I spent months asking "Would you pay?" when I should've asked "Why did you leave?"
A founder used Ashive this week and gave me feedback about the onboarding.
My first instinct was to ask whether they'd pay if the product helped them position their business.
Then another founder here pointed out something obvious:
Why didn't I ask why they didn't sign up?
That question hit me harder than the onboarding feedback itself.
I realized I was so focused on the feedback they gave that I completely ignored the fact they still left.
The answer to why they left was probably more valuable than asking whether they'd pay someday.
So now I'm trying to get out of my own head and collect more reality.
If you're a founder willing to spend 5–10 minutes trying Ashive and tell me exactly where you get confused, lose interest, or decide to leave, I'd genuinely appreciate it.
I'm not looking for compliments.
I'm trying to understand where the product breaks.
Here's ashive's link:
https://ashive.app
Thank you
The reframe is right but worth taking one step further, because "why did you leave" has its own trap.
People who left usually can't tell you the real reason. They'll give you a polite, rationalized answer — "got busy," "wasn't the right time," "UI was a bit confusing" — because the true reason is often "I didn't feel the pain acutely enough to change my habits," and nobody says that out loud. It feels rude, and they're not even fully aware of it themselves. So "why did you leave" surveys tend to surface fixable surface issues (onboarding friction) while hiding the unfixable real one (weak pain).
What's more reliable than asking why they left: watching where they dropped. Session recordings, the last action before they stopped, the step where they hesitated. Behavior doesn't rationalize. If everyone drops at the same screen, that's real. If they all drop at different points and give vague reasons, the problem usually isn't the product, it's that they didn't need it badly enough — which is an ICP problem, not an onboarding one.
The "would you pay" question you're moving away from was bad for the same reason "why did you leave" is risky: both ask people to narrate their own behavior, and people are terrible narrators of their own behavior. The thing that doesn't lie is what they actually did.
So the sharper question isn't "why did you leave" asked to the leavers — it's "what was different about the one who stayed." The person who didn't leave is the higher-signal interview. The leavers tell you what's slightly broken. The stayer tells you who it's for.
Happy to run through Ashive and tell you exactly where I lose the thread, though — DM or drop a specific flow you want eyes on.
That's a really good point.
I think I overcorrected from "would you pay?" straight into "why did you leave?" without realizing both are still explanations after the fact.
The part about studying the people who stay instead of only the people who leave is especially interesting. I haven't had enough users yet to really identify that pattern, but it definitely feels like I'm at risk of learning only from the people who bounce.
And I appreciate the offer. I'm currently testing Ashive with the signup pushed later in the flow after some onboarding feedback. If you do end up running through it, I'd genuinely be interested in hearing where you lose interest, get confused, or feel like the value isn't clear yet.
The "not enough users yet to identify the pattern" is actually the pattern. If you don't have enough stayers to study, the priority isn't onboarding tweaks or moving the signup later in the flow. It's finding more of the right people to put through it. Onboarding changes on a sample of almost-zero tell you what's less confusing, not what converts.
Worth separating the two problems: "people bounce because the flow is confusing" is fixable with UX. "People bounce because they don't need this badly enough" is fixable only by finding different people. Most of the early energy should go toward the second one until you have enough signal to know which problem you're actually solving.
Will run through Ashive this week and give you the honest "where I lost the thread" take. No polish.
One thing that might help in parallel: if the positioning question is "who is this actually for and why should they care in 10 seconds," that's exactly what HiveMind pressure-tests. Drop Ashive in and see what it names as the wedge: https://hivemind.myosin.xyz
That's a really interesting distinction.
I think I've probably been blending those two problems together without realizing it.
The onboarding feedback made me focus on the flow, but you're right that with such a small sample I still don't know whether the bigger question is confusion or relevance.
Really appreciate you taking the time to run through Ashive as well. Looking forward to hearing where you lose the thread or where the positioning feels unclear.