN
I’m Gu Yan. I usually sit between the product meeting and the website redesign
In the morning I help a team put its next things in order at the weekly product meeting; in the afternoon I go over the home page’s first screen with the founder. For twelve years I did user research at an enterprise software company and ran product strategy and messaging at SaaS teams; since 2022 I have worked with early-stage teams as an independent consultant. If you are thinking about working together, start with what I’ve done.
At a glance
Typical team size
Early teams of 10–40, where product, design and marketing are often the same people.
Engagement length
Engagements of 2–6 weeks around one clear task, with no long-term residency.
Working languages
Chinese and English for meetings, interviews and writing.
Focus
Enterprise software and B2B tools, developer products, education and content products.
Career
Three chapters that show how today’s way of working took shape.
2014–2018 · User research and enterprise software
User research at an enterprise software company: going on customer visits with sales and turning visit notes into lists the product team could use directly. Three major redesigns taught me a habit: first see how people actually use the product, then talk about what to add.
2018–2022 · Product strategy and messaging
At a SaaS company I owned product strategy and external messaging: rewriting the website’s information architecture, launching two major versions and the first pricing page change. This is where I started putting the product meeting’s conclusions and the home page’s first screen on the same table.
2022 onwards · Independent consultant
Working with early teams in projects of 2–6 weeks: read what the team already has, interview users on the front line, settle the direction together, then carry it into the home page structure, sales material and the order of releases.
A typical week
During an engagement the rhythm stays the same, so the team knows when to expect what.
- Monday morning · Material review: read last week’s interviews, sales emails and support records and mark the scenarios that keep coming up.
- Tuesday–Wednesday · Interviews: usually 5–8, half with users and half with the people in the team who do the work.
- Thursday · Workshop: spread the scenarios on the wall with product, design and marketing and decide on the spot which part comes first.
- Friday morning · Document feedback: comments directly on the PRD, website copy and pricing page, not left for next week.
- Friday afternoon · Quiet write-up: no meetings; the week’s notes become two pages, delivered to the team on Monday morning.
Five documents always open on my desk
Interview evidence table
Every quote with its source and how often it came up, so the team can go back to what users said rather than only my summary.
Scenario map
Who hits a problem, in what situation and how often, ordered by frequency to decide what to do first.
Positioning one-pager
Who we serve, what we replace and why now, on one page that a founder or a new hire can read in two minutes.
Home page wireframe
The scroll order from the first to the third screen, and the one thing each screen must make clear.
Review notes
Written at the end: why we decided as we did, what actually happened and whether to do it differently next time.
Three working principles
Look first, then act
I read everything you have before the first meeting and come with specific questions instead of starting from zero.
Conclusions go on paper
Every discussion ends with who does the next step, by when and what they deliver. If we can’t write it down, we haven’t finished talking.
Conclusions can change
When something new comes up, I say so when a conclusion needs revisiting, and explain why.
Get to know me through these
If you have ten minutes, read these three. They show how I think better than this page does.
- Positioning is a set of trade-offs: how a team chose between three options that all looked right.
- Three kinds of interview evidence: which things users say you can use directly and which need another round of questions.
- From feature list to value story: rewriting a list of features into a paragraph a visitor understands.
See how we would work together
Work usually starts with one specific problem. We talk for thirty minutes, then you decide whether to continue.
Gu Yan, the timeline and the experience described here are fictional and shown as an example.