By redesigning onboarding from 27 steps to 6, we removed activation friction and accelerated user adoption.
For PLG products, onboarding is the growth engine.
In Hi-Books’ case, the engine was misfiring.
The core challenges were:
Each additional step before the value increased the probability of drop-off. The product wasn’t failing — the path to value was.
The turning point was reframing onboarding as a revenue and activation problem, not a UX one.
By separating value-critical steps from configuration-heavy steps, it became clear that the majority of onboarding actions could, and should be deferred.
Only 6 steps were required for users to:
Everything else could wait.
We audited the entire onboarding flow and categorised each step into:
This exposed how much friction was being imposed before users reached their first meaningful outcome.
If you’re a:
This case study demonstrates how small architectural decisions in onboarding create outsized impact on growth metrics.
Onboarding isn’t a UX flow.
It’s your first revenue lever.
