Yohann Kunders

Figure out how to align Aha moments with users’ motivation and choose a behavior closer to conversion rather than sign up.

When you look at activation in terms of an Aha moment, you’re zeroing in on a particular product behavior rather than on the entire path to conversion. This behavior often happens early (e.g., during onboarding), which means you’re leaving the rest of the journey to actual activation/conversion up to luck.

There isn’t a singular Aha moment. People have a very clear idea of what they want and where they are, but they are fuzzy about the stages between where they are and where they want to be. There are many stages to that path: in a way, each sub-outcome could be an Aha moment.

Stop thinking about your product as an object so you can think about the outcome better. It’s not about personas and personas’ goals: it’s about you making one outcome happen more reliably, then catering to the set of situations across personas that care about that outcome.

If you’re organizing the user path to contain changes that don’t progress the user towards the resulting state, then those changes are just deadweight for the path’s benefit.

Don’t ask customers about the user experience: ask them about their before and after states. That’s what they are the most familiar with.

When requesting customer interviews, send out small batches of emails _(e.g., 10/day)_. This lets you learn how people respond to it and iterate on your approach.

The set of customers you talk to and where they are in the customer lifecycle changes the kind of information you receive from them. Determine which part of the customer lifecycle is the highest leverage to invest in.

Instead of seeing something as an Aha moment, see a specific behavior from the user as step one of a multi-step approach to achieving their desired outcome.