Start Here: Your Essential Content Guide

Published May 02, 2018 by Jane Portman
Categories:

• Products
• Resources

My dear friend, here’s a curated list of content organized by topic. I put it together for you, so that you can learn the essentials of our business ecosystem without paying top dollar for expensive training.

It starts with my own books and talks, and continues with other resources organized by topic. Note: I only include resources that are either free or very affordable.

My Books

• 2013 — Mastering App Presentation — my first book (here’s the story: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)
• 2015 — Fundamental UI Design — my second book published by InVision as a free course (here’s the story)
• 2015 — The Independent Consulting Manual — a book I co-authored with 12 other awesome consultants, and designed the cover (the book broke $50k in sales)
• 2016 — The UI Audit — my third book (here’s the story)
• 2017 — Your Productized Consulting Guide — my fourth book

Important Personal Posts

• UI Breakfast Year in Review 2014 — how I mastered productized consulting and killed a SaaS product before starting to build it
• UI Breakfast Year in Review 2015 — how I quit consulting, started out with products, battled procrastination and “a midlife crisis”
• UI Breakfast Year in Review 2016 — how I published my third book, produced a load of content, and started out with my own SaaS
• Turning Thirty: Story of My Life — you’ll learn about my childhood, my first dozen jobs, and a few other interesting facts
• UI Breakfast Year in Review 2017 — how I grew my podcast, published my fourth book, sold my SaaS product, and started another one with awesome co-founders

My Conference Talks

• How to Delight Your Client with a Value-Based Dashboard — Ladies that UX Amsterdam (Amsterdam, Netherlands + Remote / February 2018) — Watch the video
• How to Build a Value-Based Dashboard for Your Product — MicroConf Europe (Lisbon, Portugal / November 2017) — View slides
• How to Craft an Irresistible Productized Consulting Offer — DYFConf Europe (Stockholm, Sweden / June 2017) — View slides
• Product Strategy for Founders — FemtoConf (Darmstadt, Germany / February 2017) — Watch the video
• Product Strategy Essentials: How to Build Focused, Profitable Products — LTV Conf (Brighton, UK / July 2016) — View slides
• What Should Your Sales Website Say And Do? — DYFConf Europe (Stockholm, Sweden / June 2016) — View slides
• 3 Steps to Optimizing Navigation in Your Web App — BaconBizConf (Philadelphia, PA / May 2016)
• The 1-Hour UI Audit — MicroConf Europe (Barcelona, Spain / September 2015)
• Designing for Clarity — Conversion Road Trip (New York, NY / June 2015)
• Design for Founders — MicroConf Europe (Prague, Czech Republic / October 2014)

My Podcast Appearances

• Productized Consulting with Jane Portman — Freelance Jumpstart with Nathan Allotey
• The Huge Advantages of Productized Consulting with Jane Portman — Freelance Transformation with Matt Inglot
• Productized Consulting with Guest Jane Portman — Ditching Hourly with Jonathan Stark
• Stair-Stepping From Productized Consulting to SaaS with Jane Portman — Productize Podcast with Brian Casel
• How Productized Consulting Can Level Up Your Business with Jane Portman — Forecast.fm with Ahmad Munawar
• Authority Building as a Freelancer with Jane Portman — $100K Freelancing with Chris Hawkins
• The Mistakes Your Sales Page is Making and How to Fix Them with Jane Portman — The Creative Business Podcast with Nathan Powell
• How To Boost Your Design Business Strategy With Jane Portman — The Despreneur Podcast with Tomas Laurinavicius
• UI Audits for Your Web Apps with Jane Portman — Rogue Startups with Dave Rodenbaugh & Craig Hewitt
• Build Authority in Your Consulting Niche with Jane Portman — Freelance Transformation with Matt Inglot
• Jane Portman from UI Breakfast — Bootstrapped.fm with Ian Landsman & Andrey Butov
• Optimizing UI/UX with Jane Portman — Zero to Scale with Greg Hickman & Justin McGill
• Jane Portman on Designing Highly-Effective Sales Websites — The Business of Freelancing with Brennan Dunn
• How to Put Your Audience First with Jane Portman — In the Trenches with Tom Morkes
• Designing for Startups with Jane Portman — Chasing Product with Christopher Hawkins
• Getting off the Ground Without a Designer with Jane Portman — Rocketship.fm with Joelle Goldman, Matt Goldman & Michael Sacca

UI/UX Design

• UI Practicum — illustrated article series solving real-life UI/UX problems
• UI Breakfast Podcast
• User Onboarding: The Ultimate Guide for SaaS Founders — free detailed guide at Userlist
• Fundamental UI Design — free email course at InVision
• The 1-Hour UI Audit — free email course for SaaS founders
• Coefficiency — free course on managing designers
• Ask a UXpert: What Is the Best Way to Use Fixed Elements? — my latest appearance in Adobe Blog
• How to Sell Stakeholders on UX Research — my workshop recap at Webflow
• How to Build an Effective UI Design through Product Strategy — my webinar recap at Viking Code School
• Jane Portman Cooks Up UI Breakfast — my interview for Balsamiq Champions
• UX Mapping Workshop with Andy Parker (Recap)
• Is There a Way to Convert Ideas into the Actual UI?
• The Beginner’s Guide to Building Design Teams
• The Tiny Designer by Jarrod Drysdale (free course)

Freelancing & Consulting

• Indispensable Business Knowledge for Designers — my webinar recap with InVision
• Productized Consulting for Designers — another webinar recap with InVision
• How To Master The Power Of Productized Consulting With Jane Portman — my interview on Forbes!
• Life of an Independent UX Designer: Interview with Jane Portman
• Jane Portman Cooks Up UI Breakfast — my interview for Balsamiq
• How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-week consulting — a life-changing article by Patrick McKenzie
• Double Your Freelancing by Brennan Dunn (blog)
• Productize Your Service by Brian Casel (free course)
• 11 Examples of Productized Services That Simply Work by SPP
• The Top 6 Commandments for Your Business
• Is Productized Consulting really a good fit for your business? — an awesome, comprehensive article by Kai Davis
• Should You Include Solutions or Mockups in Your Proposal?
• How to Publish Professional & Tactful Teardowns
• How Can I Move from Delivering “Objects” to Bringing Change to the World?
• Consulting category in UI Breakfast archives

Startups & Product Development

• Startups for the Rest of Us by Rob Walling and Mike Taber (podcast)
• Better Done Than Perfect by Userlist (podcast)
• Stacking the Bricks by Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman (podcast & blog)
• Amy Hoy talking about Sales Safari at La Conf Paris 2013
• The Business of SaaS — a free guide by Patrick McKenzie at Stripe Atlas
• Kalzumeus Software by Patrick McKenzie (blog)
• Checklist for Picking the Best SaaS Idea by Jaana Kulmala
• Bulletproof User Onboarding by Samuel Hulick
• How to Build a SaaS Product While Having Limited Technical Skills
• Founder Freedoms: How to Stay Accountable in a Healthy Way
• How to Have Zero Sales and Still Make Money
• The UI Audit: Interview with Rob Walling of Drip
• The UI Audit: Interview with Tope Awotona of Calendly
• Modern Data Stack for Growth by Data-led Academy
• SaaS, Products, Research categories in UI Breakfast archives

Copywriting & Publishing

• The UI Audit — a huge interview about my book on Indie Hackers (numbers, process, etc)
• How to Painlessly Name Your Next Book
• The Brain Audit by Sean D’Souza (book)
• Copy Hackers by Joanna Wiebe (blog & books)
• Authority by Nathan Barry (book)
• How Sean D’Souza Changed Everything I Know About Pricing
• The UI Audit: Why I Did a Rewrite of the Sales Page
• Is Amazon my best option to self-publish a book? by Josh Doody (blog post)
• Writing category in UI Breakfast archives

Outreach & Marketing

• UI Breakfast Podcast. Episode 6: Running a Successful Outreach Campaign
• UI Breakfast Podcast. Episode 8: Writing the Perfect Email
• Double Your Audience by Kai Davis (blog)
• Super Spicy Media by Mojca Mars (blog)
• Freebie Offerings and Educational Courses For Consultants — an article by Kai Davis
• Turn Readers Into Buyers — an article on creating free email courses by Brian Casel
• Marketing category in UI Breakfast archives

Podcasting

• How to Automate Onboarding for Your Podcast
• Record and Release by Christopher Hawkins (book)
• Podcasting category in UI Breakfast archives
• 50+ Best SaaS Podcasts — a curated directory of podcasts for SaaS founders at Userlist

Conferences & Mastermind Groups

• MicroConf and MicroConf Europe by Rob Walling and Mike Taber
• FemtoConf by Benedikt Deicke and Christoph Engelhardt
• BaconBizConf by Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman
• Double Your Freelancing Conference by Brennan Dunn
• How to Run a Smart SaaS Business: BaconBiz 2016 in a Nutshell
• How to Enjoy Your Next Conference (MicroConf Europe 2015 Recap)
• How to Organize and Run a Startup Mastermind
• MastermindJam — match-making service for those who want to start a mastermind group

Recommended SaaS Tools

• Reform — a form builder tool, great alternative to Typeform or Google Forms
• SavvyCal — a scheduling tool, great alternative to Calendly
• Aurelius — a repository tool for UX research
• Refiner.io — a feedback tool for SaaS products
• SaberFeedback — a feedback tool for websites
• CodeSubmit — a tool for hiring developers via take-home coding challenges
• ScrapingBee — a web scraping tool
• InnerTrends — a product analytics platform for SaaS companies