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Our onboarding sucks but we don't know how to fix it

By
Mukund Kabra

Most onboarding fails because it teaches the product instead of getting the user to their first win. Find the one action that predicts a user staying, then cut every step that does not lead to it.

Category:
Experimentation
Reading time:
2
min read
Published on:
October 24, 2026
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Experimentation
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Our onboarding sucks but we don't know how to fix it

Our onboarding sucks but we don't know how to fix it

Problem

New users sign up, look around and leave before they get anything from you.

You can see the drop in the numbers, but not the reason. Product blames the flow, marketing blames lead quality, and the team keeps changing screens without knowing which change mattered.

And every user who leaves early is acquisition spend you do not get back.

Insight

Good onboarding gets a new user to one moment of value as fast as possible.

Most flows are built from the product's point of view: here is the dashboard, here are the settings, here is what we do. Users do not care yet. They came to get one job done.

The teams that fix onboarding first find the action that separates users who stay from users who leave, then design everything around reaching it quickly.

How we approach it

We find the moment that matters, then remove what stands in the way.

  1. We map the path from signup to first value in your own data and find where people stop.
  2. We identify the early action that best predicts a user coming back.
  3. We test shorter routes to it: fewer steps, better defaults, and messages that arrive when a user stalls.

Every change is measured, so you keep what works and drop what does not.

Tags:  
Idea Validation; Product Validation; Concept Testing; Market Fit Testing; Experimentation; Early Hypothesis Testing
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