Turn more sign-ups into paying users
For PLG SaaS with traction, but an activation problem.
New users are signing up for your product, but many leave before they turn into returning, paying customers.
You've been shipping changes but users still aren't sticking around.
New copy. Better guidance. Tours. Checklists.
It’s a bit like a damp patch on the wall.
You paint over it and it looks fixed, until the paint starts peeling again.
The paint was never the problem. The damp underneath was.
Onboarding works the same way. Smoother steps don’t give users a reason to stay.
There's a specific moment in your product where users decide it's worth coming back to.
Everything before that moment has one job: getting them there.
More users reach it when you know two things:
What that moment is for your user.
What’s stopping them from getting to it.
The Onboarding Sprint finds the specific moment your users need to reach, and pinpoints where your onboarding stops getting them there.
We define the moment first. The specific user you’re designing for, what they need to experience before they believe your product works, and the action that tells you they got there.
I diagnose your onboarding step by step. Where it builds momentum, and where it breaks.
You leave with a prioritised list of what to fix, wireframed solutions for the top three priorities, and test plans for changes that need validation before build.
Every recommendation is tied to your product, your users, and your specific gap.
Choose the package that fits your team
Both packages give you a full diagnostic and a prioritised list of opportunities your team can act on. The difference is whether I shape the top three solutions alone or work them out with your team.
package 1
Expert Solution Package
Done for you
For teams that want an outside expert point of view, without needing a wider group involved in shaping the solutions.
package 2
Collaborative Solution Package
Done with you
For teams that want to work through the solutions together and get support into implementation.
HOW THE WORK HAPPENS
I diagnose the onboarding problems, then turn the findings into proposed changes to the onboarding journey.
Your team gives the key input at the beginning, then steps back while I analyse the journey and prepare wireframed recommendations for the top 3 priorities.
I diagnose the onboarding problems, then develop the solutions with your team.
In workshops, we generate a range of options together for each of the top 3 priorities. We choose the strongest direction from that range, then I turn those decisions into wireframes.
Because your team shapes the decisions with me, the trade-offs get debated once, with everyone who needs to weigh in.
DELIVERABLES
A clear definition of the user, their goal, and the moment onboarding needs to lead them to
Diagnostic report
Prioritised onboarding opportunities
Wireframed recommendations for the top 3 priorities
Test plans for changes that need validation before build
A clear definition of the user, their goal, and the moment onboarding needs to lead them to
Diagnostic report
Prioritised onboarding opportunities
Wireframed recommendations for the top 3 priorities, shaped with your team
Test plans for changes that need validation before build
Three collaborative workshops with your team
30 days of async support after delivery
AFTER DELIVERY
Your team takes the work forward internally after the project ends.
I stay involved for 30 days to review work in progress, answer questions, and support early implementation decisions within scope.
Choose the package that fits your team
Both packages give you a full diagnostic and a prioritised list of opportunities your team can act on. The difference is whether I shape the top three solutions alone or work them out with your team.
package 1
Expert Solution Package
Done for you
For teams that want an outside expert point of view, without needing a wider group involved in shaping the solutions.
HOW THE WORK HAPPENS
I diagnose the onboarding problems, then turn the findings into proposed changes to the onboarding journey.
Your team gives the key input at the beginning, then steps back while I analyse the journey and prepare wireframed recommendations for the top 3 priorities.
DELIVERABLES
A clear definition of the user, their goal, and the moment onboarding needs to lead them to
Diagnostic report
Prioritised onboarding opportunities
Wireframed recommendations for the top 3 priorities
Test plans for changes that need validation before build
AFTER DELIVERY
Your team takes the work forward internally after the project ends.
package 2
Collaborative Solution Package
Done with you
For teams that want to work through the solutions together and get support into implementation.
HOW THE WORK HAPPENS
I diagnose the onboarding problems, then develop the solutions with your team.
In workshops, we generate a range of options together for each of the top 3 priorities. We choose the strongest direction from that range, then I turn those decisions into wireframes.
Because your team shapes the decisions with me, the trade-offs get debated once, with everyone who needs to weigh in.
DELIVERABLES
A clear definition of the user, their goal, and the moment onboarding needs to lead them to
Diagnostic report
Prioritised onboarding opportunities
Wireframed recommendations for the top 3 priorities, shaped with your team
Test plans for changes that need validation before build
Three collaborative workshops with your team
30 days of async support after delivery
AFTER DELIVERY
I stay involved for 30 days to review work in progress, answer questions, and support early implementation decisions within scope.
Hi I am Kate!
For eight years I worked as an experience designer on high-volume funnels and complex customer journeys, across retail and automotive. Think millions of users moving through the journey, where small drops in momentum cost real money.
I bring the same lens to SaaS onboarding. The products are different. The question is the same: where does the journey stop working for the user, and what does it take to fix it.
Rather than treating onboarding as a set of isolated screens, I look at the whole journey as one connected experience. Where momentum builds, where it breaks, and what’s stopping users from reaching the point where your product starts working for them.
If you want to see how I think in practice, here are a few teardown-style analyses I’ve published.
The Onboarding Sprint is for you if...
Your product is product-led.
Users can sign up and reach value without a sales call or a manual implementation process. The Sprint is built for self-serve onboarding, so it won’t fit products that rely on a rep or an implementation team to get users to value.
Your product already works for some users.
You’ve seen users activate, stick around, or pay. Your product can create value. The problem is how many new users never get far enough to experience it.
You already have evidence of an activation or early-retention problem.
Low activation rates. Drop-off at specific points in the journey. Support questions that keep surfacing the same confusion. You don’t need to be convinced there’s a problem. You need to know what’s causing it.
You can bring the right people into the Sprint, and act on what comes out of it.
The Sprint isn’t a generic UX audit. To give you recommendations that actually fit your product, I need input from the people who know your users, your data, and your product decisions. Once the recommendations are in your hands, your team needs the capacity to build and ship them. That’s where the results come from.
I am taking 3 clients on an introductory price
Expert Solution Package
Done for you-
A clear definition of the user, their goal, and the key moment onboarding needs to lead them to
-
Diagnostic report
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Wireframed recommendations for the top 3 priorities, based on my expert judgement
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Wireframed recommendations for the top 3 priorities
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Test plans for changes that need validation before build
Collaborative Solution Package
Done with you-
A clear definition of the user, their goal, and the key moment onboarding needs to lead them to
-
Diagnostic report
-
Prioritised onboarding opportunities
-
Wireframed recommendations for the top 3 priorities, shaped with your team
-
Test plans for changes that need validation before build
-
Three collaborative workshops with your team
-
30 days of async support after delivery
You’ll leave the call with at least one concrete observation about your onboarding, whether you hire me or not.
Between now and kickoff
Step 1
Book the consultation
Pick a time that works for you and fill in a short form about your product, your users, and what you’re seeing in your onboarding.
It helps me prepare before we talk.
Step 2
The 45 minute consultation
You’ll leave the call with at least one concrete observation about why users are dropping off, whether you hire me or not.
Together, we’ll also work out if the Sprint is the right thing for you right now.
Step 3
Recap and proposal
If it’s a fit, you’ll get a proposal with everything you need to decide.
Talk it through with whoever needs to be involved. Come back with questions, or with a yes or no.
Step 4
Contract and kickoff
If you decide to move forward, I’ll send the contract and invoice.
Once payment clears, the Sprint begins.
FAQ
What happens on the 45 minute consultation?
You’ll leave the call with two things:
- One concrete observation about your onboarding. Something specific I can see from reviewing your product before the call. Not a full diagnosis, but one thing worth taking back to your team, whether you hire me or not.
- A clear answer on whether the Sprint fits your product. If it does, I’ll walk you through the two packages. If it doesn’t, I’ll tell you straight.
The call itself is a conversation. You walk me through your onboarding and what you’re seeing from your side. I ask questions. We work out whether it’s a fit together.
What should I bring to the consultation?
Three things make the conversation more useful:
Your onboarding data
Whatever you have on how new users move through your product. Activation rate, where users drop off, time-to-value, early churn numbers. Bring what you have. There is no minimum.
Your view of the user who's activating.
Who are they, what were they trying to solve, what do they have in common? If you don’t have this clearly defined, that’s fine. We’ll work with what you know.
What you've tried so far.
Any changes you’ve made to onboarding and whether they moved the numbers.
Who won't benefit from the Sprint?
This Onboarding Sprint is not the right fit for four situations.
- Your onboarding involves a sales rep or implementation team getting users to value. The Sprint is built for self-serve products where users can sign up and reach value on their own.
- You don’t yet have users reaching value in your product. The Sprint finds where your onboarding is losing users before they experience the product working. If no one is reaching that point yet, the problem is upstream of onboarding.
- You don’t see a specific drop-off in early use. You don’t need perfect activation data. You do need reason to believe the problem is in those first few sessions. If users are leaving later, after they’ve been using the product for weeks or months, that’s a different problem.
- Your team can’t ship changes in the next quarter. The Sprint is only useful if someone builds the recommendations.
Which package is right for my team?
It depends on how your team makes decisions.
Expert Solution Package
It’s the better choice when you want expert direction without involving your team in the solution work. I take the top three priorities from the diagnostic and turn them into wireframed solutions on my own. Your team then takes those wireframes forward into design and build.
Collaborative Solution Package
I run three workshops with your team, one per priority. In each workshop, we look at the problem together, generate a range of possible solutions at different effort levels, weigh each one against your constraints and what it would take to build, and choose the direction to move forward with.
Between workshops, I turn each decision into a wireframe so you can see the solution taking shape before the next session.
The Collaborative Solution Package tends to produce stronger outcomes because the decisions are shaped by the people who own the implementation.
It’s not a fit for every team though. If your team works best async, or if the timing of three workshops would slow things down, the Expert Solution Package is the better choice.
We’ll talk through which one fits on the consultation. The choice stays with you.
Will you sign an NDA?
Yes. Send me your standard NDA before the consultation if you’d like it in place before we talk, or before kickoff if you’re comfortable with the consultation happening first.
How long does the Sprint take from kickoff to delivery?
Timelines depend on how quickly I get the inputs I need from your team.
Once the inputs are in, the Expert Solution Package typically takes around 3 weeks.
The Collaborative Solution Package typically takes around 5 weeks, followed by 30 days of implementation support.
Do I need to prepare anything before the Sprint starts?
Yes. Once the contract is signed, you’ll confirm one person from your team as the project owner. They handle coordination on your side.
The project owner completes a detailed intake about your product and onboarding, gathers evidence and access for me (product access, analytics, support themes), and nominates the people on your team who hold relevant knowledge about your users, your product logic, and your business goals.
I’ll send targeted input requests to those people before the diagnostic starts. The more complete the inputs, the sharper the diagnostic.
What's expected from my team during the Sprint?
The amount of time your team spends depends on the tier.
Expert Solution Package
- Async input from stakeholders before the diagnostic begins
- One 45 minute Foundations alignment call with key stakeholders
- Async availability for any follow-up questions during the diagnostic
Collaborative Solution Package
Everything above plus:
- Three 90 minute workshops, one per week, with the key stakeholders attending all three
Who do I need to involve from my team?
The Sprint works best when the people who hold the relevant knowledge contribute at the right points. You don’t need every role represented. One person often covers multiple perspectives. What matters is that the knowledge is there.
The project owner on your side handles coordination.
These are the perspectives I’ll need input from:
- Someone who knows your users directly. Customer support, customer success, Product designer or researchers. They hold what your users actually say, worry about, and get confused by.
- Someone who understands the current onboarding journey and product logic. Usually a product manager, product owner, or a founder who’s deep in product decisions. They can explain what the path is and why it works the way it does.
- Someone who will design the solutions. Product or UI designer. They’re the ones who will take the recommendations forward.
- Someone who understands business goals and urgency. Founder, sponsor, head of product, or growth lead. They hold the context on why this work matters now and what success looks like commercially.
- Someone who understands your measurement and data. Growth lead or analytics. They know what’s tracked, where drop-offs happen, and what the evidence actually shows.
- Someone who understands technical or operational constraints. Engineering lead or developer. They know what’s hard to change and what dependencies exist. This matters most in Tier 2 workshops where we decide what’s realistic to ship.
Expert Solution Package
Your team gives input async before the diagnostic, plus one 45 minute Foundations alignment call with key stakeholders.
Collaborative Solution Package
Your team gives input async before the diagnostic, through the Foundations alignment call, and through three 90 minute workshops. The same key stakeholders attend all three workshops so the decisions build on each other.
What happens after the Sprint?
In the Expert Solution Package, your team takes the work forward internally once the diagnostic and wireframed solutions are delivered.
In the Collaborative Solution Package, I stay involved for 30 days of implementation support, starting when the final wireframes are delivered after the third workshop. Your team can send me work in progress for review: designs, prototypes, test results, early implementation against the agreed direction. Support is async only with responses within 2 business days.
If you need ongoing support beyond 30 days, Email contact@founderuxlab.com to discuss a monthly retainer.
What if we are not ready for the Sprint after the consultation?
No pressure to move forward. You still leave with the observation I shared about your onboarding. That’s yours regardless of what we decide.
If things change later, the door’s open.
How does payment work?
Once we agree to move forward after the consultation, I’ll send an invoice via Stripe. Payment is due in full before kickoff. The Sprint begins once payment is received.
If you need to cancel within 48 hours of payment, you’ll receive a full refund. After that, the work has already started and the payment is non-refundable.
Have a question that is not answered here? Email contact@founderuxlab.com and I will get back to you.