Give Me a Reason to Sign Up
Why it's important for SaaS products to demonstrate value before adding friction.
I hate it when a product tries to get personal with me before I’ve even had the chance to use it.
Sara, what are you talking about?
Please, let me explain a recent experience I had with a foreign SaaS product:
- I discover new micro-saas I may or may not need.
- I decide it might be worth checking out.
- It prompts me to take a short onboarding quiz - (friction) - now I’ve invested a bit of my time and they made me think.
- They hit me with the email capture.
What?
My brain immediately switched from curiosity-mode to abort mission.
I felt like I had been bait-and-switched. Just because you made me answer a 3 question quiz does not mean that I’m officially ready to sign up. I have no idea if your product is any good - I have no idea who you are or if I even need what you’re offering.
You’re asking me for a commitment, and I don’t even know your last name!
Kidding - but in all seriousness, it's a pet peeve of mine when someone asks me to make an investment when they have yet to demonstrate any value.
Software is no different.
When Lead Capture Takes Priority
Ok, to be fair, let’s look at this from their marketer’s perspective. They have a good reason for wanting emails. Most people who visit a website will leave without purchasing anything, so at least capturing an email gives the company an opportunity to follow up with a potential customer.
But focusing too much on lead capture can create an incentive to withhold value.
The marketer has lost sight of why a potential customer might want to sign up.
Q: Why might someone want to sign up?
A: Because they see value!
I was a visitor exploring the site, just for the sake of checking it out. I had low intent of signing up to begin with.
But you know what? Maybe it isn't a bad idea to design your product experience with the assumption that most visitors aren't ready to commit.
Then you would never introduce sign-up friction too early.
Just let the product experience do the convincing.
In any case, when is the right moment to ask for the sign-up?
Recognizing Sufficient Intent
I think there are certain moments when someone is exploring a product that demonstrates what I call sufficient intent.
By sufficient intent, I mean a user has engaged with the product enough to recognize its usefulness and wants to take an action that justifies creating an account.
For example, say someone has been experimenting with your software and wants to invite a collaborator. Or they've spent some time working on something and decide they'd like to save their progress.
In either scenario, the user has already had an opportunity to experience the product. Now, they're taking an action that indicates they want to continue using it.
That's sufficient intent.
At this point, asking them to create an account serves a purpose. They aren't registering to find out whether your product is worth using - they're registering because there's something they want to do with it.
Compare that to asking someone to complete a 20-question onboarding sequence before they've even seen what your user interface looks like.
Seems silly, right?
Don't make registration a prerequisite for discovering the product's value, and never mistake a visitor's willingness to explore your product for a willingness to commit to it.
Putting it into Practice
Not to toot our own horn, but here at remarQable, we practice what we preach.
One of our current ventures is called JustDivvy - it's a suite of tools designed to help mediators and couples going through a divorce.
One of those tools is the Ledger, which helps separated parents keep track of expenses for their children. It's free to use on our site, and visitors can start using it right away.
We've identified two moments when a visitor demonstrates sufficient intent to justify asking them to create an account.
First, when a user wants to invite their former spouse to collaborate.
The Ledger is designed to be a shared expense tracker. Its usefulness comes from giving both parents a way to record expenses and keep track of who owes what.
A visitor might start by experimenting with the tool on their own. But when they decide to invite their former spouse, they're taking a step toward incorporating it into how they actually manage their shared expenses.
That's a meaningful indication of intent.
At this point, we ask for both email addresses so we can create an account for Parent 1 and send an invitation to Parent 2.
There's a practical reason for doing so - both parents need a way to access their shared records, and email allows us to send invitations and notifications when expenses are updated.
Second, when a visitor wants to attach receipts.
A visitor can begin entering expenses into the Ledger without creating an account. But when someone decides to upload a receipt, we offer them the option to create an account and save their progress.
Rather than requiring registration before they've had a chance to use the tool, we introduce it when they decide there's something worth saving.
This way, it's framed as an offer, not an ask.
In both scenarios, we introduce the friction of signing up only after the user has had the opportunity to engage with the product and taken an action that demonstrates sufficient intent.
This way, registration becomes a natural continuation of the product experience rather than an interruption.
Most people won’t sign up just because you asked - you have to give them a reason to want to.
I started exploring that SaaS product earlier because I was curious about what it could do. Unfortunately, I never got far enough to find out.
All this is to say, be careful where you introduce friction; because if you do it too early, you risk losing a potential customer before they've even had the opportunity to become one.
