Redesign Growthday’s new user onboarding
Running experiments to increase account creation and trial starting rate.
Background
Scaling beyond fans: Rethinking onboarding for cold traffic
Previously, most of our top-of-funnel traffic came from Brendon (our CEO)’s email list or campaign pages — audiences already familiar with GrowthDay. But as we began scaling through paid ads and reaching colder traffic, we saw a sharp drop-off in engagement. The original onboarding flow, which leaned heavily on the coaches’ personal brands, no longer resonated with new users who didn’t know who we were.
We needed a new onboarding experience — one that could quickly communicate value, build trust with unfamiliar users, and drive trial starts. I led the end-to-end strategy and design for the onboarding experiment: from ideation, user flow design, and UX copywriting to test planning, launch, and iteration. I worked closely with engineering, marketing, and data to align on success metrics and run fast, insight-driven test cycles.
Timeline
6 months
Team
Product Manager, Engineers, Product Marketing Manager, Data Analytics
Platform
Role
Design Lead
Tools
Figma, Useberry, Statsig, Mixpanel
Timeline
6 months
Team
Product Manager, Engineers, Product Marketing Manager, Data Analytics
Platform
Role
Design Lead
Tools
Figma, Useberry, Statsig, Mixpanel
Problem
The original onboarding experience led to high drop-off rates—both on the account creation screen and right after the paywal
From user feedback and UX audit, we identified a few issues:
The goal
We needed a more engaging, welcoming experience that educated users on the value of GrowthDay
To tackle this, I focused the onboarding redesign around three guiding principles:
Education
Help users quickly understand what GrowthDay offers and how it can support their growth
Personalization
Make the experience feel relevant by connecting it to each user’s goals
Engagement
Create a warm, motivating first impression that builds trust and momentum
Research
Competitive benchmarking
With the problem and goal laid down in front of us, I started by going through dozens of apps to understand the different flows being followed.
Introduction
Signup
Personalization
Paywall
Approach
Run fast, bundled experiments to learn what drives sign-up and trial starts
One of the biggest challenges for running experiments was controlling variables. At our current traffic volume, testing small changes in isolation would take too long to reach statistical significance. But testing too many changes at once would make it hard to isolate what’s actually working.
After alignment with engineering, data, marketing and product, we chose to bundle related changes under a shared hypothesis and test them as a unit. This allowed us to learn faster while still maintaining directional clarity.
01 - Introduction
Setting the tone with an aspirational welcome and clear value
To make a better first impression with cold users, I designed an onboarding intro that feels inspiring, not transactional. It opens with an uplifting visual and message, followed by three value screens that highlight what GrowthDay is all about—coaching, tools, and community, not just a video library.
Account creation rate: +35.4%
Trial starting rate: +15.1%
02 - Sign up
Simplifying the path to action
To reduce cognitive overload, I redesigned the sign-up screen with clearer visual hierarchy—prioritizing email as the main action to make the next step feel easier.
I also overhauled the visual tone to feel more motivational and welcoming, introducing brighter visuals, uplifting language, and a celebratory moment to spark delight and build early momentum.
Account creation rate: +5.4%
Trial starting rate: +4.1%
03 - personalization
Conversational intent-gathering experience
In the old onboarding flow, we asked users just one question about themselves —and never acknowledged it again. This made the experience feel transactional, as if we were collecting data without doing anything meaningful with it.
To solve this, I designed a guided, conversational flow that feels more human and responsive. It greets users by name and asks simple, engaging questions about their goals, challenges, and learning styles—both to personalize the experience and to subtly introduce key GrowthDay features.
Reflecting user inputs to create sense of seen and understood early in their journey.
To make the experience feel more personal and trustworthy, I added a moment that reflects back what users shared before moving forward.
This is achieved in two key ways:
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Summarizing the user’s goals in clear, actionable language — Rather than just repeating their selections, we reframe their input as a personalized growth direction.
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Previewing relevant, personalized content — We dynamically map the user’s intent to actual course thumbnails. This creates a clear connection between what they said and what they’ll get, increasing perceived value and confidence in the platform.
Result:
Trial starting rate: +13.6%
04 - pay wall
Applies decision psychology to drive conversion
The $499/year price point was a major barrier for trial starts. To reduce sticker shock and increase conversion, I used 3 steps to softly disclose the price, justify the cost, and reinforce the value.
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Set clear expectations upfront
Being transparent about the trial term reduces user anxiety and increases confidence in moving forward. Softly introducing users to the price also helps with lowering sticker shock when they see the full price later
2. Price anchoring to justify high cost
The comparison chart shows how GrowthDay stacks up against other costs. This helped reframe the $499/year price as a smart, cost-effective investment.
3. Show feature-value association
Instead of vague marketing text, I used a feature-value breakdown that clearly communicates what users will get, and how each tie to benefit.
Trial starting rate: +12.6%
Reflection: Evolving Through Experimentation
As a fast-moving startup, we don’t always have the luxury of a clear-cut process — but we do have the agility to learn and adapt quickly. This onboarding project became a turning point where we began applying an experiment-driven approach not just to optimize outcomes, but to shape how we work.
1. From Micro-Optimizations to Meaningful Experiments
Initially, we attempted to test small UI and copy tweaks using multivariate experiments — a common “low-hanging fruit” strategy. But with our limited traffic, it quickly became clear that this approach couldn’t reach statistical significance in a reasonable timeframe. We pivoted. Instead of optimizing isolated moments, I began bundling changes into thematic hypotheses and testing them as a whole. This gave us clearer signals and more meaningful wins.
2. Designing Fast with AI Prototyping
To speed up feedback loops and stakeholder alignment, I used AI-powered tools like Figma Make to generate interactive prototypes early in the design process. This allowed me to bring ideas to life fast and clearly demonstrate complex onboarding flows and motion concepts to stakeholders without using any engineering resources.
These prototypes also allowed us to run unmoderated user tests via Useberry, gather early qualitative signals, and iterate rapidly.
3. Letting Behavior Tell the Story
Midway through the project, we introduced session recording tools to supplement our data. This gave us valuable behavioral insights that metrics alone couldn’t provide. For instance, we saw that users rarely scrolled the final paywall screen — despite our attempts to stack benefits there. This led to a redesign that brought key messages above the fold to reduce drop-off.
What would I do differently?
One challenge with onboarding experiments is that data shows what works, but not WHY. And while we can track where users drop off, it’s incredibly difficult to reach those who abandon the flow and ask them directly.
But there’s another path we didn’t fully explore: tapping into our current active members—the people who did sign up, stayed, and chose to pay. These users hold valuable insight into why GrowthDay is worth it. What made them commit? What do they value most? What keeps them coming back?
If we had interviewed this group earlier, we could have better understood GrowthDay’s core value proposition from the user’s perspective—and used that to shape the onboarding experience more intentionally. Instead of guessing or defaulting to industry best practices, we could have led with our strengths—the moments and benefits that truly resonate with our long-term users.