Speaker: Hey, my name is Jacob Rushfinn,
founder and CEO of Botsi and the
host of Price Power, the podcast for
subscription apps to grow their revenue.
Today, we've got a solo episode.
We're gonna be looking at a new style
of onboarding flow for your app.
Are you tired of the quiz style
onboarding flow and forcing new users
with tons of multiple choice questions?
I know I am.
My bet is this new style of onboarding
is to become more and more popular,
and we're gonna see more apps test this
out throughout the rest of the year.
This is your chance to test this now
before it becomes overdone by other apps.
So if you're not on YouTube, go check
this out there because you'll be able
to see the full visual breakdown.
I'm still going to try to explain
everything well for audio only
listeners, but I think you'll
appreciate seeing the visuals too.
We're gonna break down Opal's new
chat-like onboarding style, and
you know that an app with Opal's
scale wouldn't launch this without
rigorously testing and validating
this as an approach that performs.
So I believe we can learn a lot here.
Jacob: All right, so Opal launched
a redesign of their onboarding
experience that has a kind
of a chat-like chatbot flow.
Uh, and, and so there's definitely
still questions and, and quiz flows,
but I think it could be a really
new interesting UX style that a
lot of apps could start exploring.
So one of the best things that
Opal actually does separate from
this is they have an amazing
hook on their very first screen.
All right, so when you open the
app, they have a little rock,
and you crack open that rock and
it, uh, shows their first Opal.
And this is, you know, th- there's no
welcome screen when you load the app.
It's this instant hook.
And so it gets you engaged and allows
for, for kind of an easy, uh, interaction
from the user to keep you going.
Then you crack open this rock, and
then it talks ab- ha- has this, uh, uh,
they, they say, "Dimmed by noise, apps,
and everything else pulling at you."
So it's kind of this vague,
interesting connection to the value.
Uh, and if we, we look here, um,
you can kind of see this full flow.
Um, and then it transitions into
the, the Opal kind of saying,
"I'll help protect your focus."
So it's kind of this back and
forth in, in, uh, a first person, a
kind of real conversation where it
kind of feels like you're, you're
talking to the rock or the Opal.
But this, um- I, I think a lot of
people le-leave on the very first
screen of your app, so you're gonna
have to figure out what is this hook?
And, and Opal has a great job of
hooking people very quickly and early.
And, and so don't forget about that.
You're optimizing the rest of your
funnel, but when you look at the
drop-off rates, it's actually usually
pretty high on the first screen.
And you look, some of these
users aren't just, justâ¦
are, are, are never gonna be
able to change their mind.
They are low intent.
They're just gonna open
your app and leave.
But a lot of this, if you can increase,
you know, five to ten percent of
that drop-off rate, this translates
to the entire rest of your funnel.
And, and so don't neglect
this first screen.
All right.
So, so if we move on to the rest
of the flow, uh, they start with
a asking, "What's your name?"
And then instead of saying, having
a button that says, uh, "Log in"
or "Sign up," they say, "Hey, I'm
gonna ask you a few questions.
Don't overthink it, a-and I'll
build your setup from this."
But they say, "Quick check.
Have we met before?"
And you can either say, "No, I'm
new to Opal," or, "Yes, sign in."
Either way, they launch a, a
account creation and login process.
This part is not chat-based, kind
of just traditional, you know,
continue with Apple or continue
with phone or sign up with email.
Uh, you'll, you'll see that they,
they have a nice, reassurance
for people scared of logging in.
"Your sensitive data is protected by Apple
and, and, and never leaves your device."
And so this can help boost, account
conversion rates a little bit.
And they also offer a login with phone
number option, sign up with email.
I often find the more login
options you have, the better
conversion rate y-you get.
It can be kind of a pain to implement
the different authentication,
manage all the authentication, but
usually it pays off as you scale.
All right, so then after we sign
up and, and create my account Then
we go into the rest of the flow.
The, uh, Opal then asks,
"What matters most to you?"
And all of these, uh, aren't
free response questions.
They're, they're all-- you can
select from a set of answers.
So it, it's kind of this cross in
between a, a kind of quiz question,
quiz flow versus more chat flow.
But the interaction style where you
can see your past answers, things are
kind of typed out definitely feels
much more like a chatbot, and it is
definitely much more, uh, interesting.
So they add a, "What matters most to you?"
is kind of this standard, um,
what are your goals screen.
So, uh, they can understand kind of what,
what i- is, uh, you know, driving you.
And then you'll see that they
can util- util- use this to
personalize the flow later on.
Next, how old are you?
And they, they, uh, have, you
know, some different responses.
And so it's not just enter an
answer, uh, from the question.
They also follow up.
They say, "How old are you?"
I put my age.
They say, "Old enough
to know what matters."
Okay, that's interesting.
Kind of generic, but, but good response.
Uh, makes for more conversational style.
They ask, what best describes you?
This is a good way-- this phrasing, what
best describes you, is a good way to get
at, um, the in-between of are you working?
Are you studying?
Um, and so they have technology,
entrepreneur, remote, finance,
creative, student, caregiver.
So you can see it's
kind of this in-between.
It's not asking like, what's your job?
What do you do?
Uh, but, but I thought that was a, a nice
phrasing of the copy for that question.
Uh, and, and continuing on,
um I, I, I put entrepreneur.
They say always on even
when you said you'd log off.
So they have a nice personalized response
based on each of those, uh, follow-ups.
And they ask about my screen time,
which is obviously, uh, quite relevant
to Opal, which is a screen time app.
Uh, and so I, I enter
three to four hours a day.
It's, uh, probably more than that,
but I, I wanted to, uh, feel good
about myself, so I lied a little.
Um, then they respond with, "I can help
with that, Jacob, but to change your
habits, I'm gonna need your permission."
This is a, a really nice, easy way to ease
into accepting screen time permissions.
And so then from here, they set the
stage, and then they ask for access to the
screen time, um, permissions for Apple.
Uh, a-and these are, you know,
pretty much can control your entire
phone and so it's more sensitive.
They have to set this up correctly,
uh, and so you can go continue.
Then you, you select which
categories, which is kind of
part of the, the screen time API.
You select which apps and which
categories you wanna be blocked.
Then they're moving into the
actual aha moment and, and showing
value for, uh, uh, for Opal.
And, and they're setting the stage and,
and, and really, um, figuring out how
to motivate users and, and how to truly
understand what they're delivering.
So
So they say some good-- some not
so good news and some great news.
And th-these are based on my
screen time, based on my work.
Bad news is you'll spend ninety-one
days on your phone this year.
Wow, that's a lot.
That's setting the stage.
Then it's even more, it's
even a bigger number.
They say now I'm gonna spend eighteen
years of my life looking down at my phone.
Wow.
And so setting up the problem This
is a great tactic in onboarding
flows and really sales in general.
Set up the problem, and then you position
your product as the solution here.
And so people are probably
aware of this problem if they're
downloading a screen time app.
They, they have some intent, but it's
important to then, uh, capture it on
these emotions, capture it on this
already existing intent, and, uh, uh,
try to increase people's awareness and,
uh, the importance of this problem.
So after they sh-say how many years
I'm estimated to, uh, uh, spend on
my phone, say g- "The good news is
that Opal can help you get it back."
Okay.
Well, that's, that's great.
Wow, Opal can help me get five plus
years of my life back away from my phone.
Well, that's pretty huge.
Who wouldn't want five
more years of their life?
All right.
So now, uh, they ask for another
permission, and if you can see, I, I
think Opal used to actually have, um,
uh, the push permissions and the screen
time permissions pretty close together.
They asked for it all at the same time.
They've broken this up.
So now, um, they ask for the screen
time permissions, uh, first, and then
they set the stage, and they've, they've
actually moved this, um, kind of aha
moment or, or hook, uh, later in the
flow after the screen time API, but in
between the push notification permissions.
And so they're breaking that up,
building up y-your energy, building
up momentum and motivation to ask
for additional permissions, uh,
before you get to the paywall.
Uh, all right, so if we continue on
past here, uh, now we kind of-- we
enter this, uh, paywall conversion flow.
So let's take a look here.
"Jacob, you'll get five years of your
life, thirty percent less screen time."
So some actual numbers.
It's reducing it by thirty percent.
Uh, and so that's how they calculate it.
Thirty percent deeper sleep.
If you remember, maybe I didn't
mention it, but in, in the very
first, uh, screen, if we go back
here, we can see that they're asking
about what matters most to you.
I selected sleep.
I, I selected sleep better i-is
the ma- matters most to me and
is part of my, uh, uh, goals.
And so then we go back here, and
you can see they're saying you
get thirty percent deeper sleep.
Fall asleep faster and deeper
with less screen time before bed.
I would bet that this is personalized
based on my initial responses.
Uh, and this is important to
kind of tie back the value.
They still think that five years
of your life, getting that back
is the most important value prop.
You know, sometimes I see that this
personalized, um- Personalized value
in the title, um, ca-can be done well,
but they use as the second bullet here
to kind of still tr-try to reinforce
that they, they are connecting
and, and, uh, directly to my goals.
Twenty-seven days back this year, so
overall, but then specifically, um,
they break it down by each day, by
overall each year, by my life, and then
connect it with a personalized goal.
And so this is really, really, um,
emphasizing strongly the benefits
I'm gonna do, I'm gonna get.
Uh, they have this kind of fist
bump, um, commitment prompt.
You know, you've probably seen commitment
prompts where you say like, "Hold down
to commit," in, in Flow or Headway.
So this is kind of a
altered version of that.
Let's do it.
So I tap let's do it.
This continues on, and then I
press on, uh, this fist bump.
You don't see it here, but it kind
of expands and, um, then We go into,
uh, so that's, that's this, this
pre-paywall flow where they, um,
reemphasize the value before they
actually get to talking about, um, the,
the, uh, the products or purchasing.
And so it's stillâ¦
It's kind of a similar, uh, screen,
but it, it re-reemphasizes and
reinforces this, this value even more.
Start your free week and
gain two-plus hours back.
Um, one, one comment I had here, the
two-plus hours, it's, it's less, uh,
it's not specific compared to the
other ones which were years and days.
Uh, you know, two-plus hours,
I, I, you know, in-intuit that
it's-- infer that's my day.
And you can kind of see this,
uh, nice before and after
graph of, uh, phone usage.
Then we go through these,
uh, different benefits again.
I would have liked these to maybe be
personalized based on what I said before.
If they could pull sleep in again,
that seems like a nice touch.
I think that this is a paywall
builder tool that they're using here.
Uh, and, and so you can see it's
a slightly different UX, slightly
different design experience.
This is probably coming from a
third-party builder versus their,
their native screens that they
allows them to test a little faster.
And so you can see the benefits.
We've got some social proof here,
reviews, number of people, press
articles, press mentions, Apple
Design Awards for social impact.
And this is a nice CTA,
uh, reclaim my time.
Um, great contextual CTA, uh, better
than just continue, which they have
through a lot of other prompts.
And continue is never bad, but if you
can get some- a, a CTA copy that actually
relates directly to kind of your value
and what the user is doing that performs,
this is, you know, typically better.
All right.
Then, uh, this is a, a, a paywall
pattern that I've, um, seen work well.
Uh, so we have this trial reminder, and
this forces a little more engagement,
uh, to, to really make sure people
understand that there is a trial.
When should we remind you
bef-before your trial ends?
Two days before or three days before?
Like, the timing of the
reminder, who cares?
But this is forcing the, uh, kind
of acknowledgement and understanding
and, and making sure peop- someone
stops, uh, from just going tap, tap,
tap, continue, continue, continue.
Uh, and so this, uh, allows people to
actually go, "Great, I'm going to be
reminded before my trial ends," and so
they're less likely to immediately, uh,
cancel their trial after they start it.
This Ultimately, so many tactics on a
paywall are about letting people know
that there is a free option or a free
trial and making sure people, um, yeah,
know it's free and know there's a trial.
So we, you know, put free
in big, bold letters.
You put, uh, that there's a trial.
You know, there's other, uh, uh, kind
of the trial timeline from Blinkist.
It was all just to try to get
people to understand there's a
trial because people don't read.
And, and this is really the,
the crux of it, that people
are just pressing continue.
You know, I, I've seen in user studies
and user interviews, uh, you know,
people just go open the phone and go,
"Ugh, I don't wanna pay," and close it.
It's like, well, actually,
there's a free trial.
You didn't have to pay up
front, but people just see that,
that there's a payment prompt.
They don't read it.
They just turn off, uh, a-and
close, uh, close their, their phone.
And so this is, uh, I, I think why this
has become an effective tactic to get
you to actually, um, acknowledge a trial.
Then when we go look at-- Let's
look at the actual paywall.
We can see on the paywall that they
are using this design your trial style.
So there's a yearly plan with a seven-day
trial, or you can get a thirty-day trial
if you pay, uh, four ninety-nine upfront.
Uh, a-and what's happening
here is that, uh, previously
Opal had a, uh, monthly plan.
And so the good thing about
having multiple products on your
paywall is it's shifting the
choice away from, uh, purchase.
Just purchase this yearly plan
or purchase the monthly plan, uh,
a-and shifting the choice away
from purchase or not to purchase
to which product should I purchase.
And so this is kind of doing the
same thing, but ultimately, we
want more people on annual plans.
It's a higher priced plan.
There's lower churn.
This is typically better for,
uh, LTV for the business.
But if we only show an annual
plan, the choice goes back
to purchase or not purchase.
And so this gives people choices
again about which product I should
purchase, and a lot of times can
improve overall ARPU or LTV of your
users, uh, by driving more people to
purchase an annual plan, even though
you're, you're getting rid of monthly.
And so, uh, if we can look down at
the rest of the paywall here, you
know, there's some scrollable options.
Um, you can scroll down.
Uh, and so ultimately, what the kind of
this, this math is, is that we're probably
gonna have lower total trial start rates
if we don't show this monthly plan.
But ultimately, we're trying to
decrease-- uh, we're trying to minimize
the conversion decrease And have enough
people, enough, uh, enough percentage
of people, uh, purchase annual that
the kind of, uh, the, the revenue
increase outweighs any conversion drop.
But then this is a great tactic.
I don't see as many people doing this.
So Opal used to have monthly and annual.
They removed the annual-- they removed
the monthly on the first paywall to have
a, uh, the two, two options I'm talking
about, the design your trial, either the
ninety-nine, ninety-nine, uh, seven-day
plan or the ninety-nine, ninety-nine,
uh, per year, but with thirty days
introductory offer for four ninety-nine.
But then if I close that paywall, then
they trigger a, "Not ready for a year?
We get it.
Try a monthly plan instead."
Now, the monthly plan is
nineteen ninety-nine and s- and
so it's, uh, um, a bit pricey.
Uh, but it allows for people to have
an option that don't want the year,
aren't, aren't really comfortable with
paying up front or starting a year trial.
They're much happier to have a, a
lower commitment of a, a monthly plan.
You'll see a tactic across
both of these paywalls.
The simple checkbox of no payment due
now right above the CTA or below the CTA.
This often improves, uh, conversion
rates and so this, this should
be a tactic that you try.
And so I think, uh, this flow here of,
um, uh, asking people when, when should
we remind you before the trial ends?
Then the design your trial, and
then prompting people if they
want to start a monthly plan.
If they didn't, uh, if they aren't ready
for the commitment of the year, it is
probably a, a strong performing, uh,
paywall flow that you should test out.
I, I see, uh, a lot of people
with the design your trial flow.
I don't see as many people with
the, um, not ready for a year,
try a monthly plan instead.
More commonly, I see just them
showing a discount of an annual plan.
Uh, but if you have decent monthly
retention and you have a decent retention
for your product, potentially, uh,
the monthly plan ARPU is going to be
higher than this discounted annual plan
a- and whatever discount you'd have
to show to, to make that worthwhile.
A-and so if you're on, um, if you're
listening via audio on the podcast, uh,
go check this out on, on YouTube and,
uh, or you can kind of see some of these
visuals in Retention blog, and y-you'll
be able to kind of copy that flow
there and, and see what they're doing.
All right.
Then, um, now we actually get
into the post-paywall flow.
We land in the app, uh, and then
we get- continue with this, uh,
kind of semi chat-based approach.
They help educate you, uh, and, uh,
th- there's some personalization.
We're saying, um, uh, saying, "Jacob,
attention is your most valuable asset.
It starts with your sleep, then how
focused or distracted you are during
the day, and whether you truly recover.
It measures how well technology
aligns with your wellbeing."
And so they connect back the value
of the product back to their app,
and then you go set up, uh, your
screen time tracking and blocking.
They have some preset rules,
and they, they show some, uh,
decent gamification in terms of
progress and unlocking other opals.
Um, they, they show, um, at, up
top kind of a progress bar and
how much, uh, progress I've made,
uh, w- in terms of, um, completing
kind of this onboarding journey.
And, and then you, you see kind ofâ¦
They set the stage early on for that
you're gonna be unlocking things
and, um, unlocking your, your, uh,
completing, completing the app,
um- Uh, completing your, your kinda
screen time blocks and, and building
up streaks kind of unlocks progress.
Uh, and so this sets
the stage decently well.
They have different themes, and
so, you know, the core of the app
is really just screen blocking and
screen time blocking, so they have
these different opals you earn.
Uh, they have different seasonal things.
And so it adds a little of
excitement, a little, um, a
little variety to get you excited.
They talk about these first steps taken.
It sets the stage for streaks as well.
Uh, and, and then they, uh, let you
know that, uh, when the next, um,
screen time blocking is starting.
And so overall, I really think
that this, uh, more chat-based
interface will become more popular
amongst, um, more subscription
apps during the onboarding flow.
I think thatâ¦
I'm not sure if you all have read, uh, uh,
I think it was a blog post by Andrew Chen,
"The Law of Shitty Click-Throughs," that
essentially, um, this-- he started talking
about this in, in the context of banner
ads, where banner ads in the early days
of the internet performed really well,
but over time, you know, people get tired
of these and everything stops working.
So they have super high click-throughs,
like 10% click-through rate on
banner ads in Yahoo or something.
Uh, and then over time, people just
become habituated and acclimated
to seeing these, and over time, the
performance of everything just kind of
diminishes once more people start seeing
it everywhere and, and, uh, and, and
so I think this is gonna happen with
these kinda quiz-based onboarding flows.
More and more people have gone
through these in different apps, these
questionnaires, and I, I think the, the
impacts and, and the conversion power
will, will kind of lessen over time.
And so you always wanna kinda be inventing
and figuring what's the new thing.
I think that, uh, these chat-based, uh,
onboarding flow styles are, are definitely
worth testing for a lot of different apps
out there And, you know, why is this?
Well, the obvious one is that these,
these, uh, chat interaction style has
become popularized pretty, pretty quickly
with, you know, ChatGPT and Claude.
And so some of this is just capturing
on, uh, a-a-and, um, using overall kind
of culture, user experience trends.
You don't wanna have a completely
new UX or UI that no one's ever seen
before because people will be confused.
And so I think that we, we wanna
use, um, interaction styles that
people are already experienced with.
And, and so what's, um, what type
of app is this right for to try out?
Well, if you have a 50-screen onboarding
flow where you're asking tons and
tons of questions, I probably wouldn't
immediately translate this to a, a
chatbot or kind of chat interaction style.
Look, I'm gonna be s- over ti-- like,
if I'm just tapping and have to interact
and answer that many questions via chat
style, and I can't just tap through
quickly, and I can't go through the
screens faster, I'm gonna become pretty
frustrated, and I'm probably just
gonna leave, and I'm, I'm not gonna be
super happy about using your product.
So if you have somewhere between,
like, five and 10, maybe 15 screens and
15, uh, uh, you know, different, uh,
questions, this probably can translate
well to this chat-based onboarding flow.
I, I think that this would be the
first, uh, uh, kind of dichotomy of
how I would split whether it, it's
right for you for a test or not.
Uh, a-and so but I, I've seen a few
other apps that are doing this as well.
And so I think I, I've heard some
good results from smaller and
larger apps that have implemented
kind of a, a chat-based flow.
And so, uh, I, I th-- I really
do think it's worth testing out.
Um, go check out Opal if you
wanna see how they've done it.
Uh, go, uh, if, if you're, you're
not on YouTube right now, go watch on
YouTube, uh, to kind of see the full
screen or, uh, check out, um, uh,
Retention Blog to go see, um, my, my full
written breakdown of how this flow is.
And you'll actually notice here, uh,
you may be wondering, um, we're building
out our own, uh, onboarding library
repository and, and paywall library.
So, uh, this is all locally hosted
right now, and so not quite live to
the public, but, uh, maybe I'm building
a little suspense for, uh, something
that'll be coming in the future.
And so, uh, hopefully, I can share this,
uh, uh, this tool with you all soon.
Uh, but okay, great.
Um, we're doing a little shorter
episode, trying out a little different,
um, little different content styles
for the podcast, a few solo episodes.
Uh, so let me know what you think.
A-and yeah, hope you found this useful.
All right.
Thanks.
Speaker: Thanks for listening.
Hope you enjoyed.
Please go to price power podcast.com
to see all the episodes.
Go to Spotify and YouTube and
give us a subscribe and follow
so you don't miss any episodes.
Alright, talk to you next time.
All.