Hey, before we start: I made a full video breaking down of all 7 steps of a SaaS funnel, from traffic to recommendation. Make sure to watch the full video here. Today I’m going deep on one step. Activation.

Let’s talk about it.

Signups are not activations

A lot of founders celebrate signups. “We got 500 signups this month!” Cool. But how many of those people actually used the product?

The average SaaS activation rate is 37.5% (Userpilot Benchmark Report). That means almost two-thirds of your signups never reach the moment where they get value from your tool. They sign up, they look around, they leave. Gone.

And the thing is, activation is the highest-leverage step in the whole funnel. A 25% improvement in activation leads to a 34% increase in MRR over 12 months. Not more ads. Not more features. Just getting people to actually use what you already built.

The gap between “signed up” and “actually using it” is fixed by one thing. Onboarding.

What breaks activation

No onboarding at all. People sign up and get dropped into a dashboard with zero guidance. No checklist, no tooltips, no walkthrough. Just a blank screen and a prayer. Most people panic and close the tab.

The website-to-product gap. Your landing page looks polished. Clean fonts, nice illustrations, great copy. And then they open the app and it looks like an Excel sheet from 2012. That gap kills trust instantly.

The onboarding is way too long. Maybe you need a Know Your Customer process, or there’s a lot to configure. Which is fine. But you need to break it into clear steps with a progress bar. Nobody wants to fill out 15 screens in a row without knowing when it ends.

You promise fast, but deliver slow. “Get started in 1 minute” and then the setup takes 10. False expectations are worse than no expectations.

What good activation looks like

1. Pre-populated content (Slack)

When you join Slack, you don’t see an empty workspace. There’s already a #general channel with a welcome message inside. It shows you how the tool works by already working. You’re not reading a tutorial. You’re inside the product, and it already feels alive. Slack guides you to send your first message within seconds, and that’s the activation moment.

2. Templates (Notion)

Notion can do everything. And that’s a problem, it can be overwhelming. They figured this out early and built a massive template library. You don’t have to build a habit tracker from scratch. There are already 50 templates for that. Templates remove the blank-page problem and get people to value fast.

3. Team invites (collaboration tools)

For tools built around collaboration, getting people to invite team members early is huge. A project management tool with one person in it feels empty. The same tool with 3 teammates feels useful. Asana does this well, they ask you to invite teammates during onboarding, and suddenly the product has context and life.

4. Interactive learn-by-doing (Canva)

​Canva doesn’t show you a tutorial. They give you a design template and walk you through the tools while you’re actually designing. You learn by doing, not by watching. By the time the onboarding is done, you’ve already created something. That’s the aha moment.

Bring them back with email

Here’s an advanced tactic. A lot of people sign up and then just... don’t start. They wanted to check it out, got distracted, and forgot. You have their email. Use it.

The welcome email is everything. Welcome emails should hit 50-70% open rates. That’s the highest attention you’ll ever get. Don’t waste it with a generic “Welcome to ProductName!” Tell them what to do next. One clear action. “Set up your first project” or “Import your data” with a button that takes them straight there.

After that, build a short email sequence over the first 7-14 days:

• Day 1: Welcome + one clear next step
• Day 3: Show them the one feature that makes people stay
• Day 5: Social proof (how other teams use it)
• Day 7: “Need help getting started?” with a personal touch
• Day 14: Last nudge or ask for feedback

Track open rates. If someone stops opening, you can stop sending. If they click but don’t activate, that tells you the product has a problem, not the email.

According to SaasFactor’s research, well-timed behavioral triggers can re-engage 15-25% of users who would otherwise churn. That’s a lot of people you’re leaving on the table if you don’t have a proper email sequence.

Final words

To me, activation is a design problem. Not a feature problem.

You need a better first 5 minutes.
A clearer onboarding.
A product that looks and feels as good as your website.
And a first experience that gets people to their “aha moment” before they lose interest.

That’s what we fix at Grauberg. Website, onboarding, first-use experience. The stuff that turns signups into active users.

That’s about it.