Mira, owner of a handmade candle shop

I almost closed the tab on this one in Chapter 3.

The catalogue chapter starts talking about database schemas and attribute granularity, and I sell candles. My "catalogue" is a Squarespace page with pretty photos. I don't know what any of that means. I'm not a technical person — I'm someone who spends more time thinking about fragrance notes than data models.

But I kept going, and I'm glad I did. Chapter 5, on the user's state of mind, made me realize I was sending abandoned cart emails at the worst possible moment — late at night, when people are browsing on impulse and then waking up to a guilt-ridden email. I shifted them to early evening, right before that "I deserve something nice" window. Recovery rate went up. Chapter 9, on silent churn, got me to send a small free candle sample to subscribers who hadn't opened an email in months. A few of them actually came back.

Here's the thing. This book is written for people who enjoy thinking about systems. That's not me. But it's also written in a way where you can pick and choose. Some chapters are for a different reader — the one who likes spreadsheets and data structures — and I just skimmed those. The chapters on timing, naming, framing, and state of mind? Those were for me.

If you're not technical, skip the data modeling parts. Read the ones about people. You'll get plenty out of it.