🚶 How to Onboard Users

👋 Hi friends, Dom here! I'm honoured to be Scalable’s guest for today’s edition.

A bit about me: I’m a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai. I build digital experiences for global brands and am the founder of the top 1% Fintech newsletter, one-fs.com.

I love tinkering at the intersection of business, design, and technology, and I’m deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Today, I’d like to share some insights on one of my favourite product areas: onboarding. It’s often overlooked or underestimated, yet it’s one of the most crucial parts of your product.

You’ll learn how to create the perfect onboarding experience, which metrics matter, and some of my top tips to delight your users.

Let's dive in!

🎁 My exclusive gift for Scalable readers

Get a whopping 12 months of one-fs.com premium subscription absolutely FREE (save $150)! 

But hurry - this offer ends soon:
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☝️ Scaled this past week: Klarna

Stellar results from Klarna 🚀

Klarna just released their financial results this week, and it’s clear 2024 is a standout year. In the first half, they reported $1.3 billion in revenue, up 27% year-over-year, and turned a $43 million loss in 2023 into a $64 million profit.

Their US market success is particularly impressive, with gross profit surging by 93%, fully recouping their investment after seven profitable quarters.

IPO in the horizon 👀

Klarna has been refocusing ahead of a planned IPO, shedding non-core businesses and doubling down on AI (they recently teamed-up with OpenAI to replace 700 customer service agents). They also offloaded their Checkout payments business for about $520 million.

Acquisition of Laybuy, New Zealand’s reading BNPL 🇳🇿

Last week, Klarna acquired New Zealand’s leading BNPL Laybuy.

With half a million Laybuy users and over 10,000 merchants now in their fold, Klarna is solidifying its position in the New Zealand market.

Strong week for Klarna, definitely the scale of the week!

🧠 Deep-dive: How to Onboard Users in 5 Steps

Good onboarding can elevate your product to new heights, while bad onboarding can significantly harm it.

1. Onboarding is Part Magic, Part Science 🤩

Every tap, word, field, and second matters. Onboarding is a crucial part of your product experience; it’s a blend of magic and science.

With digital products, users are buying into an outcome or goal. The initial moments spent interacting with your product are crucial for shaping their first impressions.

In an age where instant gratification rules, even a slight delay can cause users to abandon the process. Any extra step, even if well-intentioned, can be a reason for users to leave and never return.

For instance, in fintech, over 63% of people abandon onboarding, making it the biggest pain point in the industry and causing an estimated $6B loss per year. This challenge extends across all industries.

2. Reducing Time to Value ⏰

Time To Value should be your north star metric for onboarding. How long does it take for users to experience the magic of your product? Are lengthy sign-up flows, tutorials, walkthroughs, welcome videos, and to-do lists blocking them?

You want your users to reach that "Aha" moment as quickly as possible. For example, OpenAI introduced guest access to ChatGPT, which significantly boosted their growth. While you can’t offer everything for free, you should carefully define the limits of guest access.

For mobile apps, leverage device keyboard memory for inputs like emails, phone numbers, and names. Use available signals to prefill data, such as using a device’s IP location to determine the phone prefix.

Defaults are powerful—requiring less effort and cognitive load from users. Many settings and preferences, like language and appearance (light/dark mode), can be defaulted rather than requiring dedicated screens.

Speaking of tracking, June is an excellent B2B product analytics tool that can be set up in under 2 minutes and is completely free for up to 30,000 MAU. I love how it neatly presents your data, milestone, and activation metrics. Check them out!

5. Set Up Your Tracking 📊

Implement tracking for your onboarding process to understand where users drop off and monitor progress as you continue optimising. Make it a habit to review these insights weekly with your team.

Keep testing new ideas; onboarding is never a one-and-done process but a continuous journey integral to product growth.

🗺️ Method: Gradual Engagement Framework

Placing a sign-up screen at the beginning of your app is a common yet misguided trend aimed at capturing leads as soon as possible. However, what good is it if you lose 75% of users at this step?

I often compare digital experiences to physical spaces. Would you ask for personal details before letting someone enter your store?

Gradual engagement takes the opposite approach by delaying registration until absolutely necessary.

• Benefits of using gradual engagement in digital products.

• Increases user onboarding success.

• Builds trust and reduces drop-off rates.

• Encourages deeper user interaction over time.

To enhance this further, introduce gratification early and often in your onboarding process. Learn more about gradual engagement

💡Spotlight: Attio CRM

Attio is like having a super-organized assistant for all your customer relationships.

It's a CRM platform that helps you keep track of who you're talking to, what you're talking about, and what you need to do next—all in one place.

• Contacts get updated automatically.

• Set up workflows that fit how you actually work.

• Real-time collaboration keeps your whole team in the loop.

• A smart, easy way to manage customer relationships and keep everyone on the same page.

Take a look - it’s pretty cool!

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⚾️ Catch

🔥 In case you missed it, as we’re finishing off the 2024 Summer, this is our final coverage with Sidebar, catch it while it’s hot.

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93% of users say Sidebar has been a game-changer.

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