Lauryn Isford is a product growth leader and practitioner, who most recently led Growth at Airtable, and is about to start something new 🤫. In today’s episode, we get into the many tactics Lauryn has learned about optimizing onboarding flows. Lauryn describes how overhauling Airtable’s onboarding led to a 20% increase in activation rate, the company’s unique segmentation process, and why North Star metrics are so vital. Lauryn also shares her framework for a PLG growth funnel, and how to use a reverse trial to leverage the benefits of both freemium products and trials. If you’re looking to find growth opportunities within your funnel, this episode is for you.

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Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/masteri...

Where to find Lauryn Isford:
• Twitter:   / laurynisford  
• LinkedIn:   / laurynisford  

Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter:   / lennysan  
• LinkedIn:   / lennyrachitsky  

Referenced:
• Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days: https://www.amazon.com/Sprint-Solve-P...
• Blue Bottle coffee: https://bluebottlecoffee.com/
• Airtable: https://www.airtable.com/
• How to determine your activation metric: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/ho...
• Elena Verna on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/elena-v...
• The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company: https://www.amazon.com/Ride-Lifetime-...
• Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon: https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Men-Ody...
• Fifth & Mission podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
• The White Lotus on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/the-white-lotus
• Belfast: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12789558/
• Figma: https://www.figma.com/
• Miro: https://miro.com/
• Zoelle Egner on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/videos/...

In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Lauryn’s background
(03:48) Lauryn’s spicy take on experimentation
(06:44) Why doing the right thing for customers should be the ultimate goal
(08:54) How Airtable rolled out Airtable Forms with A/B testing
(11:38) The importance of onboarding
(13:15) Airtable’s onboarding revamp and how it increased activation by 20%
(16:57) How Airtable’s guided onboarding wizard improved the user experience
(18:00) Why reducing reliance on tooltips can be a good idea for complicated products
(20:06) The importance of meeting users where they are
(22:52) How Airtable segmented users by learning styles
(24:10) Airtable’s activation metrics
(27:22) How the week-four multi-user collaboration metric was operationalized
(30:45) Other metrics Airtable used
(34:34) When Airtable changed their North Star metric 
(36:26) How much time to give a North Star metric before pivoting
(38:05) Trials vs. freemium and what a reverse trial is
(42:51) How to have self-serve options when you’re not fully self-serve
(46:04) Onboarding experiences that aren’t very helpful
(47:31) How to help users understand features
(48:42) Why user education is more important than pushing premium features
(50:03) The role of guardrail metrics 
(51:40) Lauryn’s PLG growth funnel framework
(54:26) How Lauryn’s framework helps teams communicate more clearly
(55:57) How Lauryn structured the growth team
(57:53) B2B growth as an emerging space 
(1:00:18) Lightning round

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