Our onboarding had a 14% completion rate. One question fixed it.
When we first launched Murror, our onboarding looked like every other app. Five screens. Set your goals. Pick your interests. Create a profile. Upload a photo.
14% of users made it through. The rest disappeared before they ever journaled a single thought.
We assumed the problem was friction -- too many steps, too many taps. So we cut it down to three screens. Completion went up to 22%. Better, but still terrible.
Then we talked to users who dropped off. What they told us changed everything.
It wasn't about the number of screens. It was about what we were asking them to do. We were asking people to define their emotional goals before they'd even had a single experience with the product. "What do you want to work on?" "How are you feeling today?" These questions feel harmless, but for someone who just downloaded an app to understand their emotions better, they're intimidating.
You're essentially asking someone to be vulnerable with a stranger before you've earned any trust.
So we replaced everything with one open question: "What brought you here today?"
No multiple choice. No categories. Just an empty text field. Users could write one word or three paragraphs. They could be specific or vague. The app responded with: "Got it. Let's start there."
Completion hit 67%.
But here's what surprised us more: the people who completed this onboarding journaled 3x more in their first week compared to users from the old flow. They weren't just getting through onboarding faster -- they were arriving in the product already in a reflective mindset.
The old onboarding treated setup as a prerequisite to the experience. The new one made setup part of the experience.
The lesson we keep learning: for emotional products, the first interaction isn't about collecting data. It's about setting the tone. If your onboarding feels like a form, users will treat your product like a tool. If it feels like a conversation, they'll treat it like a space.
Anyone else building something where the onboarding itself needs to feel like part of the product experience?
Replies
Would be interesting to see how this performs for different user groups .Some people may prefer structure while others respond better to openness.
Really like this approach .Sometimes the best onboarding question isn't about collecting information, it's about creating a moment of connection.
This matches a problem on my own product. We help people align their lives to their values, and the most useful questions are the ones that ask the most before any trust exists. So the thing I'm taking away is: make the first question feel welcoming, not like a test.
More on Gal's point: when someone opens with something heavy, does "Let's start there" still fit? Did the interviews change how you handle that first reply?
Was "What brought you here today?" the first open question you tried, or did you test a few before it landed?
@alieksia this reminds me that onboarding should demonstrate value before asking for information. I think many products get that order backwards.
the 3x journaling number is the real tell, not the completion rate - it means the open question isn't just lower friction, it's actually priming the right mental mode before they start. one thing I'm curious about: with a totally open first answer, do you ever get someone writing something that reads as a crisis rather than a mood check-in right there in onboarding, before any trust or safety framing has been established? that seems like the one case where "got it, let's start there" as a universal response could be the wrong move
Thank you for sharing, we're struggling with the very same problem at the moment.
How did you reach them? In our case even more engaged users ignored a personal email.