Michael Sieb

Building @usetable – Nurturing human interactions

Previous co-founder of Type Studio (acq. by @Logitech)

[Michael Sieb @michael_sieb]

“Do things that don’t scale”

That’s why we craft our own merch 🧶👕

Some would say that’s a waste of time, too expensive, and completely overkill for an early stage startup.

But at @usetable we think different about it.

Let me explain...

Merch is actually a great way to reward your customers. To bring fans of your product even closer to your brand and company. Give them identification. Make them feel special.

But here is the catch. Not all merch is the same.

I would actually say there are two types of merch.

We all know the mass produced t-shirts from companies that we get handed out for free.

Most often they are cheap in production, bad in quality, not fitting, and designed without any love (probably not fair traded on top).

They end up somewhere in our closet, never worn.

And than there is this merch that we fall in love with. The hoodie that we wear all the time and becomes our favorite piece.

If you provide merch for your customers you defiantly want to fall into the second bucket.

Our aspiration is to not only build a product that people will love but also create merch that is at the highest level of quality that people will wear with pride.

To make sure we can achieve that we craft and customize our first collection by ourself.

It actually took me month to find the perfect hoodie, t-shirt and caps with the right quality.

Now it is time to customize them and create unique table pieces out of it.💙

Stay tuned because soon you will be able to get them rewarded inside our app 😎

[Michael Sieb @michael_sieb]

@thesohom2 Appreciate it @thesohom2

[Michael Sieb @michael_sieb]

Played around with Figma Sites over the weekend.

I have to say, it’s pretty intuitive and convenient to ship a website right from where you design it.

My previous workflow was designing the site in Figma first and then building it in Webflow.

Sure, Figma Sites has more limitations compared to Webflow, but it still gives you pixel-perfect accuracy right from your designs. That’s something I’ve still been missing with the current state of AI website-building platforms.

Link to my new site in the comments👇

[Karri Saarinen @karrisaarinen]

For early-stage startups, viral marketing is often a mistake. The same goes for heavy paid marketing. You might get a lot of views, but not the right ones.

What usually happens is that you miss the true early adopters, the people who would actually love your still-in-progress product. Instead, you attract people who discovered you through hype, try the product out of curiosity, don’t find it ready yet, and leave. Your retention tanks, you get demoralized, and you might even pivot for the wrong reasons.

I think chasing “fastest to X ARR” or similar milestones is the wrong goal. Your aim isn’t to hit the biggest number this quarter, it’s to build something enduring and exceptional over the next decade.

There are no shortcuts. Hype, huge launches often end up in failure. You can’t skip straight from zero to mass late adopters.

You have to learn from your early users, iterate, and grow with them. Keep launching, many times. Expand the ICP, go up market, do whatever, but keep the focus and keep refining the "right" customer.

[Michael Sieb @michael_sieb]

@pmitu Solo & Bootstrapping

[Michael Sieb @michael_sieb]

https://t.co/wEH2YxF0XZ

[Michael Sieb @michael_sieb]

5️⃣ 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗲.

And even iterate and change it before even launching the product.

I spent weeks and months crafting and iterating on our website. If you care about brand recognition and have a sense for design, why go with mediocre?

Your website is oftentimes the first touchpoint and impression for your potential future customers.

___

P.S. One startup buzzword that I go with is working 996. Founding a startup and trying to innovate is not easy, and it takes hard work and dedication.

[Michael Sieb @michael_sieb]

There is general startup advice

And then there are things I handle differently 👇

[Michael Sieb @michael_sieb]

4️⃣ 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗕𝟮𝗕 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝘀, 𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝗲𝗱.

Generally speaking, I think building a consumer product is more difficult.

But when you have enough conviction that you've found a problem that needs to be solved, and it's in B2C, then go after it anyway.

Being passionate about something can already be a huge advantage.

The alternative, picking a problem set that you don’t truly care about and just going after it because the odds are higher, rarely works. Remember, startups are a marathon, not a sprint.

[Michael Sieb @michael_sieb]

Excited about what we're cooking up for y'all 🫶

[table @usetable]

It's coming together 👀

✅ table desktop app ready to go ✅

Next:

✨ Wrapping up some missing AI functionality ✨

If you don't want to miss our beta launch then sign up for the waitlist 👇

https://t.co/z5f7l0YoOL

[Mason Kimbarovsky @masonkimbar]

Just got this awesome note from @michael_sieb and @MaxFleit after launching @usetable!

Love seeing founders who go the extra mile for the people they’re building for. Can’t wait to see Table in action — hoping they onboard soon… 👀

ps: best founder handwriting I’ve ever seen

[Michael Sieb @michael_sieb]

@GrunzkeLukas Let's goo! 教我一些普通话

[Michael Sieb @michael_sieb]

Our @usetable website would’ve cost us approximately a mid 5 digit figure 🤯💰

It took us +150 hours for the final result 🔥 Here are some stats👇

I remember doing the very first wireframes in Figma at the beginning of June → fast forward we published the the site on July 30.🧑‍💻

So it took us almost 2 month to ship the website...👀

At the beginning we didn't expect that it would take us so long but I guess that is just the nature if you design and build everything from scratch to have a fully customised and tailored website that is unique.

Our goal was to create a top notch site that can really transport the vision of table (think personal CRM but AI first) and epitomises the quality with which we develop our app.😍

Branding makes up a large part of the perception of a product and is often decided subconsciously in just a few seconds.👁️

That's why it was clear for us to go the extra mile. Btw we did everything in house from the branding, design, motion, and development. Thus it's difficult to determine the exact value.

To give you a reference. Probably one of the best websites (@huly_io) out there cost $89,775 when outsourced to an design agency by @alex_barashkov.

Our team size that was involved includes:
2 x Designer 🎨
1 x Motion Designer 🏃‍♂️‍➡️
1 x Project Manager 👨‍🚀
1 x Art Director 🧑‍🎨
2 x Developers 🧑‍💻

If we roughly break down the hour allocation it would look likes this:
6% Design Inspiration
12% Art Direction and Management
39% Actual Design
15% Motion
28% Development

In the first week after the release we accumulated over 50k impressions. So I guess we can be proud of the final result.🙏

Comment your website down below and I'll give you some feedback on it👇

[Michael Sieb @michael_sieb]

@sidyadav Congrats! Looks great!

[Michael Sieb @michael_sieb]

@ispekhov @alexfmac @usetable I don't think that will happen but a fair price to subscribe monthly!

[Michael Sieb @michael_sieb]

Big news to share with you! 🥳🚀🚨

Today we are unveiling @usetable – think Personal CRM but AI first!

After we teased you with some hint over the last few weeks we are ready to tell the world! We are building table to make your (and our) life as easy as possible!

Manage, organise, and grow your network in one central place! Because your network is your net worth.🤙

My co-founder @MaxFleit and I tried so many tools over many years and none of them really worked for our needs.

They were either to „salesy“ and build to push leads through a funnel or are clunky and hard to use in your busy day to day life.🤯

With table we will change all of it!🚀

Because we believe building meaningful connections shouldn’t be a hassle.

Today we are launching publicly on @ProductHunt! It would mean the world to us to check it out and support us.💙

And if you want to be one of the first to get access to table make sure to sign up to our waitlist.🔥

Links in the comments below 👇

[Michael Sieb @michael_sieb]

We didn't expect this to happen 🤯😍

Now we have to write +1000 postcards ✍️

And all of this because we truly believe in building products customer centric first.💙

When @MaxFleit and I were doing the final touches for the release of our @usetable website we though... wouldn’t it be cool to go the extra mile and send everyone who trust in us early on a little gift when signing up for the waitlist?🤔

Long story short. We obviously went for it 😎
- We implemented a popup to capture the phone number after the waitlist signup to coordinate sending out the gift.
- We ordered 1000 postcards and even more stickers.

We didn’t expect at all that so many people went for the gift! In fact more then 60% 🎁

And we already ordered more postcards and stickers since it took less then 48 hours to distribute the first 1000.🔥

Of course we are more then happy with the extra work. Even tho it means a lot of hand writing for Max and me over the next weeks.✍️

So if you also want to get some stickers and a handwritten postcard hurry up and join the table journey. 🚀

P.S. Honestly we might need to stop it very soon!

[Michael Sieb @michael_sieb]

@d__raptis @usetable 🥳 juhu have you also seen our easter egg here 👀