Project management apps are usually designed for managers, but we built Kairn for users - the everyday, everywhere people. Kairn helped users manage everything asked of them across all their tools. That means integrations, integrations, and integrations. We started with Slack, Notion, gCal, and an open API connector for Zapier / n8n.

Picking Which Integrations To Go With

It takes ages to build an integration so don't overload your team with thousands of ideas. First things first, how to pick? I'll always go the same way - which integration creates most value to your user and plays into your vision?

For Kairn, we wanted to build integrations with products where user receive or dealt with tasks. Yet not all tools were strategically interesting, let's dig.

Integrations Build Dependency

Imagine building a SaaS integration like constructing a puzzle. When you integrate another tool, you're connecting the pieces to make them work together. Yet, as each puzzle piece relies on the others to complete the picture, your software needs the integrated tool to function properly. If that tool changes or goes away, it's like losing a puzzle piece, and the whole picture becomes incomplete. Typically think of data structure. Say you integrate with Slack and you connect the message title to your task title in Kairn. If tomorrow Slack changes how their titles are encoded, it blows up your integration 💥.

When building integrations you become dependent on changes on each integrated tool. You are constantly keeping an eye on their API doc and can't change your product as flexibly as you want anymore.

With this in mind, we prioritised some specific integrations. We decided to keep out any direct competitor and go for potential partners. This means out for Asana (no matter the thousands of ask). And in for Notion and Slack which opened us to the real of teams.

Integrations Shape Your User Base

Integrations help you reach specific target audiences, like building bridges to different communities. It's an amazing growth opportunity as you'll be able to market your service to any user of that SaaS. Yet, if that tool releases a feature that replicates yours, it can pose a challenge to your business. Your tool might get less relevant - even obsolete - as users opt to stick with the tool's native functionality.

That's a typical case we've seen over the last years with the "all-in-one" SaaS such as Notion - Asana - even Miro now. They start with integrations to provide services they don't yet offer. If they validate usage, and if it strategically fits their vision, they'll develop a native version.

We fell into that trap with Notion. Our integration brought us loads of users - coming for better project management in Notion. But it also tweaked our user base. Most of our users were now Notion users. The moment Notion stepped up on project management it became harder to stay relevant. And will users consider the value you bring big enough to pay double - for Notion + for you? Tricky tricky.

Digging Into Our Slack Integration

Yup people were coming to Kairn for our integrations, but even then, how do to get them to actually install them. Let's discuss some challenges we faced.

How Users Discover Integrations - Product Marketing

At the beginning our integrations were hidden in the settings as it often is. Users come with a very specific idea in mind. In our case it could be “I want to get all my Slack tasks on Kairn”. As such, they expected to be guided straight from the beginning to get there.

1. So we moved integrations into our onboarding. But keep in mind your onboarding can't get too long. Most consumer SaaS have an onboarding user drop out c.80%. Only keep what is absolutely needed (= the steps needed for user to feel the "aha").

2. We also added integrations as “smart tips” nested in the sidebar. Tips popped up with ideas to make the best of Kairn. That enabled us to reach back users that had wizzled through the onboarding.

3. Of course integrations were part of our discovery emails. They were a series of 10ish emails sent over the 7 days after your onboarding. We made them event-based so they fitted with what users had already discovered - or not.

Will Users Add Integrations - Authorisation Issues

Some software require workspace administrator to allow new integrations. Similarly, some teams (especially in biggish companies) block integrations to prevent data leak. And then Slack had another limitation for free plans - max 10 integrations.

To counter those, we designed message templates to send to administrator to authorise our integration. Yet here, I’d recommend to go one step further. Have a field where users can add their admin’s email and the tool contacts them automatically. This would not just authorise your integration, but potentially grow your user base 😏.

Of course another cool item here are SSO to enable more secure integrations. I'll later speak about our love story with Auth0.

3 Key Learnings

1. Integrations shape your user base. They are an amazing acquisition tool (both partnerships / SEO / app store…) but make sure you don't get labeled as "a feature of XXX".

2. Integrations shape your data structure. Airtable is amazing at integrations but their connections often break when you connect it with tools with different data structure. A good example are custom fields on Notion and how to integrate them with set fields in your data. Take the time to evaluate all product specs before jumping in.

3. Integrations break. All - the - time. APIs evolve and no one will let you know when Notion has changed a specific line that might break on your end. So dedicate time to constantly testing and reviewing your integrations. Or keep your developers on your roadmap and let me handle it 😏.

If you'd like to know more about our Notion / Zapier / gCal / n8n / or even technical side of Slack, ping me.

See ya,
Pat