In the world of product design, “onboarding” is the critical first handshake between a user and your platform. It’s a broad term, covering everything from basic tutorials to complex, compliance-driven flows. Despite the variety, most onboarding strategies rely on a mix of three recurring patterns: educational (guiding users toward mastery), regulatory (ensuring a secure and trustworthy setup), and sales-driven (highlighting features to encourage conversion).

These approaches don’t exist in isolation, and they aren’t confined to a particular stage of the user journey. In many cases, they appear both before and after signup, overlapping in subtle and strategic ways. But there’s something especially high-stakes about the pre-signup phase: it’s the first real test of whether the product resonates, whether it earns a user’s attention, and ideally, their intent to continue.

That’s the focus of this article. Not onboarding in the general sense, but the very beginning of it: the pre-signup flow, where users have the least patience and the most potential to walk away. And specifically, how two forces — personalization and perceived value — shape that moment and determine whether someone decides to take the next step.

Why onboarding Mmatters: beyond feature walkthroughs

In the past, most pre-signup onboarding flows were short and feature-focused, designed to show users how things work as fast as possible. However, this approach often fails to give users a real reason to stick around, as they might understand how the app works but not why it matters to them personally.

It’s time to think about onboarding differently — as a motivational experience, not just a walkthrough of features. Onboarding isn’t just another step; it sets the entire tone for what comes after. The numbers support this: RevenueCat’s report indicates that 80–90% of all trials occur on Day 0, and Wyzowl found that 86% of customers become more loyal with a great onboarding experience. These statistics highlight the crucial nature of those first few minutes; missing that initial momentum means users won’t stick around.

Building motivation: understanding user psychology

Before diving into design, it’s essential to understand what truly motivates people. When you’re genuinely excited to try something new, it’s rarely because you received a perfect step-by-step manual. Instead, something “clicked”.