Most products lose people before they ever reach the good part.
The first five minutes decide whether someone leans in or quietly closes the tab. So that is where I spend a disproportionate amount of my attention.
Show value before asking for anything
Every field, every permission prompt, every “create an account to continue” is a toll booth. Some are necessary. Most are placed there out of habit, long before the user has any reason to pay.
I try to move the moment of value earlier than feels comfortable — let people feel what the product does before I ask them to commit to it.
Make the empty state do work
A blank dashboard is a missed conversation. The empty state is prime real estate: it can teach, it can suggest a first action, it can set a tone. Treating it as an afterthought is one of the most common — and most fixable — mistakes I see.
Get the first five minutes right and everything after gets easier. Get them wrong and no amount of polish downstream will save you.
