Hey, I’m Simon.

A dad, a Geordie, and a designer who helps B2B SaaS teams turn confusing products into experiences people actually enjoy using.

I’ve worked on 30+ products, collaborating closely with founders, product managers, and engineers to fix the UX problems that cost customers and revenue.

I don’t do long research reports or get hung up on processes for the sake of it.

My approach is flexible and pragmatic: we figure out what the problem is, wireframe solutions, iterate to high-fidelity prototypes, and launch fast.

Always keeping the user front and centre.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

- 25% uplift in paid conversions + 2X ACV (SendX)
- 30% revenue increase (SiteGuru)
- Upsold existing clients + converted new customers (RealTyme)
- Faster launch to win early customers (Ring4)

I love the variety of projects I get to work on: from payroll to email marketing software. And I love seeing founders and teams get excited about their product again.

It’s rewarding to know that the work I do not only improves the product but rejuvenates the entire team.

When I’m not designing, you’ll find me in Newcastle with my family, following football (I’m a recovering Manchester United fan), testing new tech, or spotting great, and sometimes terrible, UX in the wild.

If you want to fix your UX and create a product that actually converts and retains customers, DM for a chat.

Simon McCade

Canva’s done an incredible job democratising design, but this dashboard is crying out for a spring clean. Cut the clutter, bring back the personality, and give users more control.

It’s busy, repetitive, and oddly impersonal for a brand that prides itself on creativity and clarity. 

Here’s where it could do with a serious tidy-up. 👇 

𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗱.
If Canva wants teams to collaborate, why hide the button in grey? Make it loud and proud.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗻’𝘀 𝗮 𝗯𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗰𝗸.
For a tool that’s all about speed and flow, one button for everything is a pain. Split it out so users can jump straight into the right type of design.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗯𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗰.
What will you design today? is fine, but where’s the warmth? A simple greeting with a name would make it feel like Canva actually knows who I am.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲’𝘀 𝗴𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘀.
Doc? Sheet? What do they actually do? A few hover tooltips would fix that in minutes.

𝗥𝗶𝗴𝗶𝗱 𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗼𝘂𝘁.
Why can’t I reorder the top design types? It’s 2025 people work differently, let them customise it.

𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝘃𝘀. 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀.
I shouldn’t have to squint to work out what’s mine and what’s shared. It’s confusing and slows people down.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗲𝗹𝗽 𝗯𝘂𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗻’𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀.
A static question mark buried in the corner isn’t helping anyone. Make it contextual, make it useful, or remove it entirely.

Canva’s a great product, no question. It’s slick, it’s powerful, and it’s made design accessible to millions. 
But let’s be honest: the dashboard feels like it’s been designed by committee.

It’s not about changing what Canva is, it’s about helping it live up to its own promise of being beautifully simple.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments: 👇 
__

Hey, I'm Simon!
I'll help you fix your UX, so trial users convert and customers stick.
Follow me, Simon McCade, for regular design tips
📌 Repost if you found this useful
📌 DM me for a chat

The SaaS UX guy | Turn more users into long-term paying customers

Everyone thinks good design comes AFTER growth. But, in my experience, good design CREATES growth. This client is the perfect example of that:

A few years back, RealTyme got in touch. 

They’d built a secure communication platform used by some of the most security-conscious organisations in the world. Governments, global enterprises, defence teams. 

But as the platform grew, so did the challenge of keeping everything clear, consistent, and easy to use. 

It’s something I see quite often, a great product that’s evolved quickly, and now needs to bring the design up to the same level as the tech.

So we took it one step at a time. Over three and a half years, I worked closely with their team to:

🔸Redesign the product experience end-to-end
🔸Establish a new visual language so everything felt consistent
🔸Build a design system to help their engineers move faster and more confidently
🔸Gradually shift the product from being sales-led to product-led

None of it happened overnight. But bit by bit, the experience started to feel purposeful, cleaner, and more connected.

The result was a product that not only looked better, but worked better. 

Users could get started faster, support requests dropped, and RealTyme saw a real commercial impact. Happier customers, stronger retention, and more conversions.

As their CEO, Onur, said afterwards:
'We not only gained competitive advantage but also increased customer satisfaction which started to pay off commercially by upselling through existing clients and converting new ones.'
__

Hey, I'm Simon!

I'll help you fix your UX, so trial users convert and customers stick.
Follow me, Simon McCade, for regular design tips
📌 Repost if you found this useful
📌 DM me for a chat

I’ve never seen a discount fix a value problem in SaaS. 
Yet every November we give it another go... 🙄 

Every year around this time I see the same thing happen across SaaS. 

Big Black Friday discounts like this one from Adobe start flying about and for a moment it all feels a bit frantic. 

I get why teams do it. It brings people in the door quickly and it gives the numbers a short term lift. The trouble is what happens next.

When someone signs up because of a heavy discount, their expectations rarely match what the product is actually worth. Retention becomes harder. The relationship starts off on the wrong foot. 

One SaaS company that seems to understand this better than most is Notion. 

They never run Black Friday sales. They hold the line on their pricing because they know the value they deliver and they stick to it. 

For SaaS founders this is worth thinking about. When you start cutting money off the price, even with the best intentions, you might be training customers to wait for the next offer rather than building a stable long term relationship. 

Holding your ground on price can feel uncomfortable in the moment but it often pays off in the quality of the users you attract and keep.

__

Hey, I'm Simon!
I'll help you fix your UX, so trial users convert and customers stick.
Follow me, Simon McCade, for regular design tips
📌 Repost if you found this useful
📌 DM me for a chat

Founders often come to me feeling stuck. They’ve reached the  ‘Something feels off but we can’t put our finger on it’ stage. Design has become a bottleneck. Here’s why:

The front-end engineers are doing their best to make it look good and make it work, but design isn’t really in their wheelhouse. 

Things slow down. Progress stalls.

If you’re running a SaaS, but growth is slowing, design isn’t just about polish. It’s a growth lever.

And by the time I get involved, it’s usually reached the ‘stuck’ stage.

Here’s what I’ve learned after 12 years of helping teams through this:

📌 Early design decisions compound. 
What starts as a quick fix can turn into design debt that’s hard to unravel later.

📌 Founders put off design for too long. 
It feels non-essential at first, but once you’ve got users, design is growth. 

It’s what reduces friction, shortens time-to-value and helps turn trial users into paying customers.

📌 Calm comes from clarity. 

Once we map out the product experience, founders go from feeling “stuck” to feeling in control again.

Make your product easier to use, quicker to learn, and it’ll start doing more of the heavy lifting for you.
__

Curious if you’ve felt that same “bottleneck” moment?
What helped you move past it?

Hey, I'm Simon!
I'll help you fix your UX, so trial users convert and customers stick.
Follow me, Simon McCade, for regular design tips
📌 Repost if you found this useful
📌 DM me for a chat

Ryan James

Rocket SaaS

Outsourced SaaS marketing for B2B brands with limited in-house resources.

Struggling to generate SaaS leads? Partner with a team of proven SaaS marketing experts.

We Become (or Join) Your Marketing Department.

A full suite of SaaS marketing services to propel your brand awareness & generate leads, all on a rolling monthly plan

🚀 Full funnel marketing strategy
A strategy for brand awareness, lead gen and nurturing

🚀 Google PPC & social ads
Google Ads and multi-layered retargeting social ads

🚀 High-converting landing pages
Turn traffic into leads with web pages built to convert

🚀 Lead magnet campaigns
Long sales cycle? Attract leads with educational content

🚀 Email marketing & nurturing
Email newsletters & lead nurturing drip sequences

Founder

Red 13 Digital

Propel Your Business into the Stratosphere with World-Class Web Design and Development

Whether you are an ambitious start-up beginning your exciting new venture or an established business looking to push onto the next level, our digital services will help you achieve your aspirations.

Managing & Creative Director

activ8-3D

Ryan was the lead website designer, developer and SEO expert. He helped re brand the company and boost the website to the top of the major search engines for all targeted keywords. 

Ryan was later successfully involved in the project management and sales side fo the business.

Online Marketing Manager

Fisher Scientific

Ryan's main project was to redesign and develop the website for the UK's leading laboratory supplier.

Lead Website Developer

❓  WHAT I DO: I enable SaaS businesses to generate more leads via proven SaaS marketing funnels. 

🚀   HOW DO I DO IT? A rolling, pay monthly marketing partnership that’s more affordable than an employee and delivers 5x the results. We offer a full suite of SaaS marketing services, including:

🔹  SaaS marketing funnel strategy
🔹  Google and LinkedIn Ads
🔹  Landing pages
🔹  Lead magnet campaigns
🔹  Email marketing

💰  HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? Packages start from £3,000 per month  

👨🏼‍💻  HOW DO I FIND OUT MORE? Send me a DM on LinkedIn. We can book you in for a free SaaS marketing strategy call to review your current marketing activity. I'll give you my no-obligation advice on how you can generate more leads. 

🤩  WHAT DO PEOPLE SAY ABOUT ME? "We genuinely felt like we had hired new team members rather than an agency. Ryan's detailed understanding of SaaS sales combined with the teams' tech knowledge meant not only did they quickly grasp the USP's of our tech, but they also knew how to describe it, position it and present it. Our inbound demo numbers have almost doubled since working with Rocket SaaS. All of our newly designed sales collateral looks great, and with the website, we have a stronger, more cohesive brand presence." Stefan Britton, Commercial Director, Shutterstock AI

Rocket your SaaS business with an out-of-this-world marketing subscription.

First, we create you a stunning and results-driven website, then we implement proven SaaS marketing funnels to drive leads into your business.

CEO @ Rocket SaaS • Bootstrapped to $3.5m ARR • Host of SaaS Marketing Weekly podcast

I see everyone trying to bolt on sales/marketing AI tech, expecting to magically unlock growth.

If your marketing foundations are broken, tech won’t help.

It’s like pouring rocket fuel into a car with flat tyres and no steering wheel.

Here’s what I mean by foundations:

✅ Clear ICP
✅ Solid positioning & messaging
✅ A website that converts
✅ A consistent content engine
✅ A retargeting ads strategy
✅ Case studies and social proof
✅ A funnel that moves leads from curious to closed

Get those right first. Then add the clever tech to amplify your results.

Build the car first. Then pour in the rocket fuel.

Why is everyone talking about Clay?

...and what makes it so good for sales and marketing teams?

Hear the full breakdown on the SaaS Marketing Weekly podcast (ep #65)

Find it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

Is your marketing strategy not delivering results? 

It's likely because 95% of your prospects are not looking to buy right now. 

You need a demand generation strategy - targeting the 95% and nurturing them to market. 

At Rocket SaaS, that's exactly what we deliver for our clients. 

Both the strategy and the delivery team. 

DM me to discuss.

This is what you'll hear when you get demand generation right:

🗣️ "I see you guys everywhere"
🗣️ "I love your content"
🗣️ "We're interested in your solution"
🗣️ "We're not speaking to any other supplier"

This is the holy grail of demand gen. 

Get it right, and your inbound leads will fly in. 

P.S. Rocket SaaS can become your demand gen agency. DM me to chat.

The secret to getting leads from your LinkedIn Ads?

Use intent data. 

Tools like Fibbler from Adam Holmgren are a brilliant way to identify which companies are engaging with your ads and impacting your pipeline.

Learn more on ep 62 of the 'SaaS Marketing Weekly' podcast 

Find it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Most SaaS companies fail at demand generation.

Not because their marketing is bad, but because they treat it as a marketing-only function.

In reality, demand generation is a company-wide strategy.

In this week’s SaaS Marketing Weekly, I break down the Demand Generation Flywheel, a framework that turns disconnected teams into a single growth engine.

You’ll learn how to turn leadership insights into high-impact content, align Marketing and Sales to attract and convert high-intent buyers, and build a system that compounds demand month after month. 

If your SaaS relies on cold outreach or random campaigns, this is the shift you need! 

#SaaSMarketing #DemandGeneration #B2BMarketing #LeadGeneration

Most SaaS companies fail at demand generation because they treat it as a marketing-only function. In reality, demand generation is a company-wide stra

Open article: Why most SaaS companies fail at demand generation by Ryan James • 3 min read

Why most SaaS companies fail at demand generation

The power of LinkedIn retargeting ads in a nutshell 👇🏻

Hear the full breakdown on the SaaS Marketing Weekly podcast (ep #65)

Find it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

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