Is your aha moment at the top of the hill?

All your new users start at the bottom of a hill. At the top is your dazzling aha moment, the point where they think "oh wow, THAT’s what this app can do". 

Get them to the top with legs left and they keep riding. But make the climb too steep and they’ll pull into the first lay-by.

A classic onboarding move is to fix this with cheerleading: welcome videos, tooltips, confetti blasting into your screen at every click. 🎉

But isn’t that just screaming encouragement at someone who doesn’t really know what they’re heaving up the hill for yet? 

Here are our 7 top tips to get your users their ‘Aha!’ moment faster ⬇️

1. Find the win before you pave the road

Your aha moment is the earliest point that shows your product's value and predicts who sticks around. There are two big ways to find it.

1️⃣ Ask

Survey users who've been around a few weeks: "How would you feel if you could no longer use this?" Then take only the "very disappointed", and read their takes on "What's the main benefit you get?", because those people made it to the top. 

2️⃣ Check

Track your best guess as an event and compare retention for users who hit it against those who didn't. Ignore logging in, it doesn’t tend to predict much. Then nudge more people towards it. If retention rises, you've found your aha. If it doesn't, keep looking.

2. Measure the climb

Drop onboarding completion as your headline number. It's easy to inflate by cutting steps that never mattered. 

Instead, track how many users reach the aha, and the median time it takes. Median, because three users who wander off for a week will wreck your average.

3. Cut before you add

List every step before the payoff and ask: does the user need this to get there, or do we just want it for fun? 

Job title, company size and notification permissions can probably wait. Duolingo moved signup behind the first lesson and daily actives rose by about 20%.

4. Never show an empty screen

A blank dashboard asks for work before giving a reason to do it. 

Load realistic sample data, clearly labelled, with a one-click clear. Let people see the view from the top before they climb.

5. Start them partway up

Pre-tick the first checklist item. ☑️

In one car wash study, a ten-stamp loyalty card with two stamps already filled got 34% of customers to the free wash, against 19% for a blank eight-stamp card. 

It’s the same effort, but the finish looks closer for your users.

6. Get them help when asked

Tours that users launch themselves get finished 67% of the time; whereas timed pop-ups manage 31%. 

Keep tours to four steps, and back off after two dismissals.

7. Build the next hill

Motivation dips right after a reward. Plan the second aha before the first one happens.

Climb it yourself

Write your aha moment in one sentence. 

Then sign up the way a stranger would and count the steps it takes to get there. 

If the number surprises you, reply with it, and we'll tell you which step we'd cut first. 👀

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Every Wednesday, Lumi co-founder Milosz runs a free Founder Hour. Bring your onboarding flow and we'll find your Aha moment together.