Your users are leaving before they've even started
I’ve helped hundreds of SaaS products turn first-time users into people who get it, stick with it, and pay more for it.
Make your SaaS so sticky it sells itself
CLIENTS:
Do you have a leaky onboarding?
PROBLEM:
Is this your product?
Users are confused
New users land in your product and don't know where to start
They don’t upgrade
Users don’t know how to find value, so they don’t pay
Then, they quiet quit
People signup, but most don't come back after the third session
"An absolute expert at building onboarding experiences."
With over 20 years of experience, I help product teams build onboarding experiences that turn new users into paying customers.
The five-day activation sprint
PROCESS:
Day 1: Define the win
(Live session)
We figure out the one moment in your product that makes new users go "oh, that's why I signed up." Not a feature. Not a setup step. The moment they get it.
Day 2: Map the journey
(Async)
I take everything from Day 1 and design the path that gets users to that moment. You don't lift a finger.
Day 3: Design the path
(Live session)
We refine the journey together. Cut what doesn't belong. Lock what does. By the end, we both know what your new onboarding looks like.
Day 4: Build the prototype
(Async)
I build a clickable prototype of the new experience. Real screens, real flows, your team can click through it like they're a new user.
Day 5: Build the roadmap
(Live session)
We walk the prototype together, then build the 30-day plan your team uses to ship it. You leave with everything you need to start Monday.
What you walk away with
DELIVERABLES:
The Journey Map
The new path through your product, from signup to "I'm in." Every step, every screen, every word. Your team reads it once and knows what to build.
The Prototype
A clickable version of the new experience. The first session that hooks them. The moment that brings them back. A glimpse of the upgrade. A cancel flow for the ones thinking about leaving.
The 30-day Roadmap
A sequenced plan your team ships against. What to ship first. What to polish next. What to revisit later. No guesswork. No "where do we start?”
If your users aren’t activating, let’s find out why.
Make your SaaS so sticky it sells itself
Career highlights
PROOF:
Trusted by global brands
DEMO REEL:
They said it best
TESTIMONIALS:
"Bal Sieber was the mastermind behind the whole experience. I remember those days fondly and the excitement of building a 1.0 product."
Rahul Pradhan, Vice President, Couchbase
- Designed the Couchbase onboarding and user-experience
- $200M Public Offering
- $763M Valuation
"Bal Sieber, forward thinking and current; no matter the technology, brings to the table great concepts, theory, and leadership."
Bryan Saftler, Director of Product, Microsoft
- Collaborated on global product launches reaching 200M+ active users across enterprise and consumer markets.
- Helped teams streamline release cycles, reducing average launch time by 35%
Start as soon as Monday
PRICING:
Solo
For products with one type of user.
$4,000
Duo
For products with two types of users.
$7,000
Custom
For multiple enterprise user types.
$11,000 +
The 90-Day Guarantee
GUARANTEE:
Full refund if your metrics don’t improve
If you implement the prioritized changes from the Sprint and your activation, upgrade, and churn rates don't improve within 90 days, I'll refund the engagement in full.
The only conditions: you implement the high-leverage changes from the Delivery, you track your three baseline metrics before and after, and we do a check-in call at the 30-day mark so I can make sure nothing is blocking your team. That call is as much for you as it is for me.
Before the Sprint begins, we establish a baseline together for each of the three metrics we'll be measuring against:
- Activation Rate: how quickly new users reach their first meaningful outcome in your product
- Upgrade Rate: the percentage of users who convert from free or trial to paid
- Churn Rate: the percentage of users who unsubscribe from your service after converting to paid.
Most clients won't need to claim this. That's the point.
What happens after the sprint?
CONSULTING:
Your onboarding isn't a one-time fix. It's a living part of your product that needs monitoring, testing, and iteration as your product evolves and your users change.
Once the Sprint is done, you can keep me in your corner on a monthly retainer at $1,500 per month.
Each month includes:
Who’s behind this?
I'm Bal Sieber. I spent the first half of my career as a creative director in digital marketing, the second half as a product designer working with teams like Microsoft, Google, and Couchbase. That combination is exactly why I ended up here.
Across 20+ years and dozens of SaaS products, I kept seeing the same pattern: great product, bad first impression, users who never made it to the part that would have made them stay.
The Onboarding Loop is the framework I built to fix it. Not by adding more tools on top of a broken experience, but by redesigning the experience itself, from signup to first value, so users activate faster, retain longer, and upgrade on their own.
My work has been featured in:
Working with Bal is easy
STEPS:
1. Book a Call
We look at your current onboarding together and confirm whether it's the right problem to solve and whether we're the right fit.
2. Run the Sprint
Five days of focused design work, three live sessions, and a clickable prototype your team can ship from. You'll have everything you need to start building Monday.
3. Watch MRR Compound
Users find their way to value faster, stay longer, and upgrade more. Some will start telling others without being asked.
Frequently asked questions
My churn is high but I'm not sure it's an onboarding problem. How do I know?
We already use Intercom and Appcues for onboarding. Why would this be different?
Our issue is trial-to-paid conversion, not churn. Is this still relevant?
Ready to talk?
If your users aren't activating the way you expected, let's find out why. I'll look at your onboarding with you and tell you honestly whether this is the right problem to solve and whether we're the right fit.
Make your SaaS so sticky it sells itself
![[OLD] Onboarding Loop (1)](https://images.spr.so/cdn-cgi/imagedelivery/j42No7y-dcokJuNgXeA0ig/8ff4783c-c827-417c-b4bf-7f487774201d/onboardingloop_icon/w=1920,quality=90,fit=scale-down){kind=icon}
[OLD] Onboarding Loop (1)2026 Onboarding Patterns