Churn is the smoke. Broken onboarding is the fire.

I believe the success of any SaaS product (almost) entirely depends on user onboarding.

I know, onboarding doesn’t sound as sexy as retention or satisfaction. Not as exciting as growth. Not as urgent as churn. But it’s the foundation everything else stands on.

Think about it: You’ve probably tried breaking a habit before. Hard, right?

Now imagine trying to build a brand-new one, using a tool you barely understand, while juggling a dozen other priorities. So how can we expect users to come back, again and again, to the point where their old ways of doing things feel unimaginable…

if they never even experience the value we promised in the first place, or if it is too damn hard to get there!?!?!? 🤷‍♀️

People are busy. They’re bombarded with dozens (hundreds?) of messages every day. Getting their attention is already hard. Getting their time? That’s gold. That’s a privilege. It’s a tiny window that opens and you can’t afford to waste it.

Because when someone signs up, it means your message worked. They believed your promise. Their motivation and hope are at their peak. But if they land in your product and don’t hit something meaningful — fast and easily — they’re gone. Looking for a better alternative.

And most won’t come back to give you a second chance.
(Research suggests 40–60% won’t return.)

You’ve probably already been that user.

Maybe you were attracted by a very sexy, compelling promise, signed up for a free trial, landed on a blank dashboard, didn’t know what to do, got confused... and after wandering around for a few minutes, just bounced and forgot about it. Or maybe you got somewhere, but the outcome was disappointing.

So you left, frustrated.

I’ve done that many times too.

And what I see again and again:

Great companies. Great teams. Great, valuable products.

All suffering from poor onboarding.

Bleeding users and revenue, not because the product lacks value, but because users never reached what I call their First Meaningful Win. That first felt success. The moment they think:

“Wow, this is really working. That’s what I came for!”

The moment curiosity turns into confidence, and hope into belief.

And the data backs it up: successfully onboarded users stay longer, engage more and spend more.

Because churn is often just the smoke. Broken onboarding is the fire.

If you have a great product but still see churn, it’s likely not a retention problem but an onboarding one.

When you successfully onboard a user, it means:

You had a great promise
You delivered on that promise
You earned their attention and trust
You sparked momentum and confidence
You got them closer to more desirable future state
You set the stage for habit formation, retention and revenue
You increased the odds of referral (because users who win tend to share it)

Put simply: when you nail onboarding, you activate a growth engine.

And as I hope you’ve seen, this isn’t just about good UX or smart flows that solve functional needs. It's not just about logic. It’s also (and above everything) about psycho-logic.

Understanding what your users are really trying to achieve. What motivates them to act. What keeps them coming back. But it’s also about understanding the forces that could play against you. The infamous power of habits and the status quo.

That’s why onboarding is what I obsess over, and why I believe it’s the foundation of everyone’s success: yours and your customers’.

Because if your product delivers real value…

onboarding is the entire journey from hearing about it for the first time, to adopting it as their new way of working.

It’s about behavior change; that’s not nothing!

So if you're looking to improve growth...

Start with onboarding. Everything else follows.

Thank you for reading. 🫡