The hottest Onboarding Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Business Topics
Tiny Empires 36 implied HN points 07 Mar 26
  1. Most business problems are visible frictions—old pricing, unused features, and clunky onboarding—and can be fixed in one focused day by looking for what you’ve been avoiding.
  2. Use a simple schedule: raise prices and fix billing, cut or stop maintaining low-value features, improve onboarding, then automate a recurring task to reclaim time and boost revenue.
  3. Protect your attention by writing down what you’re not going to do; small, focused fixes compound over weeks and months, though they won’t save a fundamentally broken business model.
The Engineering Manager 5 implied HN points 20 Mar 26
  1. You arrive as both an expert and a beginner, so hold your experience lightly and adopt a beginner's mind to stay curious and open to how things actually work here.
  2. Use the first 30 days for a listening tour and simple assessments—listen more than you act, resist quick fixes, and learn who and why things are the way they are.
  3. In days 30–90 pick your battles, steer without doing, and land visible results that set the right tone; bring guiding principles with you but leave behind one-size-fits-all prescriptions.
Creating Value from Nothing 132 implied HN points 22 Jan 26
  1. Own inbound sales end-to-end by building systems that route leads quickly and make signing up simple, so growth doesn’t stall.
  2. Solve root causes instead of surface symptoms by creating repeatable workflows, clear handoffs, and measurable definitions of “good” so the team doesn't rely on heroics.
  3. A scrappy, cross-functional culture with a bias toward action and rituals that celebrate gritty execution helps teams move fast, learn from outcomes, and sustain improvements.
Creating Value from Nothing 318 implied HN points 10 Dec 25
  1. Do the case and do it well — it’s a near 1:1 preview of the actual job and the best way to know if the daily work truly fits you.
  2. New grads at this type of startup get real responsibility fast, handling customer calls, data, reports, and even leading vendor decisions or automation projects within months.
  3. What excites you matters — if you show genuine interest, management will make room for you to run experiments and own projects, which speeds up learning and impact.
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Kyle Poyar’s Growth Unhinged 370 implied HN points 19 Nov 25
  1. The prompt bar is becoming the standard part of many new apps. It allows users to quickly interact with the software but can also confuse them if they're unsure what to ask.
  2. Users now often learn how to use a product through their interactions rather than traditional onboarding. This means guiding them effectively in every chat is crucial for their success.
  3. Effective activation in AI products should help users quickly see value, with clear examples and next steps. This encourages them to return and use the product more often.
First 1000 943 implied HN points 29 Jan 24
  1. Positive friction adds value and effort to user experience simultaneously.
  2. Positive friction can improve retention in various aspects like streaks and onboarding.
  3. Introducing positive friction strategically can benefit users and businesses in areas like registration, purchasing, and core app functions.
Growth Croissant 786 implied HN points 28 Apr 23
  1. Improving retention is crucial for growing revenue by increasing customer lifetime value.
  2. Identifying valuable behavior and encouraging it through onboarding can boost retention.
  3. Prioritize specific actions, avoid information overload, and make onboarding dynamic for continuous improvement.
Ronin’s Newsletter 61 implied HN points 17 Dec 25
  1. Ronin Profiles now give you a unified on‑chain identity with customizable pixel houses, claimable @ handles linked to RNS, and a single place to manage multiple Ronin addresses.
  2. The Mission Board gamifies onboarding so you can complete simple quests (link accounts, fund your wallet, set a handle, spin Fortune machines) to earn Arcade Coins and time‑limited gifts, and eligible users can claim a free lifetime handle from snapshot criteria.
  3. Privacy is now the default: you choose one Default Wallet to show publicly while other connected wallets stay hidden, and profiles include a live activity feed to see recent onchain actions and help builders find power users.
Elena's Growth Scoop 668 implied HN points 27 Feb 23
  1. Profile your customers during onboarding in B2B PLG to understand who they are and what they want.
  2. Asking profiling questions during activation can actually increase activation rates by giving users a sense of progress.
  3. Segmentation based on monetization can help understand user base health and inform product personalization.
Ronin’s Newsletter 24 implied HN points 18 Dec 25
  1. Ronin Arcade is back for a short holiday season through December 25, offering free-to-play, family-friendly Web3 games including the new Flying Axie.
  2. Complete quests across Sunflower Land, Craft World, and Flying Axie to earn Arcade Points; redeem 100 points for a Mystery Key and use keys to enter the end-of-season raffle for NFTs, $FLOWER tokens, and in-game items.
  3. Season 2 is more beginner-friendly with no battle pass or pay-to-play requirements, cleaner quest design, and an invitation for player feedback.
Good Better Best 4 implied HN points 09 Jan 26
  1. Use billing cycles to filter for commitment when time-to-value is long — require quarterly or longer billing for products that need setup and hands-on support so customers stay long enough to get real value.
  2. Replace seat-based caps with usage metrics that map to customer value. Charge on things like ingestion, traces, or feature usage so teams can collaborate freely while you monetize real usage.
  3. Default to self-serve onboarding and sell human onboarding as a paid option, offer flexible add-ons that are bundled at higher tiers but purchasable on lower tiers, and when raising prices move the whole ladder with bigger increases at the entry level to drive upgrades.
Become a Senior Engineer 19 implied HN points 28 Mar 24
  1. Focus on learning about the organization and its dynamics during the initial weeks instead of showcasing your skills right away.
  2. Build strong relationships early on by meeting teammates, getting into details, asking questions, and offering help to increase your influence.
  3. Set clear goals with your manager for the first 90 days to balance networking, learning, and making tangible contributions.
Ronin’s Newsletter 86 implied HN points 06 Dec 24
  1. Transak is now a part of Ronin, providing more ways for users to buy crypto easily. It helps people convert their regular money into digital currency like RON and USDC.
  2. You can now buy NFTs on Mavis Market using a debit or credit card. This makes it a lot simpler and faster to get NFTs.
  3. Users in many countries can buy RON, USDC, and SLP directly with their cards through Transak. KYC checks might be needed depending on where you are.
Kyle Poyar’s Growth Unhinged 236 implied HN points 10 May 23
  1. Collaborate with experts to conduct a thorough audit of your product-led growth strategy.
  2. Implement best practices at each stage of the free trial experience such as creating a compelling sign-up page and a goal-oriented onboarding checklist.
  3. Utilize personalized templates, value-add empty states, and contextual guidance to enhance user experience and increase conversion rates.
The Lunacian 92 implied HN points 01 Feb 24
  1. Nominate an NFT community to receive free Axies through the Community Onboarding Application
  2. Previous success with Rumble Kongs community receiving 200 free Axies
  3. Application takes less than a minute to complete
The Lunacian 46 implied HN points 12 Feb 24
  1. 200 Axies are available for claiming by Cool Cats NFT holders for free on the secure onboarding platform.
  2. The Claim Axie NFTs offer will only be open for the next 2 weeks, so it's a time-limited opportunity.
  3. This initiative aims to welcome Cool Cats into the Axie world and learn more about their community through NFT claims.
CAUSL Effect 19 implied HN points 02 Apr 23
  1. Onboarding at a new company can be really tough. It often takes new employees months to fully understand the business and their role.
  2. It's common for new hires to feel overwhelmed, especially when they have to learn everything quickly. Having a structured process can really help ease this transition.
  3. By creating an efficient onboarding system, employees can get settled in just weeks instead of months. This makes the experience much smoother for everyone involved.
Research-Driven Engineering Leadership 0 implied HN points 07 Aug 23
  1. Remote onboarding of engineers faces challenges in communication, collaboration, team connections, finding documentation, technical issues, and equipment permissions.
  2. New hires benefit from short remote communication sessions of less than 30 minutes, with 43.4% preferring sessions under 15 minutes for effectiveness.
  3. Efforts to improve remote onboarding should focus on assigning onboarding buddies, building team connections, and streamlining the process to enhance new engineer productivity.
ExpandAI Newsletter 0 implied HN points 01 Jul 23
  1. The first week of onboarding should focus on fundamentals and setting a strong foundation for learning and growth.
  2. To help new hires become fully autonomous, focus on teaching concepts and abstractions rather than detailed specifics.
  3. Building trust through personal connections and strong relationships is essential, especially in remote work environments.
ciamweekly 0 implied HN points 15 Dec 25
  1. Ask only the minimum information up front so people can get into your app quickly and with less friction.
  2. Unlock useful features and then ask for specific data as needed — for example, convert an anonymous account, verify an email, collect profile details, or request payment info.
  3. Use analytics and business rules to time these asks and build a glide path that earns user trust, increases account value, and helps you tune and monetize the product.