19 users in 4 days. My onboarding is catastrophic.
Yesterday was my biggest day yet. 5 new signups in a single day.
I opened the analytics feeling pretty good about myself. Most of my traffic is coming from IndieHackers and Reddit. Turns out documenting the build in public is the thing that moves the needle most.
Then I looked at the conversion rate. Most users sign up but don't subscribe. Way too few of them are converting.
I have to admit that my onboarding is shit. Sign up -> paywall. That's it. No context, no setup, no moment where the user actually understands what they're getting.
I use PostClaw every day to schedule my own content across X, Reddit, Threads. I know exactly what it does and why it works. I completely forgot that everyone else starts completely blind.
The fix: add a few onboarding steps before the paywall. Ask questions to personalize the experience, show people what they'll get, let them feel the value before I ask for money.
Working on that today.
19 in 4 days is real signal — don't discount it. For onboarding, the fix is almost never 'add a tour,' it's removing steps before the user hits the aha moment. Watch 3 people use it live (a screen-share is enough) and count the clicks to first value — you can usually cut half. What's the first thing a new user has to do before they get value? Happy to dig in. I'm also researching how early founders find AND keep their first users, so I'd love to hear how you landed those 19.
Onboarding is brutal early on. With StockMolt I'm not even there yet — still getting first users. Appreciate you being honest about the messy middle, it's encouraging.
I've been looking into this exact issue for a tool I'm building for bookkeepers. One thing I found is that every extra step in the signup flow is a 10-20% drop-off risk. Have you considered a 'magic link' or 'guest mode' where they can see the value before they have to create a full account? I'm testing that right now and it seems to lower the friction significantly.