Activation & onboarding review

MEMO

To: Onboarding squad Re: Where we lose people, and what to fix first

Where we lose people

• Signup to connect (100% to 41%): The largest loss. Most of our users are PMs and marketers who don't have database credentials, and the flow gives them no way forward without them.
• Connect to first chart (41% to 33%): About a fifth of people who connect never build a chart. Sync and the empty canvas are the likely causes.
• First chart to invite (33% to 9%): Expected, since invites come after value. Lower priority for now.

Retention is the reason to care about the first chart: 62% of users who reach one are active in week 2, versus 11% of those who don't. This is correlational, since engaged users may be the ones who build charts, but it is the strongest signal we have.

What to fix, in order

1. Add sample data and a skip at step 5. Users without credentials currently hit a dead end. Sample data gets them to a chart in minutes, which is the milestone that predicts retention. This also targets the top support ticket (41%). Reason: highest expected impact on the number that matters.

1. Let people in before email verification, and drop the role and team screens from the critical path. Step 2 blocks all progress, and steps 3–4 ask questions before the user has seen any value. Move role and team to after the first chart, where they can personalize templates. Reason: removes the earliest friction, when drop-off is highest.

1. Rebuild the credentials path. Replace the 14-page guide with short, per-warehouse steps for Postgres, BigQuery and Snowflake, and add a "send these instructions to your data engineer" link that delivers a connect-only invite. The person who has the credentials is often not the person signing up. Reason: addresses the remaining credential tickets and the step 6 drop-off.

1. Fix sync. Let leaving the page not cancel the sync. Show partial results as tables finish. Pre-select likely tables and add search to the step 7 list. Make CSV upload the fastest route to a first chart. Reason: sync failures are the second-largest ticket category (18%), and cancellation on exit loses users mid-setup.

1. Make the first chart appear without effort. Templates (step 9) should render a live chart immediately. Replace the empty canvas at step 10 with a suggested chart the user can edit. Reason: a blank canvas is the last hurdle before the retention milestone.

1. Move team invites after the first chart, and prompt for them there. Keep the skip link. Reason: invites are useful but come after value; test this once the upstream fixes land.

Measurement

Track signup-to-first-chart as the primary metric, with week-2 retention as the outcome. Run fixes 1 and 2 as separate experiments so we can see which one moves the funnel.

MEMORANDUM

To: Onboarding Squad From: Product Team Subject: Onboarding Funnel Analysis & Prioritized Fixes

Our last 90 days show 12,400 signups, but we face a steep 59% drop-off immediately after signup (reaching only 41% at data source connection), followed by a massive drop at team invites (down to 9%). Because week-2 retention jumps from 11% to 62% for users who build a first chart, removing friction before that milestone is critical.

Here is where we are losing people and the fixes, ordered by priority:

1. The Data Connection Blockade (Fix First)

• Where we lose people: We drop 59% of users right at the data connection step.² Support tickets confirm why: 41% lack database credentials, and 18% experience sync failures. Forcing product managers and marketers—who are not data engineers—to input host, port, SSL modes, and select from raw database tables while blocking the UI for up to 20 minutes is a conversion killer.
• What to fix:
• Add a pre-loaded Sample Data / Demo Workspace option so users can experience the product immediately without connecting a live database.
• Make data connection skippable or move it after the first chart experience.
• Simplify the CSV upload option or provide pre-built connectors with clear, inline tooltips instead of a 14-page setup guide.

2. The Premature Team Invite Wall (Fix Second)

• Where we lose people: Reaching a first chart drops to 33%, but inviting teammates plummets to 9%—a catastrophic 24-percentage-point drop right before value is fully realized.¹ Users are being asked to advocate for a tool before they’ve even proven its worth to themselves.
• What to fix:
• Remove the team invite step from the core linear onboarding path entirely.
• Relocate the invite prompt to the dashboard or settings menu once the user has successfully built and saved their first chart.

3. Redundant Survey Friction (Fix Third)

• Where we lose people: Screens 3 ("What's your role?") and 4 ("How big is your team?") add unnecessary micro-friction right after email verification.
• What to fix:
• Combine these into a single, clean optional screen or infer them from workspace setup later to streamline time-to-value.

Fixing data connection roadblocks and removing premature team invites will directly protect our week-2 retention (which hinges on reaching that first chart).

To: Onboarding squad Re: Where we lose people and what to fix, in order

Summary: Reaching a first chart is what predicts retention (62% at week 2 versus 11% otherwise). Only 33% of signups get there, and the biggest loss, 59% of signups, happens before they connect data. Most of our users are PMs and marketers who can't complete a database connection alone.

Fixes, in priority order

1. Add sample data and a skip option on the "Connect your data" screen. The most common ticket (41%) is "I don't have the database credentials." We ask non-engineers for host, port and SSL mode before they've seen any value. Sample data lets them reach a chart in minutes, and they can connect real data later. Caveat: sample-data users may retain worse than the 62% figure, which likely reflects real data. Track them as a separate cohort and prompt them to connect real data after their first chart.

2. Make it easy to get credentials from someone else. Add a "Send this to your engineer" option: a shareable link or prefilled email containing the connection form and a short setup checklist. Replace the 14-page guide with inline, per-field help. Promote CSV upload as the no-engineer path, since it's currently one of four equal options.

3. Fix the sync experience and its failures. Syncs run up to 20 minutes and cancel if the user leaves. Run them in the background, send an email when they finish, and let users start exploring once the first tables land. Then look at the 18% of tickets that say "my sync failed" and surface specific error messages. In the table-selection step, preselect a sensible default instead of listing every table.

4. Get people to a first chart without an empty canvas. We show twelve templates, then a blank chart builder. Cut the choice to two or three based on role, and auto-generate a first chart from the synced data (or sample data) that the user can edit. This targets the 41% → 33% drop and shortens time to value.

5. Remove friction at the front. Let users into the product before email verification, and enforce it later (e.g., before inviting teammates). Move the role question ahead of template selection, where it drives the default, and drop or defer team size unless something uses it. These are cheap fixes, but I'm ranking them below the others because I can't yet show they're a big loss.

6. Move the invite prompt to after the first chart. The 9% invite rate is 27% of users who reach a chart, so it's mostly a downstream symptom. Fix activation first. Then trigger the invite prompt right after a first chart is created, with a message like "Share this chart," rather than as a generic final step.

Measure first The funnel jumps from signup straight to data connection, so we can't see how many people drop at email verification, role, team size, or the connection form. Add per-screen events this sprint, before changing anything, so we can confirm the ordering above and measure each fix.

Success metrics: signup → first chart (33% today), share of users who connect real data within 7 days, sync failure rate, and week-2 retention split by sample-data versus real-data users.