Notorious PLG 3.22.22: How to Catch a User (Onboarding)
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How to Catch a User
Issue 4: Onboarding New Users in a Product-led World
For the last few weeks, I’ve shared “How to Catch a User,” a mini-series on product-led growth marketing fundamentals and benchmarks, brought to you by my colleague and partner at Wing, Clair Byrd. Clair joins us from Twilio, InVision, and has deep visibility into other notable PLG pioneers, like Canva and Dropbox.
Of all the apps on your phone or desktop right now–or perhaps more telling, the apps you actually use regularly–how many of them frustrated you within seconds of initial use?
I’m guessing it’s probably only the ones you *have* to use, for work or otherwise.
First impressions matter, especially for product-led companies. Onboarding is arguably the most important part of a new user’s journey, and for product-led growth companies, that is even more true.
Within that onboarding flow, there inevitably lies an “a ha” moment, and identifying it is a critical piece of the PLG journey. It’s the last action a user takes before becoming materially less likely to churn, materially more likely to activate fully, and the user and the product’s value “click.”
Great onboarding starts with discovering, understanding, and optimizing that a ha moment.
What is onboarding, actually?
What’s considered ‘onboarding’ is actually a wide range of activities and actions that vary from company type to company type.
It could be a series of email prompts. It could be in-app nudges. Part of it is the copy you use, or the enablement features you offer. For many, it’s a unique combination of all of these that revolves around the goal of showing value, activating a user, and solidifying them in the product.
And what solidifies a user in a product? That’s right: the a ha moment.
There are no hard and fast rules about when a pop-over tour should start, when you should send a particular in-app message, do a screen takeover, and so on. It entirely depends on what your user base is most likely to engage with, and the tendencies your ICP contains. But planning all of these touchpoints and options for onboarding around what is most likely to get a user to an a ha moment is a strategy any company, regardless of their product, can use.
Some commonalities exist in terms of the design principles at play and how they impact onboarding. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
Hierarchy principles:
Visual hierarchy is a technique used by designers to rank elements on any given screen or experience in terms of importance. It plays a critical role in planning out your information hierarchy, and fundamentally involves the use of color, size, scale, perspective, and other cues to indicate what users should pay attention to.
Rhythm design principle:
This principle speaks to the way in which designers use repetition to guide action. Repeating elements in a predictable sequence can help create a sense of movement and prompt a user to continue on in their journey.
Invariance principle:
This principle relates to how our brains do a really great job of noticing inconsistencies. Introducing something different within a homogenous group invites attention–and clicks.
Multistability principle:
Also called the Gestalt principle, this concept speaks to how you can help someone understand something by showing it to them in a different way.
A basic understanding of these principles can go a long way in creating a unique onboarding flow that drives users to the a ha moment.
Here’s what matters.
There are also some common metrics that you should track to get a better sense of how your onboarding process is succeeding–or not.
Event tracking is a great way to use quantitative data to support a more qualitative concept like an “a ha” moment. Define the core events that indicate your user has realized a desired outcome or unlocked a powerful piece of value from your product. Do they drop off at certain events more often than not? Does achieving a certain event correlate highly with adoption and retention? That could be your a ha moment right there.
Time spent in the app and the number of times a user logs in is also an obvious and concrete way to assess onboarding success and likelihood of retention. It isn’t as obvious, though, as you dig in; a user may be spending a lot of time in the app because they are struggling. When they log in, do they get value or do they churn out?
Lastly, overlay time values onto the above to gain a deeper understanding. If you see a massive drop off at just 30 minutes post-sign-up, that tells you something about that stage of the user’s journey. Chop the onboarding up into regular intervals - 30 minutes, 12 hours, 24 hours, three days, a week, etc. - and assess each for progress, time to value, retention, and the like.
Research shows that the top SaaS companies in the world have average user retention rates 20 percent higher than their peers. How you onboard your users has a long-lasting effect on your relationship with them and can have a huge impact on churn, lifetime value, and even inform how you evolve your product over time. Onboard wisely!
If you have thoughts or an experience to lend to this conversation, feel free to tweet at us: @zacharydewitt and @theclairbyrd.
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Recent PLG Financings (Private Companies):
Seed:
Arcol, a collaborative design and documentation tool designed to serve the architecture, engineering and construction sectors, has raised $3.6M. The funding was backed by Cowboy Ventures.
Decipad, a low-code notebook designed for modeling numbers, has raised $5M. The round was led by Entrée Capital and Target Global, with participation from Flybridge Capital, Founder Collective, Shilling VC, Angel Invest Ventures.
Enterpret, a startup building and deploying customer-specific models, based on customer feedback, for product development teams, has raised $4.3M. The round was led by Kleiner Perkins with participation from Sequoia Capital India and Unusual Ventures.
Tactic, a London-based provider of search solutions for sales teams, has raised $4.5M at a $20.25M valuation. Index Ventures led the round and was joined by Visionaries Club.
Ponder, a developer of data science tools designed to develop scalable, enterprise-ready, and easy-to-use machine learning and analytics tools, has raised $7M. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with Intel Capital, 8VC, and The House Fund participating.
Early Stage:
Aptos, a cryptocurrency payments network, has raised $200M at a $1B valuation. The strategic round was led by a16z, with participation from Tiger Global, Katie Haun, Multicoin Capital, 3 Arrows Capital, FTX Ventures and Coinbase Ventures.
Series A:
Clockwork, a server clock synchronization startup, has raised $21M. The round was led by NEA.
Rutter, a unified application programming platform designed to read and write data from e-commerce storefronts, has raised $29.25M at a $199.25M valuation. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Sedai, an autonomous artificial intelligence-based platform intended to manage applications on any cloud, has raised $15M at a $45M valuation. The round was led by Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from Sierra Ventures and Uncorrelated Ventures.
Blink, a company building tools to automate workflows, has raised a $26M. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Entrée Capital, and Hetz Ventures.
100ms, a video conferencing platform designed to integrate live video and audio conferencing into applications, has raised $20M at a $100M valuation. The round was led by Alpha Wave Incubation, with Matrix Partners India and LocalGlobe and existing investors Accel and Strive.vc.
Series B:
Linktree, a company trying to create a better way to link out of socials to all their different revenue streams, has raised $110M at a $1.3B valuation. The round was led by Index Ventures and Coatue Management, with participation from AirTree Ventures, Insight Partners, and Greenoaks.
Optimism, a low-cost Ethereum L2 blockchain, has raised $150M at a $1.65B valuation. The round was co-led by Paradigm and Andreessen Horowitz.
Series C:
Socotra, a cloud-native core platform designed to provide automated recurring billing and integrated reporting for technology-driven insurers, has raised $50M at a $315M valuation. The round was led by Insight Partners, with participation from existing investors 8VC, Portage Ventures, Brewer Lane, MS&AD Ventures, and Nationwide Ventures.
Webflow, a company that builds websites, has raised $120M at a $4B valuation. The round was led by Y Combinator Continuity, with participation from CapitalG and Accel.
Apollo.io, an all-in-one sales intelligence platform, has raised $110M at a $910M valuation. The round was led by Sequoia Capital, with Tribe Capital, Nexus Venture Partners and NewView Capital also participating.
Typeform, a Barcelona-based “conversational data collection” startup, has raised $135M at a $935M valuation. Sofina led the round, and was joined by Top Tier Capital Partners, GP Bullhound, General Atlantic, Index Ventures, and Point Nine Capital.
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