The Two Onboarding Traps
Stop naming features and stop mapping onboarding to your pricing tiers
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 93%
Isford identifies two specific, recurring failure patterns in onboarding — both caused by building what the company thinks customers want instead of what customers actually want. Trap one: announcing feature names ('this is Automations') instead of applying them to the user's outcome. Trap two: steering new users toward premium-gated features because premium usage correlates with paying, which serves packaging rather than the user. Guardrail metrics are the operational defence.
Origin
Observed repeatedly by Lauryn Isford across onboarding work at Airtable and in the wider growth community.
Core principles
- 01Companies build onboarding for what they think customers want, not what customers actually want.
- 02Naming a feature is an announcement of something the company built, not education about value the user will receive.
- 03Better than explaining a feature: apply it contextually. Better still: turn it on for them with one touch.
- 04Onboarding mapped to your pricing and packaging scheme is not in the best interest of educating a user.
- 05North Star metrics give focus; guardrail metrics prevent the focus from being destructive.
How to run it
- 1
Audit every onboarding surface for feature names
Find every tooltip, modal and tip that says 'this is X' and explains what X is. Each is an announcement, not education, and is useless to a user who does not yet know whether X is relevant to them.
Watch out It sounds easy in theory and it is very tempting in practice — naming features is the default output of a team that ships them.
- 2
Rewrite from name to contextual application
Replace 'this is Automations' with an explanation of how this automation is relevant to this user's workflow, and drive toward an outcome rather than a definition.
- 3
Do the work for them where you can
Better than any copy: a one-touch turn-on, or setting up the automation that completes their workflow so that clicking in shows them the value already realized. Smart defaults beat 'do you want this?'.
Pro tip Combine with segmentation — decide whether everyone even needs to know this feature exists, or only certain users.
- 4
Sever onboarding from the packaging scheme
Check whether your onboarding pushes premium-gated features because premium usage correlates with conversion. If so, cut it — the priority is the customer's path to maximum value, not your priors about what packaging implies.
Watch out The pull is strong and rational-sounding: 'if they use automations they're more likely to pay.' It still degrades the user's ability to get started.
- 5
Install guardrail metrics and require deep investigation on regressions
Choose guardrails wisely alongside your North Star, and hold the team to the rigor of going deep on any guardrail regression to understand what specifically in the onboarding caused it.
Pro tip Work closely with strong analytics partners; guardrail literacy should belong to PMs, engineers and designers too, not just analysts.
Watch out Onboarding that lifts activation but drops revenue 10% may not be the right trade — you need the guardrail to even see the question.
In the wild
A first-time Airtable user sees a tooltip reading 'this is Automations' with an explanation of what Automations are. The user does not know if automations are relevant to them, whether they suit their use case, or what the word entails — the company has named a feature and announced its own achievement. The alternative Isford proposes is either explaining precisely how the automation applies to this user's workflow, or offering a one-touch turn-on that sets up an automation completing their workflow and shows them the resulting value.
→ The rewrite shifts the tooltip from an announcement to a contextual application that drives toward an outcome the user actually wants.
Common mistakes
Naming features in onboarding
A feature name means nothing to a user who does not yet know whether it is relevant to them, whether it suits their use case, or what the word entails. It is an announcement dressed as education.
Mapping onboarding to pricing and packaging
If a premium feature correlates with paying, it is tempting to push new users toward it. But that serves the packaging scheme and the company's interest, not the user's path to getting started, and it degrades activation.
Running a North Star with no guardrails
A singularly-focused team optimizing one number will happily trade away another. Without guardrails, an onboarding team can drive activation up while quietly dropping revenue and never notice.
Is it for you?
Best for
Onboarding and activation PMs auditing an existing flow, especially at freemium SaaS companies with a premium tier
Not ideal for
Teams that have not yet shipped any onboarding — build the flow first, audit it second
From the transcript
“which is that employees of a company build onboarding for customers but they build what they think customers want rather than what customers actually want”
“we've named a feature but it's really sort of an announcement of something awesome that airtable built rather than an application that can help educate…”
“really focusing on that contextual application or helping to drive towards an outcome rather than just educating on a name”
“that is not in the best interest of educating a user on how to get started”
“amazing onboarding that causes a 10 drop in Revenue would need some sort of guardrail to make sure that they knew that that might not…”
From the episode
Mastering onboarding
Lauryn Isford (Head of Growth at Airtable)