After spending 7+ years designing products, I’ve seen the same stupid conversations within product teams after their first launch:

The founder: “We’ll add proper onboarding later.”
​The Dev: “Users will figure it out.”
​The PM: “Let’s focus on building more features first.”

Here’s the brutal truth: Without proper onboarding, you’re burning money.

The key metric to look at here is “activation rate”, which is the number of signups compared to the number of users who finished the main task of your tool.

Recent studies from UserPilot & Lenny’s Newsletter showed:

About 6/10 users never get activated, or in other words they churn right after signup.
For fintech it’s even worse, 95% of users churn after signup.

Those metrics are from surveying startups who already have product market fit, with a proper onboarding in place. Now imagine how bad this is without.

The most painful part? Most startups realize this too late. They spend months building features nobody uses, while a simple onboarding could’ve saved their metrics (and their runway).

So today we look at why startups procrastinate on their onboarding experience, how to get started with a v1, and how to measure success of your onboarding.

Vamos!

Why startups procrastinate on their onboarding

Let’s be honest: Building onboarding feels like a chore. It’s like going to the gym - you know it’s good for you, but there’s always something more exciting to do.

Here are the excuses I hear most often (and used myself):

“We need to build more features first” Bullshit. If users don’t understand your current features, adding more won’t help. It’s like adding more weights to a broken barbell.

“Users will figure it out” Sure, some will. Just like some people figured out how to use the first iPhone. But you’re not Apple, and your users have zero patience for confusion.

“We don’t have time for this right now” Translation: “We’d rather lose users slowly than spend a week fixing the real problem.”

The Hidden Benefits of Early Onboarding

Here’s what nobody tells you about onboarding: It’s the best product research you’ll ever do.

When you build onboarding early, you’re forced to answer crucial questions:

• What’s the core value of your product?
• What do users need to do to experience that value?
• What’s stopping them from getting there?

If you can’t answer these questions, you have bigger problems than onboarding.

Startups focusing on onboarding their users naturally will see more activation & retention. That’s not because they’re better at making tutorials. It’s because they understand their users better.

Building Your V1 Onboarding (The Quick Win)

Stop whatever you’re doing and implement these three things today:

1. Find Your “Aha Moment”

Ask yourself:

What’s the one action that makes users go “Oh, now I get it”?

• For Dropbox, it’s uploading your first file
• For Slack, it’s sending your first message
• For your product? You need to figure this out

2. Remove Everything Else

Now, remove any step that doesn’t lead to the Aha Moment

• No, users don’t need to fill out their profile now
• No, they don’t need to see your entire feature set
• Yes, this feels wrong. Do it anyway

You can add crucial steps back in, if necessary. Sometimes, a sign up is required.

3. Make It Obvious

• Point users directly to the next step
• Use visual hierarchy to guide attention
• Write like a human, not a product manager

The best way to design your onboarding is by stealing from big companies.

• They’ve tested it out with millions of users
• They have hundreds of experts working on it
• And it’s publicly available on mobbin.com​

Making It Perfect (The System)

Once your V1 is live, here’s how to improve it:

Watch Users Like A Hawk

• Set up FullStory or similar (PostHog is also nice)
• Look for where users get stuck
• Pay attention to rage clicks and hesitation

A/B Test These Elements

• Number of steps (less is usually better)
• Copy (especially button text)
• Visual hierarchy
• Progress indicators

You can even do this internally, before launching. Testing this, even with 3 people from your team, already gives you some insights.

Iterate Weekly

• Make one change at a time
• Wait for significant data
• Document what works

Measuring Success (The Numbers)

Here are the only metrics that matter:

Activation Rate

What percentage of users reach the Aha Moment?

​The average for SaaS is 36%, so getting close to anything like this is already amazing.

To be fair, already measuring this and having a number is good!

Time to Value

How long until users reach the Aha Moment?
This should be under 3 minutes for consumer apps, and under 10 minutes for B2B products.

Day 1 Retention

• Do users come back the next day?
• This predicts long-term retention better than any other metric

Real World Examples

Let me show you three onboarding flows that nail it. Screenshots are taken directly from Mobbin:

1. Duolingo

Their main goal is for you to complete the first lesson.

• Jumps straight into a lesson
• Shows progress visually
• Makes you feel successful in 30 seconds

2. Notion

What I really like about Notion is that they give you their onboarding, built with Notion components.

That way you can already experience how Notion works.

• Templates instead of tutorials
• Contextual help when needed
• Focuses on your first project, not features

3. Loom

For Loom to work, you need to setup a way of recording videos.

For Loom to make sense, you need other people to share the videos with.

They’ve implemented those steps perfectly in their onboarding.

• Records your first video immediately
• Shows instant value
• Makes sharing effortless

Your personal no-BS action steps, powered by Nik:

This Week:

1. Find your Aha Moment
2. Remove all unnecessary steps
3. Set up basic analytics

Next Month:

1. A/B test your main friction points
2. Watch at least 5 user sessions
3. Improve one metric by 20%

Next Quarter:

1. Build a full onboarding system
2. Set up automated tracking
3. Hit 50% activation rate

Remember: Users don’t care about your features. They care about solving their problems. Make that happen faster, and everything else becomes easier.

If your product still lacks a proper onboarding flow, you can book a free discovery call with me at my design studio Grauberg, where we solve issues like this with design every week for our customers.

The Full Stack Designer’s Toolbox

The Full-Stack Designer (FSD) is one of the most valuable design unicorns out there. They know how to research, collaborate and design beautiful products, while collaborating well with others and achieving business goals.

The FSD Toolbox presents some quick learnings or tools for every building block of a Full-Stack Designer.

1. Visual Design

Don’t use #000000 - Black.

Instead, use different shades of grey and black to improve the same design, just with better colors.

2. Research

The “5-Second Test” Show users your interface for exactly 5 seconds, then close it. Ask them what they remember. This hack reveals what actually stands out in your UI and what users naturally focus on. I’ve seen entire navigation systems redesigned based on these quick tests.

I didn’t try this myself yet, but I read it on some newsletter and thought it might be interesting to share!

3. Tools

I use iMockup to create my mobile mockups, especially for portfolio pieces or app store screenshots.

It’s a free Figma Plugin that just works.

4. Business

For freelancers and agency owners:

The best time to ask for a referral is right after you delivered amazing work and the client replied with “Good Job” or “I love it”.

It’s both easier to ask for a referral as well as to give one while you’re still hyped about a good project outcome.

5. Collaboration

The “Handoff Preview” Hack Before officially handing off designs, grab a dev for a 10-minute walkthrough. Show them the “gotchas” - those tiny interactions and edge cases.

Every time I skip this, I get a “what should happen when…” Slack message three days later.

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