Today kind of felt like one of those “micro steps but macro stress” days.
I spent a ton of time tightening the user onboarding flow. Two of our early testers hit the same confusing spot last Friday, which sort of confirmed a blind spot we knew existed. I tried to fix it without overcomplicating it, which honestly is the hardest part — every time you clean one thing up, another edge case sneaks out of hiding.
Also dropped in some basic analytics. Just enough to track where people get stuck or bounce. It’s lightweight for now, but already surfaced some eye-opening moments. Like, turns out one tester skipped half the onboarding because the CTA didn’t feel like a CTA. Classic.
Had a call with a potential advisor. Good chat. He challenged me in a good way — especially on how we actually differentiate once bigger players start noticing. It made me realize I’ve been a bit fuzzy in terms of pitch clarity. Not wrong… just not sharp.
Speaking of pitch: we’re slowly moving into the “maybe should raise money soon” territory. I’ve had a bunch of informal chats lately. Nothing formal. I need to start assembling at least a skeleton deck — not to send, just to think through the story more clearly.
The looming question right now is whether what we’re building really lands with users. We’ve seen flashes of yes, but not enough volume yet to trust the pattern. So tomorrow: onboard two more testers.
On the competitive front, a startup in an adjacent space made a splash last week. They're funded, glossy, loud. At first, I panicked. But then I felt… weirdly validated. They’re aiming at a similar problem space, which means the market is real. Now it's on us to be faster, tighter, and just a bit braver.
“You're not too early. You're just early enough to still fix the dumb stuff.”
That’s what I kept telling myself today.
What I Learned: Designing Onboarding That Doesn’t Suck
Here’s a quick one that might help other founders wrestling with onboarding:
Problem: Users were getting halfway through onboarding and either stalling or “hacking” their way past it.
Fix Approach:
- Simplified the copy. Killed anything that sounded like a product brochure.
- Made the progress feel clearer. Dots, checkmarks — something that signals “you’re under way.”
- Changed the “Next” button label to something more action-oriented (“I’m in” or “Let’s start”) on key steps.
- Added invisible logging around key events. Not for spying — just to see what's actually happening.
Lesson: You don’t need a wizard. You need clarity. Make every click feel like it's getting them closer to their "aha."
Feeling a little drained. But it’s forward movement. It’s not glamorous. It just… matters.
