Setup dashboard
Contents
▶ Live prototype: setup-welcome.carlosmccoy.xyz. Calendar, Team and Clients on the real product chrome. Open each flow: Calendar · Team · Clients.
Wave 1 of the per-feature first-run experiences. We give Calendar, Team and Clients a focused first run: one modal on landing that states the value and routes to the single action that creates it. We ship fast, keep each flow skippable, and read a 2-week pre/post on each.
Goal: more new accounts take the core first-session action on each feature: connect a calendar, invite a teammate, add a real client.
Hypothesis: a focused first run lifts first-session activation, and activation is the leading indicator that drives trial→paid conversion and early retention. We optimize and measure activation now; conversion is the lagging signal we expect to follow.
Early proof this works.
We already tested a connect modal on Calendar and Inbox. New users who reached those pages were 66% more likely to connect an account within 3 days (11.54% → 19.12%). Inbox connections rose the most, up 83% (8.39% → 15.38%). Wave 1 extends that proven pattern across the three flows.
New users sign up, then stall before they hit value. On most feature pages the first run drops them on an empty or fake-populated screen, with the one valuable action buried in a corner and the value never stated. Where we have already added a guided moment, the Calendar connect modal, it works (proof above). The opportunity is to give every Wave 1 feature that same focused first run.
| Flow | Today | Baseline |
|---|---|---|
| Calendar | Connect modal is live and working; it can be sharper. | 19.12% connect (was 11.54%) |
| Team | A fake demo member ("Wendy Smith") sits in front of a buried, email-only invite. | 5.4% invite ≥1 |
| Clients | Import and add are a corner button; no value framing; switchers import least. | 21.5% add/import |
Baselines: PostHog Production 10924, core-market completer cohort (n=4,572), verified 2026-06-18. Calendar figures from the connect-modal test (connect within 3 days).
Goals
Non-goals (out of this wave)
Primary = the real first-session action on each flow, read as a 2-week pre/post:
| Flow | Action we count | Event | Baseline | Goal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calendar | Connected a calendar | syncCalendar |
19.12% (was 11.54%) | 25% |
| Team | Invited ≥1 teammate | create staff |
5.4% (team accounts) | 8% |
| Clients | Added or imported ≥1 client | create client / import client data |
21.5% | 27% |
Calendar = connect within 3 days; Team and Clients = week 1. Team's rate is on team accounts only.
Wave roll-up: share of new accounts that complete ≥1 of the three in their first week.
Downstream (the bet): trial→paid conversion and early retention, activated vs not, read on a lag.
Read it carefully: a pre/post is directional, not a clean A/B: signup-mix and seasonality also move these numbers. Guardrail: overall onboarding completion must not drop.
The waves
How each Wave 1 flow ships: build and ship at 100%, then read a 2-week pre/post and decide keep / iterate / kill. Calendar and Team are quick; Clients is last (the full-screen import is the one net-new surface).
Handoff: Nanz (design refinement) → Leah (front-end build, next week). Daniel owns the Team invite modal (in staging since 25 June).
The shared pattern (see the prototype): a modal on landing over a demo-populated page (never an empty grid). It states the value, offers the action, and is skippable; on dismiss the actions stay on the page and it reappears for the first few landings until done. In-product brand, one primary CTA, no fake states.
Land on Calendar, the connect modal opens over a demo week, one tap connects Google or Outlook. Copy leads on "so nothing double-books you." We already have this modal and it works (proof in §2); Wave 1 sharpens it. → See it
First time a team account lands on the Team page, the new invite modal opens as a takeover (copy invite link, or email + permissions). The demo "Wendy Smith" is removed. The modal is designed and in staging (25 June); Wave 1's job is to put it front and centre so we get the full value from it. → See it
On landing, a privacy-framed modal ("want to bring across the clients you already have?", HIPAA-compliant, your data stays private) offers three on-ramps: import, add manually, or book a migration call. Import opens a full-screen experience (source logos, sample files); add manually completes in the modal and surfaces the one thing that trips people up (each client needs a unique identifier). → See it
| Item | Owner | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Migration-call booking URL + CX capacity (Clients switcher CTA) | Carlos / CX | Use a real link or hold the CTA; don't invent one |
| Pre/post is confounded (signup-mix, seasonality) | Carlos (analysis) | Report as directional; watch the completion guardrail |
| Team invite modal must be the one in staging | Daniel | Build on it, don't rebuild |