Make onboarding longer: ask about goals and level, show value, recommend a program

Nicole Paigefor a while in the beginning, we were operating as if it was just best to get the user to the paywall as quickly as possible. Get them into the app, into the paywall as quickly as possible. But we had a hypothesis about longer onboarding, and we started experimenting with

Nicole Paigeguiding the user through an onboarding experience that kind of got to know them a little bit, also gave them some interstitials during onboarding to show the value of the app, and we saw that that onboarding experience actually led to a much higher conversion than without having the longer onboarding, and it also gave us the ability to personalize what they saw right when they got into the app.

Nicole PaigeSo we asked them a little bit about what they were interested in, about what their level was, and we were able to recommend them a program before they even saw the app. And doing this just helped them see that we're listening to them, we know who they are, and we have what's right for them in the app.

Nicole PaigeThat greatly increased our conversion, and I think it was a surprise to a lot of us that we introduced friction, but it really did help us. And one thing we did after introducing the long onboarding was we actually introduced a paywall

Nicole Paigebefore the users even gotten to the app, which was another assumption that we challenged, was that, "Oh, no, they definitely have to see the product before we show them the paywall." But we were able to build enough value perception into the onboarding experience where we showed them a paywall right after onboarding before they dropped into the product, and that really helped with overall conversion as well.