This experience emboldened my observation that most product teams only spend the final mile of their experience building the product thinking about (and testing) the first mile of the customer’s experience using the product.
When you’re an early stage startup, your most important job is to get clarity on what you’re building. When your product is buggy and low quality and the first mile of the product is ignored (the welcome/tour, the onboarding, the explanatory copy, the empty states), you won’t know if the poor retention numbers are due to a bad product or a bad mark... See more
The ability of a brand new user to understand and complete the core workflows of a product determines whether your product delivers immediate value to your customers — Day 0 value. If a tool is not useful, people will simply not come back. This is what makes onboarding the most critical part of any growth strategy — successfully onboarded users ret... See more
In the era of web apps and “product led growth,” the marketing page IS the product’s first mile experience IS the core value and end-to-end experience .
The reality of building a product is that very few parts of it reach a significant portion of impressionable users. Onboarding is one of those things that touch just about everyone.
During onboarding, it must always be clear what the next step is. And that step must appear easy. This is how you build momentum to propel users toward the end of your product journey.