What Did Monday.com Get Wrong With Their Best-In-Class Onboarding? In 232 Slides
Monday.com has hands down one of the best onboarding flows I’ve ever seen for a complex product. So, I tore it down into 232 slides with explainers.
Jump straight into the user onboarding teardown slidedeck to see both the good and the bad. Or read on for a more structured overview of the good.
What Did Monday.com Get Right?
Provide Support And Case Studies
“Work OS” (that Monday.com offers) is a relatively new concept. Even if it wasn’t, it makes sense to provide case studies and support as the use cases are very wide. Monday.com does an excellent job of that.
The homepage has case studies at least in four places and links to even some more. Case studies come in two flavours: by users and by “independent” research/studies (incl. media). Monday nails both.
And that’s before you get into the app. The whole signup flow is bolstered with social proof:
The same thing with support — there are seemingly countless ways of getting help. And multiple entry points.
There are videos, a forum, articles, chat, product feedback buttons, and access to sales (more on that later).
Focus Attention
In important flows like signup or pricing, it makes sense to blur everything out and just push for the user to finish the flow.
Once they sign up, or start paying, you have every opportunity to push other actions.
Simplify Setup Into Steps To Sensory Overload
Not every product can be or should be simple. Some things are just inherently complex. But you can introduce the complexity step-by-step.
Monday does something else well here. They illustrate with a dumbed down version of the app on the side what the users are currently setting up.
Later in the app the setup is, again, dumbed down to specific steps.
Most of these steps are most likely setup moments — actions that are a necessary part of user activation before the user can experience the a-ha moment and see the real value of the product.
Start With Meaningful Data
Remember that users users are forced to enter some basic data (board name, tasks etc.) during setup (see above). This means that when they finally get into the app, they see something meaningful and familiar.
Monday could have, ofc, simply have had an empty state. Or provided dummy data. But dummy data doesn’t really evoke any emotions.
Now users can basically already start working with the tasks, assigning them (which in return means invited more users to the app) etc..
Set The Right Defaults
Setting the right defaults has many benefits (depending where it’s done):
- simpler UX;
- less to do for the user;
- more conversions.
Note that not every default should be set by the software provider. It’s why Monday lets the user do it during the signup flow consciously (for example, whether the items are called “tasks” or something else).
Setting the default payment schedule to yearly is also a setting basically. It will likely result in having more money in the pocket for Monday to spend on further growth.
Provide Feedback When Something Gets Done In The Background
This is where Microsoft Teams failed several times (check out the Microsoft Teams onboarding teardown for more details).
Products should absolutely give feedback when something is done in the background that’s not immediately visible for the user. Monday gets it right every time.
Segment Leads For The Sales Team
Not agreeing on what counts as a marketing qualified lead (leads that gets sent to sales) is a pretty common mistake in companies (see here for more beginner mistakes in sales). This results in a lot of friction between marketing and sales department.
It’s not possible to say with certainty whether this problem exists or not at Monday. But it’s clear that they do filter leads that go to sales.
The easiest way to separate leads (if you don’t know yet how different segments will convert) is by company size.
Monday is segmenting both contact requests via their website (above) and signups (below).
Use Community Forums Thoughtfully
Community forums have as many uses as internal ackathons probably.
You can use them to:
- reduce the nr of support tickets;
- create user-generated content growth loops;
- prioritize your roadmap;
- find new ideas.
Monday is making use of all four.
Reduce Friction In Pricing
I covered product pricing and monetization quite superficially in this teardown. But it’s clear that Monday has put some serious thought into it.
One thing I’d like to especially bring out is how their marketplace works.
Third party integration can choose to bill users through Monday.com. This means simplified billing for the user. Everything is out in the open and one click away. And it will show up on the same bill (quite important for many companies).
But it also means Monday can take a cut (or maybe they are already doing it?).
What Did Monday.com Get Wrong?
There are many more things that Monday.com got right. And a few things that they could improve upon. See them in the full teardown:
See other user onboarding teardowns and free best practices from top startups at productloops.com.
