Article · ~20 min read

How to Build and Scale Onboarding (The Superhuman Playbook)

Gaurav Vohra · First Round Review Free Intermediate

Getting the customer to say yes is only half the job, the other half is onboarding them yourself so they actually succeed. This breaks down how Superhuman ran one-to-one onboarding and what founders should copy when they have only a handful of users. It gives your first ten a reason to stay, not just sign up.

  • Onboarding is where an early customer decides to stay or churn.
  • Doing it one to one at first teaches you where users get stuck.
  • Only systematise onboarding after you have watched enough people do it live.
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It answers 7 questions

  1. How do I actually get my first 10 customers when nobody has heard of me?
  2. Isn't doing things that don't scale a waste of time, shouldn't I automate from day one?
  3. My onboarding has too many steps and people drop off before they see value. How do I cut it down?
  4. I'm building for Indian SMBs who use WhatsApp for everything. How do I get my first 10 without a fancy sales process?
  5. Should I gate my launch behind a waitlist, or does a waitlist just kill the momentum I worked to build?
  6. How do I actually keep my first 10 customers so they don't quietly churn while I go chasing the next 10?
  7. When my product is technical and I am selling to non-technical buyers, how do I demo it without confusing them?

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