How do you handle early churn when users drop off on self-serve plans before reaching activation?

When we did founder-led onboarding calls, our conversion and retention were amazing. Naturally, we automated everything to go full self-serve so we could scale.

The hardest part was watching new self-serve signups churn within the first week. Without us guiding them, people get stuck in setup, lose momentum, and walk away before ever experiencing the core value.

For founders operating self serve tiers: how do you build active guidance into the product to ensure users hit activation without needing a live demo?