Rethinking the Onboarding Pitch

I spend a lot of time reworking and thinking about how we pitch Clarity Inbox. I keep asking myself why we can't get over the hump with these people, even though they have self-qualified by admitting they have email issues. They feel guilty when they miss buried emails and have trouble responding quickly.

So we validated the pain is real: a lot of these are founders, consultants, and sales folks who feel anxious. They even screen-shared their inboxes with us, and incoming emails all look like they have the same priority. It's not clear what they should act on first.

Shifting Our Intro Approach

Our pitch somehow still doesn’t make that pain hit. Maybe it’s because we’re still showcasing the product before addressing the real issue. For example, “You could reply 5x faster” doesn’t mean anything unless you’ve felt the pain of missing something that matters. Now, we’re leading with questions like, “What does missing an email feel like? Are those missed emails sales deals, relationships, or follow-ups?”

We are seeing that people aren’t really buying speed, rather, they want confidence, peace of mind, and relief.

We are making sure that Clarity solves the real problems: Will I stop missing important stuff? Will I have context for every conversation? Will I be able to reply with less effort, instead of remembering details or copying and pasting my email into ChatGPT for context?

The Demostration

During our demonstration, I walk customers through my real inbox and show how Clarity Inbox improves my workflow, highlighting features like automated prioritization and draft generation. While users remember the visuals, they often forget the details by the time onboarding arrives.

To make it stick, I am pivoting to start with my pain story, sharing what my inbox was like before and how Clarity solved those problems for me. This way, every feature is tied to a relatable journey, making the whole experience more memorable and actionable.

Streamlining Onboarding for Aha

Currently, our onboarding is still 45 minutes long. It’s not because it takes that long to get up and running, but because when we do in-person onboarding and explain how to use the product, we help them navigate through it. Along the way, we are asking questions about whether the UX resonates and still anticipating common FAQs.

We still have a pretty long onboarding question flow, and some things just aren't streamlined or intuitive yet. We are still showing too much. We need to rebuild the onboarding experience to get users to the "wow" moment in less than 1 or 2 minutes after authenticating. We have to pull back on hand-holding and let the product experience guide the user.

Turning Customer Success into a Growth Engine

People are using the product, and we are following up to learn what’s confusing, what’s not landing, and where the value isn’t clear. We are working on a product and sales momentum flywheel: improving the experience, highlighting the pain, and lowering the barrier to entry to figure out adoption.

Our goal is that users get value in 30 seconds, not 30 minutes. They choose Clarity Inbox as their everyday companion in their autonomous business stack. If we do this right, momentum spreads: first within a company, then across teams.

Iterating and Learning Forward

If someone is intrigued but not converting, that’s a signal. Is it our pitch, the emotional connection, pricing, or onboarding? We need to keep searching for the answers and keep adapting. We are learning as we go, and we’ll keep sharing what works (and what doesn’t) along the way.

Read more about my startup journey: https://growthwithgary.com/archive?tags=Startup

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I am Gary Yau Chan. 3x Head of Growth. Product Growth specialist. 26x hackathon winner. Building ClarityInbox. I write about #PLG and #BuildInPublic. Please follow me on LinkedIn, or read about what you can hire me for on my Notion page.