Strategies For Improving Subscription Onboarding

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

💬 Last November I had a call with the CEO of an emerging health platform. She sounded very concerned -- "Our growth's hit a wall. We've put so much into this site, but we're running out of money and time. A big makeover isn’t an option, we need smart, quick fixes." Looking at the numbers, I noticed: ✅ Strong interest during initial signups. ❌ Many users gave up after trying it just a few times. ❌ Users reported that the site was too complicated. ❌ Some of the key features weren’t getting used at all. Operating within the startup’s tight constraints of time and budget, we decided on the immediate plan of actions-- 👉 Prioritized impactful features: We spotlighted "the best parts". Pushed secondary features to the backdrop. 👉  Rethought onboarding: Incorporated principles from Fogg's behavioral model: • Highlighted immediate benefits and rewards of using the platform (motivation) • Simplified tasks, breaking down the onboarding into easy steps (ability) • Nudged users with timely prompts to explore key features right off the bat (triggers)    👉 Pushed for community-driven growth: With budget constraints in mind, we prioritized building an organic community hub. Real stories, shared challenges, and peer-to-peer support turned users into brand evangelists, driving word-of-mouth growth. 👉  Started treating feedback as "currency": In a tight budget scenario, user feedback was gold. An iterative approach was adopted where user suggestions were rapidly integrated, amplifying trust and making users feel an important part of the platform's journey. In a few months time, the transformation was evident. The startup, once fighting for user retention, now had a dedicated user base, championing its vision and propelling its growth! 🛠  In the startup world, it's not just about quick fixes, but finding the right ones. ↳ A good UXer can show where to look. #ux #startupux #designforbehaviorchange   

🧠 The Psychology Behind Successful Customer Onboarding A hard truth I've learned as a CS leader is that perfect features mean nothing if your onboarding fails. Another hard truth: Psychology matters more than process. You must focus on human behavior rather than just feature adoption. Here are my three principles to live by in onboarding: The Momentum Principle: We discovered that customers who achieve value in the first 48 hours are 3x more likely to become long-term advocates. So we redesigned our onboarding to focus on quick wins before complex features. By breaking down the journey into smaller, achievable milestones, we create a pattern of success that builds confidence and momentum. The Ownership Effect: When customers invest time in customizing their setup, they're significantly more likely to stick around. We now encourage early personalization through guided setup sessions. Rather than doing it for them, we coach customers through the process. This has increased product stickiness by 47% and reduced early-stage churn by 34%. The Contextual Learning Framework: We stopped treating onboarding as a linear checklist. Instead, we now adapt the journey based on user behavior and role. Our data shows that contextual learning – delivering guidance at the moment of need – increases feature adoption by 68% compared to traditional training methods. The results speak volumes: Time-to-value was reduced from 45 days to 15 and adoption rates increased by 56%. Successful onboarding is about building confidence and creating habits. Every friction point isn't just a technical issue; it's a psychological barrier waiting to be understood and removed. Are you designing your onboarding for features or humans? #CustomerSuccess #SaaS #Onboarding #CustomerExperience

I've done 500+ Kondo onboarding calls over the last three months. 15 things I'd go back and tell myself: 1. It will be 💯 worth it. Because ... 2, 3, and 4. 2. You'll build a 10x better product from observing hundreds of hours of live usage and answering thousands of "how do I do X" questions. 3. You'll gain deep empathy for a wide variety of potential customers. You'll find the ICP you never knew existed. 4. You'll turn early adopters into fans and build amazing relationships that will be jet fuel for your business. 5. Cut short the small talk, if you need a warmer, give a 2 min story of why you're building this. 6. An onboarding is NOT a demo! ... If folks insist on demo, do a 1 min teaser then say "is this interesting enough to try out? If so, let's jump in and get you set up so I can walk you through the rest?" 7. More than half of your onboarding should be the user doing actual stuff. Nothing should be just 'to test it out.' Get some actual work done on the call. It's not a keynote speech. It's a hands-on training. 8. You'll over time perfect a 'script'. But even when perfect, it'll only work 80% of the time. Other 20%, you need to throw it away. Some users have very specific ideas of what they want this thing to solve. Change your flow radically to show ASAP that your thing IS the magical solution they've been dreaming of. 9. Do onboarding like real estate agents do house showings 🏡. Create a constant rhythm of delightful moments. Pre-empt and put to bed doubts before they're asked. Keep a wonderful surprise for the end 🌈. 10. Earn trust with value, then use trust to buy stickiness. When the user is getting real happy, ask them to do something that will move the needle on retention, for example pin / bookmark / install you absolutely everywhere. 11. Some people will no-show. Some of them will reschedule and no-show again. It is frustrating, especially when you stay up to 2am for them. But, don't get mad, just send a kind follow up and move on. 12. Some people will show up and ask if your tool can do 5 things it doesn't, and tell you your thing sucks because it does not. Show them the door, politely but quickly. 13. On one fine day in October, Google will release a major update to Chrome with a bug that makes you unable to onboard users no matter what workarounds you try. Put an all-day invite on your cal that day for a hike in the mountains ⛰️. 14. Upgrade your audio setup. You have enough friction trying to introduce a new workflow and tool to users as it is. Don't make the sound quality of your conversation one of them. 15. Get a bigger pot of coffee and more mugs. Your days are gonna be long. --- What advice would y'all have given to Aug 2025 Mitchell?