Thread by @saranormous

1/6
Entrepreneurs who invest in prescriptive onboarding and community very early are more likely to succeed

2/6
High quality onboarding recognizes that trying something new is a cost to the customer, and part of your product must be to reduce that cost and make it worthwhile

Onboarding is product marketing for the self-serve generation of software

3/6
It forces thinking about what is *success* for your user - guiding them along a path, VS. handing them a hammer

4/6
Many high quality (but mistaken) founders “build all the hard stuff first” and then have no magic moment for a long time, have to handhold/cajole initial users. They view community as something to invest in “later”

5/6
If customers cannot successfully self-activate, your iteration speed will be slow. successful community will increase your iteration speed, advocate for you, and help new (stuck) users advocate

6/6 How early is good-early for community?

.@ironclad_inc started “Rooftop Law School” shortly after we invested in the seed, when the product was still in alpha (<10 customers)