Last updated on February 14th, 2025 at 07:28 am
Everyone who has ever run a SaaS business knows that getting people to sign up for the free trial is just the beginning.
In fact, according to Patrick McKenzie, also known in the startup community as patio11, 40-60% of users who sign up for a free trial of a SaaS application will only use it once.
Needless to say, if someone only uses your app once, they are not going to purchase a paid subscription once the free trial is over.
That means that the first run experience is a make it or break it moment for a SaaS business.
You need to get it right if you want to stand a chance of converting that free user into paying customer.
So how can you create a great onboarding flow?
What is an Onboarding Funnel?
An onboarding funnel is a funnel designed to help new users get started with your software.
In this article, we are going to focus primarily on the first run experience, as it is the most crucial element of any onboarding funnel.
However, the ultimate purpose of an onboarding funnel is to convert a free trial user into a paying customer.
That’s why it’s important to continue providing guidance and celebrating small wins all throughout the free trial period.
How to Create a Winning Onboarding Funnel
So how can you create an amazing first-run experience?
Pick a Small Win
Your first run experience should provide the new user with a small win that gives them a taste of what they could achieve with your app.
This small win needs to be something that can be accomplished during a single session of using your software.
Ideally, it should demonstrate the core value of your app, though that’s not always possible – some software is simply too complex for that.
In that case, you still need to pick a task that would give the new user a sense of accomplishment, even if it shows just a fraction of what your software is capable of.
For Example:
In his book “The Elements of User Onboarding”, Samuel Hulick gives an example of designing the first-run experience for an online survey app.
“A great first-run experience (the path that gets them to the “base camp”), then, would be one that advances the new user all the way to a state of kicking back and waiting for results to come streaming in. That’d be very nicely achieved by, well, having them get a survey out there!” he explains.
Figure Out the Shortest Path to That Small Win
Once you decided on the small win, you need to figure out the shortest path to get there.
What’s important here is that you prioritize guiding the new user towards that small win above everything else.
A common mistake that SaaS companies make in their onboarding flows is asking the new user to do tasks that are convenient for the company but don’t get that person any closer to the small win.
But the problem with that is that every extra step increases the likelihood of them leaving and never coming back.
So you always need to ask yourself:
Is this step absolutely necessary for getting to the small win?
Because if it’s not then you shouldn’t include it in your first-run experience.
For Example:
Continuing with Samuel Hulick’s online survey app example…
You need to figure what’s the quickest way to get the new user to the point of sending out a survey. What actions do they need to take?
After some brainstorming, you might come up with a list like this:
Seems pretty straightforward, right?
But remember that every extra step increases the risk of the new user leaving and never coming back.
“Well, no matter how helpful they are, each step in a workflow is yet another opportunity for someone to drop off: some people will never confirm their email address and are gone forever, and some of those that do might never get past the following step, or the one after that, or the one after that,” explains Samuel.
That’s why you need to go through that initial list of actions that the user needs to take and ruthlessly eliminate everything that can be eliminated without sabotaging the goal of sending out a survey.
“But there’s nothing to eliminate!” you might say.
Take a look at how Samuel cut the list above from eight steps to just three:
These three steps are the perfect onboarding funnel for an online survey app because they provide the shortest path to achieving the goal of sending out a survey.
All the other stuff can be done later once the new customer has gotten a taste of success.
Design Your Onboarding Flow
Once you have a list of steps that the new customer needs to take in order to get to the small win, it’s time to design your onboarding flow.
Ideally, your user interface should be set up in such a way that it would guide the new user to the small win, step-by-step.
You want to remove all distractions. Otherwise, the new user might end up randomly clicking around, getting bored, and leaving.
It might also be a good idea to display a checklist that indicates what the new user needs to do in order to accomplish the goal.
If you shortened the onboarding flow to the absolutely necessary steps only, then this checklist should serve as a reassurance that getting to the small win won’t take too much time.
After all, the new user will probably be less likely to leave your app in the middle of the onboarding flow if they can see that there are just a few more steps left.
Finally, it’s important to celebrate the new user’s successes with them, so make sure to do that in your onboarding flow.
Consider experimenting with effects such as congratulatory notifications, confetti, fireworks, etc.
Obviously, you don’t want to go overboard to the point that it becomes annoying, but a little encouragement can go a long way.
Onboarding After the First Run Experience
Okay, so the first run experience was a success, now what?
- Design your user interface in a way that makes it easy for the new user to set everything up. Guidance should be built into it. It’s best to give people fewer options but help them get the results that they want. Too many options can lead to the paradox of choice problem where a person feels overwhelmed by them.
- Continue celebrating the new user’s successes. You can do so both via the previously mentioned user interface element as well as via congratulatory emails that showcase the user’s progress.
- Reach out to the new user if they become inactive. Obviously, different apps have different usage frequencies, so you don’t want to pester people who are using the app in a normal manner, just not as frequently as you would like them to.
But if someone signed up for your free trial, went through the first-run experience, and then disappeared after using your app a few more times, you might want to reach out via email and check-in. Maybe they need help setting it up?
Keep Optimizing Your Onboarding Funnel
You should start optimizing your onboarding funnel as soon as the data starts coming in:
- At what step do people tend to drop off?
- Can you remove that step altogether?
- Can you identify and fix the issue?
Once you have fixed the weakest link in your onboarding flow, move to the next weak weakest link. And so on.
As we explained in the introduction to this article, your first-run experience is a make-it-or-break-it moment, so you need to keep optimizing it.
There’s always space for improvement!
Want to Learn How to Grow Your SaaS Business With Sales Funnels?
The advice in this article should help you create an effective onboarding funnel. But how can you get people to sign up for the free trial in the first place?
You need a system for converting potential customers into leads, leads into paying customers, and paying customers into repeat customers.
Our co-founder, Russell Brunson, has created such a system – it’s called the Value Ladder sales funnel.
That’s what he used to take ClickFunnels from zero to $10M+ in annual revenue in just one year (it’s at $100M+ now!).
And you can learn all about it in his best-selling book “DotCom” secrets.
You should definitely get yourself a copy…
Or, better yet, let us send you one for free – all we ask is that you cover the shipping!