Crafting Engaging Onboarding Experiences in Apps

When I was head of growth, our team reached 40% activation rates, and onboarded hundreds of thousands of new users. Without knowing it, we discovered a framework. Here are the 6 steps we followed. 1. Define value: Successful onboarding is typically judged by new user activation rates. But what is activation? The moment users receive value. Reaching it should lead to higher retention & conversion to paid plans. First define it. Then get new users there. 2. Deliver value, quickly Revisit your flow and make sure it gets users to the activation moment fast. Remove unnecessary steps, complexity, and distractions along the way. Not sure how to start? Try reducing time (or steps) to activate by 50%. 3. Motivate users to action: Don't settle for simple. Look for sticking points in the user experience you can solve with microcopy, empty states, tours, email flows, etc. Then remind users what to do next with on-demand checklists, progress bars, & milestone celebrations. 4. Customize the experience: Ditch the one-size fits all approach. Learn about your different use cases. Then, create different product "recipes" to help users achieve their specific goals. 5. Start in the middle: Solve for the biggest user pain points stopping users from starting. Lean on customizable templates and pre-made playbooks to help people go 0-1 faster. 6. Build momentum pre-signup: Create ways for website visitors to start interacting with the product - and building momentum, before they fill out any forms. This means that you'll deliver value sooner, and to more people. Keep it simple. Learn what's valuable to users. Then deliver value on their terms.

𝗕𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗻𝗯𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘀. Your onboarding is the user’s first impression of your app, and like it or not, it’s 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴. You could have a revolutionary product, but if the onboarding isn’t spot on, you’re practically inviting users to walk away. Here’s what to consider when building your flow: 𝟭. 𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗺𝘆 𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗺𝗮 𝗳𝗶𝗴𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗼𝘂𝘁? The KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle is key for product onboarding. If your grandma would struggle with your flow, it’s probably too complicated. This doesn’t mean removing all the friction. The goal is to make the process simple enough so users can complete it without bouncing. 𝟮. 𝗗𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗮𝘆? A good onboarding flow guides users through the essentials without boring them. It excites and builds anticipation. A longer flow is sometimes necessary to deliver the app’s “aha” moment, but if it drags or repeats, you risk losing users before they even get started because of boredom or frustration. 𝟯. 𝗜𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹? The era of one-size-fits-all onboarding is over. The purpose of onboarding is to show users that your product is exactly what they need, and personalization is a powerful weapon for that. Tailor the flow based on different data points like how users discover your product and their specific goals. 𝟰. 𝗗𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗸? Users should know why they can’t live without your product 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝟯𝟬 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝘀. Understand your audience’s problems, identify your product’s top value proposition, and make it front and center during onboarding. 𝘽𝙤𝙣𝙪𝙨 𝙩𝙞𝙥: 𝘾𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙥 𝙘𝙤𝙥𝙮𝙬𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙞𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚. 𝟱. 𝗜𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸𝘆? A great onboarding flow leads users to the product's "aha!" moment early. Find ways to get users invested quickly: First actions, quick wins, rewards, or anything else that encourages them to return. 𝟲. 𝗗𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝗻𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗹? Onboarding should be so smooth that users don’t even realize they’re being onboarded. Remember, it is not separate from the product, but an integral part of the overall experience. 𝟳. 𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲? The best onboarding flows weren’t built overnight. They’re the result of countless iterations. Keep refining your process as you gather more data, and make sure your onboarding flow can evolve without needing a complete design or code overhaul. Remember, in the end, it's all about getting users to that “holy sh*t” moment as fast as possible. Nail this, and you've won half of the battle. Follow me for more insights on product design, startups, and entrepreneurship!

I almost killed the feature that drove the biggest MRR jump of my career. We were scaling fast — but churn was creeping in, onboarding was dragging, and our best features were buried. So I built something bold. And honestly, I hesitated to ship it. A gamified onboarding flow. Modeled after tradesmen. Not software users. It mirrored how contractors actually grow: Apprentice → Journeyman → Master Here’s how it worked — and why it worked: Step 1: Apprentice We taught users how to price a job using our price book. Because estimating is the first real win for a contractor. Behind the scenes, our data science team delivered hyperlocal pricing — based on real invoices that converted in similar markets. Step 2: Journeyman Once they created an estimate, we introduced our built-in payments feature. They could accept credit cards right inside the app — with lower fees than Square. It solved a core friction: getting paid faster. And it increased ARPU almost instantly. Step 3: Master After the first invoice, we unlocked a 30-day trial of Engage — our premium customer comms tool. Built on Twilio, it let contractors pull up estimates, invoices, and message customers in real time. It turned silent contractors into trusted pros. And silent trials into high-converting accounts. It felt risky. • Would tradesmen engage with gamification? • Would the “Apprentice” metaphor click? • Would this slow down onboarding? I almost pulled the plug. But we shipped it. And it helped drive: • 1,300% MRR growth • +30 point NPS jump • One of the biggest ARPU lifts we’d ever seen All because we stopped treating onboarding like a checklist — and started treating it like a journey users wanted to succeed in. Moral of the story? The feature you’re afraid to ship might be the one that breaks everything open. Comment “Journeyman” and I’ll send you the onboarding model.

Most companies spend months perfecting their product UI, then throw together onboarding in a weekend. This is backwards. Your onboarding IS your product's first impression. It's where users decide if they trust you enough to change their workflow. Our initial onboarding was basically "here's the docs, figure it out." But now we redesigned onboarding like a product feature: - User research on where people got stuck - Built interactive tutorials that actually work with real data - Added progress indicators and clear next steps - Made it feel as polished as our core platform The result? 3x improvement in day-7 retention. Your onboarding experience should have the same design rigor as your core product. Because if users don't make it through onboarding, they'll never see how great your actual product is. What's one thing you wish every product explained better during onboarding?

🚫 Your onboarding isn't bad, it ends too early. Want an easy way to improve retention? Create a custom new user experience that bypasses the home screen and gets them right into the app's core experience. Imprint (Google's Best App of 2023), made a major change focused on trial conversion and retention. They had a pretty stellar onboarding flow But after the paywall, they dropped users directly onto the home page Instead, they created an entirely new flow that helps users better understand the app and recommend a personalized course. After the paywall Imprint: ⏲️ Uses motivational language: "Your first lesson will take less than a minute" 👌 Personalizes their course choices based on data collected during onboarding 🧑🏫 Teaches you how to use the app through guidance integrated into the UI "Show, don't tell" 🎮 Adds gamification by gaining XP by completing a lesson and answering questions correctly 🎰 Adds more gamification through daily streaks 🧪 Understands their "Aha" moment and motivates users to complete 2 lessons on their first day Figuring out an activation metric that correlates with longer-term retention and monetization can be a major unlock 🤔 Gives users the choice of continuing the same recommended course or trying something different. Do your best to personalize the experience based on what users have shared, but don't force it! 👋 Want more? ➡️ Go to Retention .Blog for the full post. I share all the details and show how Imprint's entire onboarding changed from 2024 -> 2025 Also, Thomas Petit was kind enough to share some wisdom on "How did you hear about us?" and "Age" questions during onboarding -------------------------- I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read. Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

I spent 5 years scaling Superhuman's white glove, concierge onboarding. …and another 2 years rebuilding it in product. My biggest lessons on effective product onboarding: It must be *opinionated*, *interruptive*, and *interactive*. ••• 🧐 Opinionated There's a million ways to use Superhuman, but only one correct way. We had unopinionated steps in the onboarding, like teaching "j" and "k" to navigate. But what really matters is Inbox Zero. Marking Done. Our most extreme form is Get Me To Zero — a pop-up that practically coerces you to Mark Done *everything*. This experience gets an astonishing 60% new user opt-in. New users want to experience something different; they want to learn. We pruned away the bland, and left behind pure, unfiltered opinion. Exactly what made our concierge onboarding effective. 💥 Interruptive We've all seen them before: checklists, tooltips, nudges. Inoffensive growth clutter that piles up in the corners of your app. We shipped all this and more. But it had precisely zero impact. Our most impactful changes were interruptive: on-rails demos, full-screen takeovers, product overlays. Arresting user attention is critical: if an experience is tucked away in the corner, it will be ignored. If it's ignored, it may as well not exist. 🕹️ Interactive You can't be Opinionated and Interruptive without being Interactive. It's a crime to force users to engage with non-actionable information. Instead, provide functionality: an action to take, setting to toggle, CTA to click. It's more fun AND users build muscle memory. There is something to do in every step of our onboarding. Perhaps that's how we get away with an onboarding nearly 50 screens long 🤭 ••• Final thought: if you're struggling with this flow, simply watch new users. Note all the places you want to jump in — there's your onboarding 👌 s/o to the very thoughtful Superhumans building this: Ben ✨Kalyn Lilliana Kevin Peik Erin Gaurav 💜 #plg #onboarding #activation