Product-led onboarding: a simple guide to turning users into lifelong customers

This book, “Product-Led Onboarding: How to Turn New Users Into Lifelong Customers” by Ramli John (with Wes Bush), offers a practical roadmap for SaaS companies and product teams. It focuses on transforming the crucial initial user experience to convert new signups into dedicated, long-term customers. The core idea is that effective onboarding isn’t just a feature tour; it’s a strategic process that guides users to find real value in your product, making them successful and, consequently, loyal.

This summary will clearly explain every key idea from the book, providing you with actionable insights to improve your own user onboarding. You’ll learn about common myths, the financial impact of onboarding, and a step-by-step framework called EUREKA to design an experience that truly resonates with users.

Introduction

The introduction sets the stage by highlighting how a product’s first impression can make or break its success, comparing a neglected onboarding to a great party no one can enter. It emphasizes that 40-60% of users sign up once and never return, making onboarding a critical, yet often overlooked, aspect of a product.

The cost of neglecting user onboarding

When a product’s onboarding is neglected, it’s like throwing a massive party that no one can get into, wasting time and resources for everyone.

• Product team effort is wasted if users can’t access or understand the features built.
• Marketing spend is lost if acquired users churn immediately due to a poor first experience.
• Sales team time is devalued if their efforts lead users to an onboarding that fails them.
• User onboarding is often the only part of a product every single user experiences, making its quality paramount.

The EUREKA framework

The book introduces the EUREKA framework, a six-step process developed from working with hundreds of product-led companies to deliver an exceptional first impression.

• Purpose: To ensure every new user experiences the true value of a product, shaping them into happy, long-term customers.
• Foundation: Draws on growth marketing, UX design, customer psychology, and copywriting.
• Scope: Covers building a team, identifying success, minimizing time-to-value, designing the first experience, creating communications, and involving sales.
• Goal: For readers to absorb and apply strategies so new users thrive, experience their “Eureka!” moment, and become lifelong champions.

The introduction concludes by specifying that the book is most applicable for improving existing onboarding experiences but offers value for new ones too, encouraging a team-based reading approach.

Part I. The onboarding fundamentals

This section lays the groundwork for understanding what user onboarding truly is and why it’s vital for a product-led growth strategy.

Chapter 1: User onboarding – your product’s first impression

This chapter emphasizes that first impressions are irretrievable and directly impact a product’s growth. It challenges common misconceptions about user onboarding, arguing that it’s a continuous journey of value discovery rather than a single event.

Three common myths about user onboarding

The chapter debunks prevalent misunderstandings about what user onboarding entails.

• Myth #1 (Aha moment focus): Believing onboarding’s goal is solely for users to experience a single “Aha” moment after signup is flawed; “Aha” moments begin at the first touchpoint and occur in a series.
• Myth #2 (Starts after signup): Assuming onboarding begins only after a user signs up ignores the critical role of acquisition (marketing and sales) in setting correct expectations and positioning.
• Myth #3 (Ends at payment): Thinking onboarding concludes when a user becomes a paying customer is a mistake, as users can pay without getting value and churn soon after (e.g., Slack defines success at 2,000 messages, not first payment).

What is user onboarding?

User onboarding is defined as “the process that takes people from perceiving, experiencing, and adopting the product’s value to improve their lives.”

• End goal: To help users improve their lives, not just teach them features (e.g., Netflix helps users relax).
• Three key milestones (value moments):
  • Moment of Value Perception (MVP): Users visualize how the product helps them (often pre-signup).
  • Moment of Value Realization (MVR): Users first experience the product’s value and achieve a desired outcome.
  • Moment of Value Adoption (MVA): Users integrate the product into their life/workflow regularly.
• Cyclical process: Onboarding is not linear; users can go through new cycles of perceiving, experiencing, and adopting additional features or use cases over time, much like a flywheel gaining momentum.
• Initial onboarding end: Ends when there’s a signal the user is gaining meaningful value and is likely to continue using the product.
• Overcoming inertia: The first cycle takes the most effort, requiring users to overcome friction like old habits or anxiety of change.

This chapter establishes that effective user onboarding is a journey of progressive value discovery, starting before signup and aiming for long-term habit formation.

Chapter 2: The crux of the product-led growth strategy

This chapter explains why user onboarding is critically important in a product-led growth (PLG) strategy, drawing parallels to the foundational early years of a child’s life. It aims to help readers secure buy-in from their teams by demonstrating onboarding’s significant impact on business metrics.

Three reasons why user onboarding is important

User onboarding is presented as a pivotal element for growth, directly impacting key business outcomes.

• Retention lever: Positive onboarding experiences make customers more likely to stick around. For example, HubSpot Sidekick saw a 15% lift in week-one retention translate to a 50% increase after ten weeks.
• Revenue multiplier: Improved retention directly boosts revenue. The HubSpot Sidekick example, with a 15% retention increase, could lead to a 50% annual revenue increase for a cohort.
• Lower customer acquisition costs (CAC): Better onboarding leads to higher activation rates and subsequently lower CAC. If optimizing onboarding doubles the conversion of active users to paying customers (e.g., 1% to 2%), CAC is halved.

The ugly duckling of growth – user onboarding

Despite its importance, user onboarding is often neglected due to several common challenges.

• No clear ownership: Responsibility is ambiguous, leading to low prioritization.
• Product team silo: Onboarding is often left solely to the product team, missing cross-functional input.
• Misaligned definition: Different teams have varying understandings of what onboarding is.
• No clear quantitative criteria: Lack of a defined success metric hinders progress.
• No clear improvement strategy: Absence of a data-driven, continuous strategy leads to ineffective, ad-hoc efforts.

Five common signs of bad user onboarding

The chapter lists tell-tale signs that a company’s user onboarding needs attention.

• Signup incompletion: Users abandon the signup process, often due to excessive or non-essential fields.
• Users sign up and don’t return: A high percentage (40-60%) use the product once and never come back, indicating a failure to deliver initial value.
• Users don’t upgrade: Low free-to-paid conversion rates (target 2-5% for freemium, 15% for sales-assisted trials) signal onboarding issues.
• Churn after first invoice: New paying customers cancel shortly after their first payment, suggesting they didn’t find sustained value.
• High or rising CAC: Ignoring onboarding problems while trying to acquire more users leads to the “Bad Onboarding Death Cycle” and escalating costs.

This chapter makes a strong case for prioritizing user onboarding by illustrating its profound impact on retention, revenue, and acquisition costs, while also highlighting common pitfalls and warning signs.

Chapter 3: An overview of the EUREKA framework

This chapter introduces the core challenge of onboarding: users are inherently “lazy, vain, and selfish” in their first 15 seconds with a product, demanding maximum value for minimum effort. It then outlines the EUREKA framework as a structured approach to meet this challenge by optimizing the user’s journey to value.

Time-to-value (TTV)

A critical concept in onboarding is minimizing the time-to-value (TTV), which is the duration it takes for a new customer to realize value from a product.

• Goal: Not necessarily the shortest TTV, but the minimum time for users to experience value and continue using the product. Some friction can be beneficial.
• Product-led context: In product-led models with low upfront costs, tolerance for delays is small. A long TTV means users will leave.

Process over prescription

Instead of a list of generic best practices, the book advocates for a process-oriented approach, as adopting the wrong “best practice” can be harmful.

• Uniqueness: Products, markets, teams, and users are unique, so prescriptive advice often fails.
• Framework goal: To provide a systematic way to help users perceive, experience, and adopt the product.

The EUREKA framework

The EUREKA framework is a six-step process designed to shorten TTV and successfully onboard more users.

• E – Establish your onboarding team: Create a cross-functional team for a holistic, seamless experience.
• U – Understand your user’s desired outcomes: Discover why users signed up and what value means to them using frameworks like Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD).
• R – Refine your onboarding success criteria: Define clear, data-backed metrics for what successful onboarding looks like.
• E – Evaluate and optimize your onboarding path: Map the user’s journey to value, eliminating or delaying unnecessary steps using frameworks like the Bowling Alley Framework.
• K – Keep new users engaged: Use triggers (in-app messages, emails, etc.) to guide users and maintain momentum, leveraging models like the BJ Fogg Behavior Model.
• A – Apply the changes and repeat: Treat onboarding as a continuous process of analysis, implementation, and iteration.

This chapter sets the stage for the detailed exploration of each EUREKA step, emphasizing the need to quickly demonstrate value to inherently impatient new users.

Part II. The EUREKA framework

This part delves into each of the six steps of the EUREKA framework, providing detailed guidance and actionable strategies for improving user onboarding.

Chapter 4: Establish an onboarding team

This chapter argues that improving user onboarding is a team sport, not a solo mission like a James Bond movie. It emphasizes the necessity of a cross-functional “Avengers-style” team to deliver an effective, immersive, and seamless experience.

The importance of a cross-functional onboarding team

Silos hinder innovation and growth; collaboration across departments is key.

• Isolated efforts: Marketing, product, sales, and support often work on onboarding in isolation, leading to a fractured user experience.
• Holistic approach: A cross-functional team brings diverse perspectives and ensures alignment from acquisition to revenue.

The roles

The specific makeup of the team varies, but typically involves representatives from key functions.

• Product managers: Orchestrate the in-app experience (signup, first-use workflow, in-app triggers) to minimize TTV.
• Marketers: Communicate product value, create educational content (emails, templates, case studies), and use external triggers to re-engage users and reinforce messaging.
• Customer success: Understand user needs, provide empathy and product know-how, gather feedback, and help users find immediate value.
• Sales (for hybrid models): Nurture high-value users, set expectations, build relationships, and provide customized demos based on product engagement data.
• Identify contributors: Determine who is currently responsible for product positioning, acquisition, onboarding communication, UX design, conversion, and new user support.

Who owns onboarding?

It’s less about “owning” and more about “championing” user onboarding within the organization.

• Champion: The team closest to the customer with the ability to rally different departments (e.g., product at Drift, customer success at Jungle Scout, marketing at Sprout Social).
• Cross-functional effort: The key is that the champion ensures onboarding is a collaborative effort.

Leadership buy-in

Executive sponsorship is crucial for an onboarding team to overcome bureaucracy and secure resources.

• Strategic importance: Onboarding impacts retention, revenue, and CAC, so it can’t be a side project.
• Executive champion: A founder, CEO, or VP needs to advocate for onboarding to ensure sustained success.
• Gaining buy-in: Share data on onboarding’s impact (like from Chapter 2) and retention curves of onboarded vs. non-onboarded users.

Getting the team started

Once leadership buy-in is secured and the team is identified, establish a common understanding.

• Kick-off meeting: Discuss common goals, team members, roles, and why onboarding is critical.
• Define success: Align on definitions of onboarding, its start/end points, and success metrics.
• Identify opportunities: Discuss current challenges and biggest improvement areas.
• Next steps: Assign responsibility for gathering user data (qualitative and quantitative) for the next EUREKA step.

This chapter provides the blueprint for assembling and aligning an effective, cross-functional team dedicated to improving the user onboarding experience.

Chapter 5: Understand your users’ desired outcomes

This chapter emphasizes that truly understanding why users sign up is the cornerstone of effective onboarding. It posits that signing up for a product is an expression of hope for a better situation, and failing to understand this hope leads to disappointment and churn. The Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) framework is presented as a key tool.

A better life

The primary goal of onboarding is to help users become better versions of themselves by solving their frustrations or annoyances.

• Focus on transformation: Onboarding should focus on how the product improves the user’s life, not just on its features (e.g., buying a timed lockbox for a phone is about buying better focus).
• Upgrade the user: The aim is to build better photographers, not just better cameras, as Kathy Sierra suggests.

Your product’s “job interview”

The Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) theory by Clay Christensen suggests users “hire” products to perform a “Customer Job” that transforms their existing life situation.

• Solution agnostic: Customer Jobs focus on user needs and problems, independent of the specific solution (e.g., the job of cooking raw chicken can be done by a stove, grill, or oven).
• Circumstances drive “job openings”: Understanding the user’s life circumstances and pain points that led them to seek a solution is more important than product features.
• Onboarding as the “interview”: The user onboarding process is where the product “interviews” for the Customer Job. Success depends on knowing what job you’re being interviewed for.

The three components of customer jobs

Users hire products for functional, emotional, and social reasons.

• Functional: The specific, tangible outcomes users experience (e.g., for Canva, a marketer’s functional job is to quickly create high-converting ad visuals). Segmentation by functional job is key.
• Emotional: How users want to feel or avoid feeling (e.g., Revlon sells “hope” or a “better you,” not just cosmetics; Canva users might want to feel creative without design training).
• Social: How users want to be perceived by others due to using the product (e.g., Canva helps create professional designs that get you noticed by colleagues).

The progress-making forces

Four forces influence a user’s decision to switch to a new solution or stick with the status quo.

• Push: Frustration with the current situation compelling a search for something new.
• Pull: Attraction of the new solution and its promised benefits.
• Anxiety: Fears and uncertainties about switching to the new product.
• Inertia: Resistance to change and comfort with existing habits.
• Onboarding’s role: Amplify the push and pull, calm anxiety, and overcome inertia.

JTBD interviews

User interviews are the best way to uncover these insights.

• Importance: Companies investing in customer research grow faster. Understanding users is key to improving onboarding and retention.
• Who to interview: New users, shoppers, active customers, inactive customers, and churned customers.
• Goal: Find patterns in what makes “core users” love the product and what triggered their initial engagement.
• Action: Appendix I provides a step-by-step guide for conducting these interviews, and the User Success Canvas (productled.com/user-success) helps summarize findings.

This chapter guides the onboarding team to deeply understand user motivations and desired transformations, which is essential for designing an effective onboarding flow.

Chapter 6: Refine your onboarding success milestones

This chapter focuses on defining clear, measurable success criteria for user onboarding, likening the process to needing a destination in Google Maps to avoid getting lost. Once user desired outcomes are understood, the next step is to quantify what successful onboarding looks like through key milestones.

Success criteria #1: The signup

Completing the signup process is the first, basic success criterion.

• Signal of interest: The level of friction in the signup (e.g., credit card required vs. not) can indicate the quality and intent of the signup. Opt-out trials (credit card upfront) may yield fewer but higher-quality signups.
• Frictionless goal: If the aim is to get more people to try the product, a frictionless opt-in trial (no credit card) is often better, though it requires stronger qualification later.

Success criteria #2: The first strike

This is when users achieve their desired outcome or Customer Job with the product for the first time (Moment of Value Realization – MVR).

• Definition: A necessary product action users must take to accomplish their desired outcome (e.g., exporting a design in Canva, hosting a Zoom meeting).
• Context matters: For “all-in-one” products, the First Strike can vary by user segment and Customer Job (e.g., Intercom has different First Strikes for its support, engagement, and marketing products).
• Connection to JTBD: The First Strike is closely tied to the product’s Customer Job(s) and is the first measure that users are on the right track.

Success criteria #3: The tipping point

This is the moment users start using the product consistently, signaling they’ve adopted it into their workflow (Moment of Value Adoption – MVA). This is also called the Product Adoption Indicator (PAI).

• Habit formation: Onboarding aims to build new habits; experiencing value once isn’t enough. Repetition is key.
• PAI definition: An early but strong leading indicator of user retention and product adoption (e.g., Slack: a team sends 2,000 messages; Facebook: adding 7 friends in 10 days).
• PAI characteristics:
  • Leading indicator of retention.
  • Focuses on repetition of one key product engagement action.
  • Easy to understand and communicate.
  • Time-bound (ideally, e.g., Facebook’s 10 days).
  • Occurs early in the user’s journey.

The five steps to determine your PAI

A methodical approach to identify your product’s PAI using data.

• Baseline retention: Perform a cohort analysis to understand current retention rates.
• PAI hypothesis: Formulate a hypothesis like: “If new users do X [key action] Y times in Z days, they’re more likely to be retained.”
• Validate hypothesis: Gather data to find the sweet spot that maximizes overlap between users meeting the PAI criteria and long-term retained users.
• Compare retention curves: Verify the PAI by comparing the retention of users who hit the PAI against the baseline.
• Communicate PAI: Make it simple and share it across the organization so it becomes a common goal (e.g., Wave’s “first activation event”).

Product qualified leads and the PAI

PQLs are users who have achieved meaningful value and are often used to identify leads for sales/support.

• PQL vs. PAI: A PQL could be the same as a PAI, but PQLs can involve multiple engagement metrics and may occur earlier than the PAI, depending on sales/support capacity.
• Continuum: The PQL can be anywhere between signup and achieving the PAI, based on user engagement.

Implementing a product analytics tool

Tracking product engagement metrics is crucial for defining and measuring these success criteria.

• Beyond Google Analytics: Basic GA is insufficient for deep product engagement insights.
• Tools: Mixpanel, Heap, Amplitude, Pendo, etc., are needed to track meaningful product events and metrics for individual users.
• Identify key metrics: Determine what product engagement actions are important for your specific product (e.g., projects created, tasks completed for a productivity tool).

This chapter provides the methods to define concrete, data-driven milestones that signify successful user onboarding, guiding the team’s efforts and measuring progress.

Chapter 7: Evaluate your onboarding path

This chapter focuses on streamlining the user’s journey to their “First Strike” (experiencing value for the first time). It likens optimizing onboarding to making a car faster by removing unnecessary weight, emphasizing that bloated onboarding with too many steps leads to user abandonment. The Bowling Alley Framework and Straight-Line Onboarding are key concepts.

The straight-line onboarding

This is the minimum number of steps a user needs to take to achieve their First Strike, analogous to a beginner bowler trying to roll the ball straight down the lane.

• Time-to-value (TTV): The goal is to decrease TTV, as users have little patience. A shorter TTV means faster ROI for the user’s time, increasing stickiness.
• Removing bloat: Most onboarding experiences have superfluous steps (often >30%) that create unnecessary friction.
• UserGuiding example: Removing unnecessary steps and focusing on their Chrome extension (where value lies) nearly doubled their conversion rates.

How to build your straight-line onboarding

A three-step process to identify and refine the most efficient path to value.

• Map out your onboarding path: Sign up for your own product as a new user, documenting every single step from the very first touchpoint (e.g., Google search, ad) to achieving the First Strike. Use tools like sticky notes or Trello.
• Evaluate each step: Assess each step for necessity, ease, and simplicity.
  • Necessity: Label steps as green (essential for First Strike), yellow (can be delayed), or red (can be removed). Use the DAD test (Directs to next step? Adds to/personalizes experience? Delights users?) before cutting, as some friction (like Wave asking for a logo) can be beneficial due to the IKEA Effect (valuing what you co-create).
  • Ease: Reorganize steps from easiest to hardest, applying the Principle of Commitment and Consistency (small initial asks lead to agreement on bigger ones).
  • Simplicity: Reduce choices (Hick’s Law – more choices, longer decision time). Use progressive disclosure (show essential options first, more on request) and break complex forms into multiple, smaller steps.
• Finalize your straight-line onboarding: Collaborate with the entire cross-functional team to agree on the necessary steps.

Segmenting your user onboarding

One-size-fits-all onboarding rarely works as products mature and attract diverse users. Segmentation is described as “conversion steroids.”

• Different customer jobs: Tailor onboarding for each distinct Customer Job or market segment, like Disneyland offering different suggestions to honeymooners versus families.
• Benefits:
  • Users learn only what’s necessary for their First Strike.
  • Allows specific messaging about how the product helps them.
  • Increases motivation through targeted communication.
• Process: For each identified Customer Job (from Chapter 5’s JTBD interviews), repeat the three steps to build a specific Straight-Line Onboarding experience.

This chapter provides a clear methodology for critically examining and simplifying the user’s path to initial value, ensuring efficiency and effectiveness.

Chapter 8: Keep new users engaged

This chapter addresses how to maintain user engagement throughout the onboarding process, drawing an analogy to a great teacher who educates, explains, and inspires. After streamlining the onboarding path (Chapter 7), the focus shifts to adding “bumpers” – like those in a bowling alley – to keep users on track and motivated using the BJ Fogg Behavior Model.

The BJ Fogg behavior model

This model (Behavior = Motivation + Ability + Prompt, or B=MAP) is key to understanding and influencing user behavior change. For a behavior to occur, all three elements must converge.

• Action line: Behaviors fall above this line (high motivation/easy, or vice-versa) are more likely to become habits.
• Application to onboarding: If users drop off, it’s due to a lack of motivation, ability (too hard), or a missing prompt. Product and Conversational Bumpers should address one or more of these.

Section I: Make it easy (increase ability)

Reduce cognitive load (mental effort to learn) to prevent overwhelm. Straight-Line Onboarding (Chapter 7) is a big first step.

• Provide visual cues: Simple images or Product Bumpers (like product tours, tooltips, hotspots) can guide users to the next step. Use tours judiciously to achieve outcomes, not just point out features.
• Show a helpful empty state: When users first see pages without data, use these “empty states” to guide action and paint a picture of future value (e.g., Dropbox Paper), rather than showing confusing dummy data. Basecamp uses dummy data instructively.
• Provide templates and resources: Cheat sheets, templates (like Canva’s design templates or Userlist’s email templates), and educational articles make it easier for users to start and achieve their First Strike.

Section 2: Increase motivation

Intrinsic motivation is more powerful than external rewards (like badges or trial extensions), which can attract users interested only in the reward.

• Speak to users’ desires: Use copy in signup screens, tooltips, and tours to highlight benefits and how the product improves users’ lives, addressing pain points and anxieties (e.g., Wave’s invoicing copy).
• Show them progress: Use progress bars or checklists (e.g., LinkedIn’s Profile Strength, FullStory’s signup). This leverages the Zeigarnik Effect (need to finish incomplete tasks) and the satisfaction of goal completion.
• Welcome new users: Build connection and set a positive tone with welcome messages or videos (e.g., Userlist’s founder video, Fiverr’s community welcome). Avoid “no-reply” emails.
• Celebrate their wins: Congratulate users on achieving milestones (First Strike, account setup) with in-app messages or emails (e.g., Wave’s invoice sent pop-up, Buzzsprout’s first episode email). Sprout Social sends physical gift boxes.
• Use social proof: Testimonials, case studies, and reviews build trust and reduce uncertainty (e.g., Wave’s “$24 billion in invoices sent”). Use social proof near CTAs, to counter objections, and in in-app/email content.

Section 3: Create behavior-based prompts

Prompts (triggers) are crucial for guiding users to achieve their desired outcome and to continue using the product until adoption.

• Effective prompts are:
  • Omnichannel: Cohesive messaging across multiple channels (email is key: accessible, expected, understood).
  • Personalized and timely: Triggered by user actions (or inactions) rather than being purely time-based, ensuring relevance.
  • Reiterate value: Remind users how the product helps them based on their context.
• Three-step process for behavior-based communication (e.g., emails):
  • Identify key milestones: Pinpoint critical points in your Straight-Line Onboarding (e.g., signup, specific steps, First Strike, trial events).
  • Add behavior-based prompts: For each milestone, determine why users might get stuck (lack of motivation or ability) and send content to address that (e.g., if Canva users don’t select a template, send design inspiration).
  • Fill in the details: Craft emails with one primary CTA, a personal tone, simple/digestible content, mobile optimization, and segmentation. Appendix III offers templates.

This chapter provides a comprehensive toolkit for designing an engaging onboarding experience by making tasks easier, boosting user motivation, and using timely, relevant prompts.

Chapter 9: Apply the changes and repeat

This chapter emphasizes that improving user onboarding is an iterative process, not a one-time fix. It draws a lesson from the “marshmallow challenge,” where kindergarteners (who rapidly iterate) outperform business students (who over-strategize), highlighting that learning by doing and making multiple small experiments often yields better results than big, infrequent launches.

Iterative process > big launches

Most teams treat onboarding improvements as large, occasional projects. It’s more effective to analyze results, reiterate, and implement changes quickly.

• Fast learning: Companies that grow fastest are those that learn quickest.
• Triple A sprint: A one-month sprint cycle for rapid improvement:
  • Analyze: Identify inputs driving desired business outcomes (much of the EUREKA framework feeds into this).
  • Ask: Where do we want to go? Which levers can we pull? Which inputs should we invest in?
  • Act: Choose an input and implement it. Then repeat the cycle.
• Alternative processes: Sean Ellis’s high-tempo process, Brian Balfour’s growth machine, or Growth Tribe’s G.R.O.W.S. process are also effective.

Prioritizing onboarding improvements

The challenge often lies in prioritizing ideas, not generating them. The Action Priority Matrix helps:

• High-impact, low-effort: Quick wins, start here (e.g., removing a signup field).
• High-impact, high-effort: Big swings, major projects requiring planning (e.g., personalized in-app onboarding).
• Low-impact, low-effort: Momentum builders, good for morale, incremental improvements (e.g., sending a behavior-based email with templates).
• Low-impact, high-effort: Avoid these.

Split testing growth ideas

Ideally, A/B test any onboarding changes to validate their effectiveness.

• Example: Send half of new users through the new Straight-Line Onboarding and half through the current process. Compare retention curves.
• Tools for rapid implementation: Appcues, Pendo, UserGuiding for Product Bumpers; Userlist, Intercom, Drift for Conversational Bumpers, to overcome engineering bandwidth limitations.

Share wins and learnings

Communicating progress and insights across the organization is crucial.

• Benefits: Excites teammates and executives, creates team-wide empathy by showing real impact, and ensures continued resource dedication.
• Methods: “Onboarding Wins” emails, dedicated Slack channel, shared slide decks, lunch-and-learns, regular meetings.

Beyond the initial onboarding

Improving user onboarding is a continuous process that must adapt as the product evolves. The EUREKA process can be applied to later stages of the user journey.

• Considerations: Different entry points (ads vs. search), different Customer Jobs, invited users, and onboarding existing users to new UI/product changes.
• Going deeper: Educate users on advanced features to help them do their current Customer Job more effectively (e.g., Calendly teaching advanced scheduling features).
• Going wider: Introduce solutions to different problems customers face, potentially leading to new product adoption or upgrades (e.g., HubSpot introducing social media tools to a user who initially signed up for landing pages).
• Revenue expansion: Onboarding to additional capabilities is critical for increasing ARPU (e.g., Intercom guiding users from basic live chat to automated chatbots, increasing their plan value).

This chapter underscores that onboarding is never “done” and provides a framework for continuous experimentation, learning, and expansion of onboarding efforts to drive sustained growth.

Chapter 10: Sales-assisted user onboarding

This chapter explores how a sales team can complement a product-led growth (PLG) strategy, challenging the notion that PLG means being anti-sales. It illustrates that even classic PLG companies like Slack utilize sales for significant revenue, and a “hybrid” or “sales-assisted” onboarding approach can substantially increase conversion rates.

Sales-led, product-led, and sales-assisted onboarding

The optimal approach depends on factors like annual contract value (ACV) and buying process complexity, visualized on a matrix.

• Sales-led: High ACV, complex buying process (e.g., Cisco, Marketo).
• Product-led: Low ACV, simple self-checkout (e.g., Netflix).
• Sales-assisted (Hybrid): Mid-to-high ACV ( 2k−2k-2k− 100k+), varying buying complexity. Companies might transition to this (e.g., HubSpot moving downmarket, Slack moving upmarket).
• Continuum: Onboarding isn’t binary; it exists on a spectrum from low-touch product-led to high-touch sales-led.

How sales can complement self-serve onboarding

Good salespeople add value in a PLG model by making the product experience better.

• Direct users to value: Salespeople act as coaches, helping users overcome difficulties and achieve their First Strike, especially for complex products or integrations (e.g., Appcues account managers helping with code snippet installation).
• Facilitate product penetration or expansion: Employ a “land and expand” strategy. After initial adoption within a company, sales helps expand to other teams or sell more seats/features (e.g., Slack’s early approach).
• Guide users in the buying process: For mid-size/enterprise companies, sales helps navigate complex procurement, security audits, and custom agreements. They anticipate needs and offer consultative help.

How the role of a salesperson differs in a PLG organization

Consultative selling is key, but with some important distinctions from traditional sales.

• Coach, not chaser: Users have already tried the product; salespeople guide them to consistent value and overcome limitations, rather than explaining value from scratch.
• Reframes value: Salespeople must articulate product benefits differently to end-users (e.g., time-saving) versus executives (e.g., ROI).
• Leverages product engagement data: Qualification moves beyond MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads) to PQLs (Product Qualified Leads), based on actual product usage.

PQLs and SQLs in product-led sales

PQLs are users who have achieved meaningful value in the product, signaling they are ready for a deeper conversation.

• Defining your PQL:
  • Measure product engagement: Track key milestones in the Straight-Line Onboarding.
  • Define PQL criteria: Based on activation (completing Straight-Line Onboarding) and engagement (frequency of core feature use). A user achieving their First Strike is a good PQL indicator.
  • Rank users by engagement: Create a product engagement ranking model.
• SQLs (Sales Qualified Leads) in PLG: An SQL in a product-led journey has two components:
  • They are a PQL (high product engagement).
  • They fit your ideal customer profile (ICP – e.g., company size, industry, role).
• Product-Led Qualification Matrix (Derek Skaletsky):
  • High Engagement + Good Fit (SQLs): Engage in sales process.
  • High Engagement + Poor Fit (PQLs): Offer support, no sales unless initiated by user.
  • Low Engagement + Good Fit (“Heartbreakers”): Nurture, offer support if they reach out.
  • Low Engagement + Poor Fit: Ignore.

When and how should sales reach out to users

Timing and value-add are crucial to avoid alienating prospects. Aim for an Apple Store-like experience: friendly experts ready to help.

• Hand-raisers: Users who explicitly ask for help (forms, chat, feature requests). Sales reps act like customer success, resolving blockers.
• Proactive campaigns: Manual or automated outreach to high-value SQLs at ideal moments:
  • After signing up: Help with account setup, complex integrations, or proof-of-concept for company-wide rollout.
  • Celebrate wins: Congratulate users on achieving First Strike or correct setup, offering further guidance or demos.
  • Going top-down: Once enough users from one company sign up (like Yammer’s strategy), sales can reach out to executives with personalized insights based on existing usage.
• Sales outreach templates: Appendix III provides email templates.

This chapter clarifies that sales and product-led growth can coexist and even strengthen each other, provided the sales approach is consultative, data-driven, and focused on adding value to the user’s experience.

Chapter 11: Where do we go from here?

This concluding chapter recaps the central message of the book: great businesses are built on high customer retention, and a great onboarding experience is the foundation for that retention. The author shares a personal anecdote about discovering the power of onboarding optimization, leading to the development of the EUREKA framework.

The power of optimized onboarding

The author recounts a consulting experience where shifting focus from acquisition to onboarding optimization led to a huge uplift in free-to-paid conversions and longer customer retention.

• Client success: One client doubled their trial-to-paid conversion rate and saw a 315% increase in MRR in six months by removing just one step in their user onboarding.
• Repeatable framework: This success demonstrated that the techniques were repeatable, leading to the formalization of the EUREKA framework.

EUREKA framework recap

The chapter briefly reiterates the six steps of the EUREKA framework:

• Establish your onboarding team.
• Understand your user’s desired outcomes.
• Refine your onboarding success milestones.
• Evaluate and optimize your onboarding path.
• Keep new users engaged.
• Apply the changes and repeat.

Final thoughts

The journey through the EUREKA framework equips readers to significantly improve their user onboarding.

• Continuous process: The most successful teams view onboarding improvement not as a one-time task but as a cyclical process vital to product success.
• Magic moment: A seamless onboarding experience feels like magic, making it hard for users to revert to old ways and leading them to embrace the product, becoming lifelong customers.
• Call to action: The author encourages readers to share the book and review it online to help others benefit from its insights.

This chapter serves as a final encouragement, reinforcing the transformative potential of product-led onboarding and the continuous nature of this critical work.

Appendices overview

The book includes three appendices to provide further practical resources.

• Appendix I: Jobs-to-be-Done user interviews: This section offers a detailed, five-step guide on how to conduct JTBD interviews. This includes selecting interview subjects, preparing a script, conducting the interview, transcribing and organizing scripts, and finally, gathering and implementing the insights. This is crucial for understanding user motivations (Chapter 5).
• Appendix II: Product bumpers: Excerpted from “Product-Led Growth” by Wes Bush, this appendix details various in-app tools (Product Bumpers) like welcome messages, product tours, progress bars, checklists, onboarding tooltips, and empty states. These are used to guide users and make the onboarding experience easier and more effective (Chapter 8).
• Appendix III: Conversational bumper: Also an excerpt from Wes Bush’s book, this appendix covers communication tools (Conversational Bumpers) used outside the app, primarily focusing on different types of user onboarding emails such as welcome emails, usage tips, sales touches, case studies, and trial expiration warnings. These aim to educate, re-engage, and motivate users (Chapter 8).

These appendices provide actionable templates and deeper dives into specific techniques discussed within the EUREKA framework, supporting the implementation of a better onboarding experience.

Big-picture wrap-up

“Product-Led Onboarding” by Ramli John provides a comprehensive and actionable guide to transforming new users into lifelong customers. It argues that user onboarding is not merely a set of introductory screens but a strategic, continuous process crucial for product-led growth. By focusing on understanding user needs, streamlining the path to value, and engaging users effectively, businesses can significantly improve retention, boost revenue, and lower acquisition costs.

The EUREKA framework (Establish, Understand, Refine, Evaluate, Keep, Apply) offers a clear, step-by-step methodology for achieving these goals.

• Core takeaway: Effective user onboarding is about helping users achieve their desired outcomes and become successful with your product, leading to sustained engagement and loyalty.
• Next action: Start by evaluating your current onboarding experience with a cross-functional team, using the EUREKA framework as your guide, beginning with understanding your users’ “Jobs-to-be-Done.”
• Customer-centricity: Remember that value is determined by the user, and your onboarding should be a bridge to their success.
• Continuous improvement: Onboarding is not a one-off project but an ongoing iterative process that adapts to your product and users.
• Team effort: Successful onboarding requires collaboration across product, marketing, sales, and customer success.
• Data-driven decisions: Use both qualitative insights (like JTBD interviews) and quantitative data (like PAI and retention curves) to inform your strategy.
• Beyond initial onboarding: Apply onboarding principles to guide users to deeper engagement and broader product use over their entire lifecycle.