How Airtable gets users to value quickly

Welcome to all the new subscribers who joined this week.

It's the first newsletter of 2023 for me. I hope you are all already working towards your big goals for the year. 💪🏾

Today, I'm breaking down the SaaS collaboration tool Airtable. The company is valued at $11 Billion and is one of my favourite "no-code" tools to create processes.

I really enjoyed this breakdown.

There's so much you can learn from them on product growth and especially around onboarding.

Here's 7 tactics Airtable uses to onboard new users:

1) Bold Messaging

The message on the home page is a bold claim.

It focuses on outcomes. Not just features.

People take action based on emotions, not just logic. So they speak to that.

And they use imagery to back up their claim of "achieve anything".

They cleverly show their product in different contexts to illustrate how versatile the tool is.

Tip: Don't sell the plane journey, sell the holiday.

2) Personalisation

Airtable asks what team the user is are on as one of the first steps.

Then they personalise the experience later with relevant templates.

They know what use cases certain roles use Airtable for and make the experience better based on this.

Tip: Good personalisation increases conversion. Find a way to create a more tailored experience for your users. This will activate them quicker.

3) Incentivise sharing

A huge value prop for using Airtable:

Building collaborative workflows.

The product is more valuable when others are using it too.

It's multi-player vs single-player.

So they ask for you to invite early on.

To increase the chance that you do, they incentivise inviting teammates with free credits.

We all love freeness. And it doesn't cost Airtable anything to offer it.

It's a powerful way to drive the viral loop.

Tip: Ask for shares early during onboarding and find ways to make the user more likely to share

4) Letting users import data

Airtable wants the user to embed the tool into their workflow.

So they ask them to import their own data as one of the first steps.

That allows users to see their own data.

And start seeing the value in a useful context quickly.

Tip: Let users integrate their data into the product so there's low moving costs. Tools like Flatfile can help with this

5) Goal-based Walkthrough

If you don't have data to import, Airtable still wants to get you to a real-life goal.

They get you to Airtable to create your own project.

They guide you through the process.

And show outcomes in real time.

Contextual walkthroughs are a brilliant way to get users to activate.

This is because new users learn how to do key actions as you guide them.

Tip: Get users to a goal during their first experience. Guide them to achieving something meaningful.

6) Highlight unique value

Data in a grid is a spreadsheet.

But data in a "Kanban" style is a project management tool.

Airtable shows you that automating tasks and visualising data in different ways is possible.

This is what makes the tool unique.

They are not just a spreadsheet. The product does more.

But if they just dumped users in product, many wouldn't ever notice.

It's important to showcase the features early on.

Tip: Your product is unique. Make sure to showcase that to new users or they may never find out.

7) Reverse Trial

A reverse trial is where new users get a free trial period with premium features.

If they don't upgrade, they're moved to the free plan.

Airtable automatically puts new users on the reverse trial.

Users can build out complex workflows and see full value.

Many won't want to lose what they built with those features.

Loss Aversion is real.

We don't like losing what we already had.

And so lots of users will decide to upgrade.

Tip: Overload on value in the early days of the trial or user journey.

Airtable focuses on getting new users to value straightaway.

They make it easy to get started and guides users to doing meaningful activities.

Consider how you can leverage some of these similar approaches with your product.

🛠 Tool I've been playing around with recently:

Hive Index

Communities are a great way to find your ideal customers and engage with them.

This tool makes it really easy for you to find them. Very cool.

🤓 Resource of the week:

Five steps to starting your product-led growth motion by Hila Qu

She goes deep into the topic and ways to best approach turning your company into a product-led company. Well worth the read.

How I can help you grow:

Download my free strategy templates

Kickstart your growth with the Startup Growth Roadmap - my playbook that's helped 300+ founders and marketers drive traction.

Hire me to audit your onboarding flow.

Work with me 1-1 to solve your most pressing growth challenges.

Cheers,

Theo