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.

To: Onboarding Squad Subject: Where onboarding is leaking—and what to fix first

The biggest loss is before a data source is connected: only 41% of signups get that far. Another 8 percentage points drop before a first chart. Just 9% of signups invite a teammate. The strongest activation signal is the chart: week-2 retention is 62% for users who reach one, versus 11% for those who don’t. Prioritize getting people to a useful chart; treat invites as a later step.

Fixes, in priority order

1. Offer a sample-data path that reaches a real first chart. Let users skip connecting their own data and explore a preloaded dataset, with a clear route to connect later. Many signups are PMs and marketers, and the most common onboarding ticket is missing database credentials (41%). A required technical connection is an especially poor first step for them. This also gives users value while they wait for access.

1. Make connecting data simpler and recoverable. Replace or supplement the 14-page guide with short, connector-specific instructions and troubleshooting. Validate credentials early, explain the required access, and offer a clear retry path. Don’t cancel a sync when someone leaves the page; send progress and failure notices and let users resume. The credential and sync tickets point to concrete blockers, and successful connection is the gateway to the high-retention chart experience.

1. Get users to a chart with fewer decisions. Replace the database-wide table list with suggested tables and plain-language descriptions; cut the 12 dashboard templates to a few recommended starting points. Provide a prebuilt chart or guided first-chart flow rather than an empty canvas. The 8-point drop between connection and first chart, plus the sync burden, suggests too much work remains after connection.

1. Remove early friction that doesn’t create value. Test deferring email verification until after users enter the product, and move role/team questions until they can personalize something useful. These steps currently delay access before users see value.

1. Make inviting a teammate contextual, not a hurdle. Keep it optional; prompt after a user has made or shared a chart, and explain the benefit. Only 9% of signups invite someone, but chart reach—not inviting—is the clearest retention signal.

Track step conversion and time-to-first-chart by path, especially sample-data versus live connection, before expanding the changes.

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.