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Hey everyone - Aryaman and Rahul here.

This week we're diving into early-stage product development with a returning guest: Jennifer Phan, CEO of Passionfroot, backed by leading investors like Creandum, Sequoia, and a16z's scout fund.

Note: Before we get into it, a special shout out to our sponsor Notion! We use Notion daily at Scale for everything from task management to content planning. Check it out via the image above or the full ad spot in this email.

⚡️ TLDR

Passionfroot's product development journey proves 2 core tenets of the Y Combinator / Paul Graham playbook: “Do Things That Don’t Scale” and “Learn from your users”. 

Starting with Figma mockups and manually-built Webflow sites, Jennifer Phan took a methodical approach to product development - identifying real problems, gathering user feedback, and only building features users proved they needed. Today, Passionfroot has evolved into a true ‘creator control centre’ serving thousands of users.

Her journey offers a masterclass in how to build products that users actually want. Keep reading to learn her playbook.

The Story

Before we get into that, a quick introduction to Jennifer Phan and Passionfroot. 

As you may remember from our last edition on Passionfroot  here, Jen was actually one of us - a VC-turned-newsletter writer who saw firsthand how broken creator monetization was. 

To solve this problem, Passionfroot built the "Shopify for Creators" - helping professional creators (think newsletter writers, podcasters, and subject matter experts) monetize there audience through brand partnerships. 

The platform manages everything from storefronts and bookings to workflows and payments. Jennifer founded Passionfroot in 2022, and today they're backed by leading VCs and creators, serving thousands of customers. 

(PS: as newsletter writers ourselves, we love what Jen has built. Check out our storefront here if you want to sponsor us)

Back to the story!

How do you test a product that doesn’t exist yet? 

In the early days, everyone tells you to "validate before you build" … but how do you validate an idea without a product to show customers? 

Jennifer took a far scrappier but more efficient approach than most: Figma mockups, user conversations, and Webflow MVPs:

#1 Show don't tell:

Jen’s genius was creating a truly usable Figma prototype - these weren't just static designs. 

She built clickable workflows showing exactly how creators would manage their brand deals including discovering brand partnerships, booking in advertisers, and setting up storefronts. 

This would allow every piece of feedback to drive iterations and refinements, catching potential issues before writing a single line of code. 

They were able to capture real information on how a user would interact with their ‘end-state’ product before they even wrote a single line of code!

#2 Listen before you launch: 

With the mockups in hand, Jennifer launched into deep user research. 

She reached out to creators through LinkedIn, Twitter (do we have to call it X?), and any other channel that she could think of. 

Jen knew exactly what her ICP could look like: a creator that is tired of having to manually manage brand partnerships. 

These weren't casual chats - they were detailed sessions where creators walked through their current processes, pain points, and reactions to Passionfroot's proposed solution.

The conversations revealed nuances they never would have discovered otherwise: 

1. Creators cared more about streamlined workflows than fancy features 

2. Brand communication was a far bigger headache than anyone had anticipated.

#3 Make It Real (Even If It's Manual):

The Passionfroot team had everything they needed - it was time to build.  

Instead of waiting months to launch a full platform, Jen’s  team created custom storefronts for early users using Webflow. 

While this wasn’t scalable or automated, these sites let creators immediately start managing real brand deals. 

This hands-on approach revealed their most crucial insight: payment collection was consuming an enormous amount of creators' time - something that wasn't obvious from initial conversations. 

While manually building storefronts for every user wasn't sustainable, it gave Passionfroot something far more valuable: absolute certainty about what to build next. 

Every feature they would later develop was validated not by assumptions or market research, but by watching real users solve real problems with basic tools.

Where are they now? 

What started as simple Webflow sites has evolved into what Jen calls "the operating system for creators." Here's how they built it, piece by piece:

Storefront: Your digital home - showcase your services and rates to brands in one place

Booking System: Schedule brand deals as easily as booking an Airbnb

Workflow Engine: Manage all your content creation in one place - from briefs to final approvals

Payment System: Get paid automatically - no more chasing invoices

PS: here’s a behind the scenes view of Scale’s Passionfroot page: 

What this means for you

If you're starting to build a product, here's what you can learn from Jennifer's playbook:

1. Show before you code: Start with high-fidelity mockups that users can actually click through

2. Talk to your users: Have detailed conversations with your future power users to understand the problems that they are facing

3. Consider building scrappy products: Launch with basic tools that solve the core problem so that you can watch how users actually use your solution

If you enjoyed this issue, please share it with fellow founders and operators. Have questions about building marketplaces? Reach out at [email protected].

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See you next week!

Rahul & Aryaman