🎬 Every week I share a short (fun!) product video teardown and some hot takes on behavior change. Pro tip: The video only takes 〜3.5 minutes at 2x speed. And it will be more memorable. ;) ⏩
My company Irrational Labs designs onboarding flows for the TOP consumer companies. We’re talking Intuit, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Google…the list goes on.
And the main conclusion? Day 1 matters a lot. Onboarding matters.
Throughout all of our work, we have discovered many proven recipes for designing killer onboarding flows. And BePresent is a slick example of an app that uses many of these proven recipes. (If you want more, hit me up via email and we can talk).
I’m going to take you through 3 of them today:
1. Treat onboarding like it’s sales
2. Be simple! Big buttons (and font)
3. Ask the user to turn on a setting
1. Treat Onboarding Like It’s Sales
The user arrives with a little burst of motivation:
“Maybe I should use my phone less.”
“Maybe I should stop opening Instagram 47 times a day.”
“Maybe I am one focus app away from becoming a better person.”
That motivation is fragile. BePresent grabs it and immediately turns it into forward motion.
The signup flow starts by reminding me why I should care. It tells me other people like me use the app. It keeps the “yes, I want this” feeling alive.
This is really important, especially for consumer applications but it applies to any onboarding. The sales process does not end when someone clicks the ad. It does not end when they download the app or start a trial. You are still selling.
BePresent keeps increasing motivation at each step. It does not assume I remember why I came here. It keeps the promise visible.
Bonus: Watch the video to find out what Amazon Prime has said is a key conversion tactic. BePresent does this thing too!
2. Be simple! Big buttons (and font)
The next thing BePresent gets right: it makes the flow feel fast.
The questions are easy. The buttons are big. The text is skimmable. The reading level is probably third grade, which is where most onboarding should live.
If you tested the reading level of your app, I would bet a large coffee that it comes out at grade 14 (try this app to test it)
BePresent creates the feeling of “boom, boom, boom, I’m doing this.” One question per screen. One decision at a time. No tiny paragraph trying to justify a feature nobody has used yet.
3. Ask the user to turn on a setting
The strongest part of BePresent’s onboarding is that it asks real questions that become real settings.
Apple does this beautifully with the Apple Watch. When you set up your rings, Apple is not just explaining what rings are. It is asking you to make a real decision.
You learn the product by configuring it.
BePresent does the same thing. It asks me to set a daily screen time goal. It asks me to pick my most distracting app.
I choose Instagram. Then the product changes around that answer. Instagram gets harder to access.
I can’t just search for it the way I normally do. I have to go find it. It is not a huge wall. It is a tiny speed bump. But tiny speed bumps are exactly how you interrupt a habit.
The best onboarding does not just get someone into the product today. It sets up the product to help them tomorrow.
What Product Teams Should Steal
Keep selling during onboarding. The click is not the finish line. Remind users why they came, especially before effortful moments like account creation, payment, or permissions.
Make the flow feel fast. Use big buttons, simple text, one decision per screen, and copy a third grader could skim. Momentum is a feature.
Ask interactive questions. Don’t ask questions that go nowhere or just serve your CRM. Ask users to make choices that change the product.
Turn onboarding into future engagement. BePresent’s Instagram setting creates a future interaction every time I try to open Instagram. That is much stronger than sending me a naggy push notification later.
If you’re working on onboarding and want to know whether it builds real momentum or just looks pretty, send it my way: kristen@irrationallabs.com.
🎬 The post above is just a preview. Only takes 〜3.5 minutes at 2x speed. ⏩
P.S. in the video teardown, I make a crazy statement. I suggest that charging people A LOT but one time could be a good business. This is likely true if your average user retains less than 6 months and your conversion is under 10%. In this case, you could make the same or more money by just charging a user something like $90 one time! Crazy huh?
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