The Right Process Of Onboarding

 The Secret Power of Onboarding

Onboarding isn’t just for new employees. It is a continuous process that aims to provide seamless and positive experiences for both new and existing customers, investors, and team members. Successful onboarding of every kind has been core to Melanie Perkins, co-founder and CEO of Canva. From the moment she started the Australia-based graphic design platform, she knew she had to engage newcomers with simplicity and speed. First, she had to onboard early users to her product; then, she had to onboard investors and employees to help her build her company values and her vision. 

Here’s what really stays with us from Melanie:

                                                                     Sources: LinkedIn 

Start simple, and work your way up: Melanie and her co-founder, Cliff Obrecht, had no software engineers and little capital, so they started by tackling only the niche market of school yearbooks with their company Fusion Books. They used this focused starting point as a proof of concept for the most important tentpoles of the design philosophy Melanie hoped to widely apply to welcome users: online access, simplicity, and collaboration.

Handcraft customer onboarding: Every time a new account was opened, Melanie and Cliff called the customer and gave them a walkthrough. They spoke to hundreds of people, and gained deep insight into what it was that their customers needed — from questions that they had and things that didn’t make sense, to a confusing button or prompt. This laser sharp focus on customer onboarding didn’t just make the product better; it made users more likely to stick with it. 

Trust customer intuition: After observing that Fusion Books’ customers were “clicking” rather than “dragging,” Cliff and Melanie realized it was critical to follow what customers intuitively did. So, they changed course and enabled clicking. Speed to productivity is the key metric in onboarding. The faster your users get good at your product, the more likely they are to stay. And the fastest way for users to get good at your product is to make it intuitive. 

Bring users from a state of hesitation to a state of play: Don’t just think of onboarding as a process to bring users to a level of competence. Make it feel fun. Users tend to expect this from a platform, and without fun, you’ll likely get user frustration and then abandonment. That’s why the Canva team created the “Five Starter Challenges,” small games and “sparks of joys” that simultaneously teach customers how to use the product, feel confident in their abilities, and have fun! 

Deeply immerse employees. The Canva team doesn’t only spend time developing multi-layered onboarding for their users, they also take that approach with their employees. Canva accomplishes this in many ways, including: an onboarding bootcamp; sharing future pitch decks with new team members; quarterly season openers (day long sessions when the entire company gathers, and groups share their goals); and quirky events — like releasing doves — to celebrate major accomplishments.   

Pitch investors as though you are onboarding them. Your pitch is actually your first piece of onboarding. So, it’s your job to make it easy and intuitive for investors to understand the problem you’re trying to solve and the solution you’re offering. Make your investment thesis clear, and present your business’ most compelling hook as soon as possible. And like you would do with customers, understand how your investors think.

Sources: Master's Of Scale

@Reidhoffman

-Listen to the full podcasts for more information- Master's Of Scale 

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