I tracked why users abandoned our app within the first ten minutes.

We blamed the signup form. We blamed the pricing page. The real culprit was the empty state. Users logged in, saw a blank dashboard, felt overwhelmed, and closed the tab. I spent a weekend adding pre-populated sample data so they could see the product in action immediately. Day-one retention doubled. A blank screen tells the user nothing. A filled screen tells them everything.

What does your user see the very first time they log in?