If you're building a mobile app right

now, there is one thing that will make

or break your revenue. And it's not your

idea, your design, or your marketing.

>> Your onboarding is the single most

important part of your app because an

app is nothing more than a sales funnel.

>> This is Mao. He built a mobile app that

makes over $40,000 a month, and he is a

genius when it comes to building

onboarding flows that convert.

>> Every screen before hitting the paywall

is just building a case of why the user

should pay you.

>> So, I asked him to come on to the

channel to do a full screen-by-screen

breakdown of his entire onboarding flow

that turned his app into a $40,000 per

month business. He's going to walk us

through the psychology, the design

choices, and why every single screen is

placed exactly where it is. By the end

of this video, you're going to learn why

making your onboarding longer can

actually triple your conversions, the

exact screen that gets one in eight

users to leave a review, and the

psychology tricks that convince users to

buy before they ever even hit the

paywall. If you're building anything in

mobile, this might be the most important

video you'll watch this year. All right,

let's get into it. Welcome to Starter

Story Build.

All right, guys. Before we dive in, we

talked to Mao for 40 to 50 minutes, and

we couldn't include everything in this

final video. So, after watching this

video, if you want to download the

extended version of Mao's onboarding

guide that has all of his screens, all

the tactics, and everything, just head

to the first link in the description to

grab it for free. All right, let's dive

in. Okay, Mao, welcome back to the

channel. You did an awesome video about

this awesome app that you built, and we

asked you to come back to talk about one

thing that a lot of people asked about

in the comments, which is onboarding.

But, if you could remind us real quick

about who you are, what you built, and

how your app is doing now.

>> Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me

on, Pat. So, my name is Mao Bern, and I

built a mobile app that makes over 40K a

month. And I don't have, you know, a

design background or a UX background at

all. I studied finance in college. I'm

just a guy who taught himself about AI.

But, what I do have is the experience of

building a few mobile apps from scratch,

just completely obsessing over what

actually makes them convert. Through

trial and error, I started iterating my

onboarding since studying what I

considered to be, you know, the best

onboardings in the market. And, you

know, everything changed, and that's

when my app started skyrocketing.

>> I hear a lot of people on the channel

talk about this onboarding and how

important it is with mobile apps, but

could you just explain what that means?

Like, what is onboarding and why is it

so important?

>> Yes, I'm going to sound like a broken

record, but your onboarding is the

single most important part of your app

because an app is nothing more than a

sales funnel. When a user first opens

your app, they have zero context about

what your app does. They don't know, you

know, if it's going to solve their

problem. And this is why the onboarding

matters even more right now. Every

screen before hitting the paywall is

just building a case of why the user

should pay you.

>> Okay, cool. I want you to give me the

high-level overview of how to set up an

onboarding. What are like the pillars of

onboarding that pretty much any app

should have?

>> So, onboardings are like a story. They

have an introduction, a climax, and a

conclusion. Every screen serves a

purpose, and most of them have nothing

to do with the product itself. They're

about making user feel heard, making

them reflect, and making them convince

themselves that they need your app. So,

just keep that in mind as we go through

this.

>> Okay, cool. So, let's go through the

three pillars. So, it's introduction,

climax, and conclusion. Let's dive into

the introduction side of things right

now. Can you walk me through all the

concepts in here and all the screens of

your app?

>> So, I actually have four principles in

the introduction section of the

onboarding. The first one being that you

need to frame the problem and solution

in the first three screens of your app.

The sooner the better, cuz confusion

honestly just kills conversions. And

users need to know exactly what they're

getting themselves into. In Prayer

Lock's case, the way we do it is we

welcome you, and then in the second

screen, right there, we tell you, "Hey,

like, did you ever feel like your phone

gets more attention than God?" We're

already framing the problem of phone

addiction, social media addiction. And

then in the third screen, we give you a

solution in very simple terms. Prayer

Lock helps you put God first. So, right

there, we're framing the exact problem

the user has. And the user knows exactly

what they're going to get from the app.

The second principle of the introduction

is to give the users an aha moment in

under a minute. Hit them with a stat or

realization that is very personal to

them. The way we do that in Prayer

Lock's case is actually very unhinged

cuz we ask you first for your name, then

we ask their age and how long they are

on their phone each day. And whatever

they answer, in the next screen, they

always get a stat that kind of just

blows them away. Which is on average,

they're going to use their phone 16

years over their lifetime. But then we

tell them, "Hey, don't worry. We are the

solution." Again, do you have just 5

minutes for God each day? Let's build a

plan for you. And then the next

principle of the onboarding is to ask

questions. Now, most people think that

the questions are so that you as the app

maker get to know more about your users,

but that's not the case at all. What you

actually want to do is to make the users

convince themselves that this is an app

that they need. In Prayer Lock's case,

again, we just ask very personal

questions that we already know the user

struggle with, like thinking bigger,

what does a thriving faith look like to

you? And each answer choice is very

deliberate. The fourth principle of the

introduction is that you need to reflect

the user's answers back at them. So, if

in your onboarding, you ask a question

about social media addiction, and they

tell you, "Yes, I have social media

addiction."

In the next screen, you would say, "Hey,

we feel that you have social media

addiction." So, in PrayerLock's case, we

ask him, "What do you want to achieve

with PrayerLock?" They say, "I want to

put God first before my phone, build

consistent prayer habits, etc." We just

spit those same answers right back at

them in the next screen. And this sounds

silly, but what this does is makes the

user feel heard, makes the user feel

like this is going to be a personalized

experience for them. And then something

to keep in mind, longer onboardings will

do better. In PrayerLock's old

onboarding, we had only around 20

screens, and our conversion rate with

free trial was around 3%. When we

updated the onboarding to be more than

10 to 15 minutes long depending on the

user, our conversion rate 5x'd to 15%.

The reason this happens is because of

something called loss aversion. And

people in general would rather not lose

than win something. So, by the time they

get to the paywall, they're thinking,

"Hey, I already invested 10 minutes, so

I might as well just give it a shot and

start the trial. Why not?"

>> Mal's onboarding principles are

incredible. If you're building anything

in mobile, this is gold. We actually

ended up recording a lot longer than

what we could include here in this

Starter Story Build YouTube video. So,

we actually asked Mal to write up a

detailed guide on how to create an epic

onboarding flow that converts. And

inside we go on an even deeper dive into

each screen he sets up and why. He'll

break down every single screen, why it

works, and how you can implement it

inside your app. Just head to the link

in the description and download it for

free. All right, let's get back into the

video. Okay, let's move to the second

pillar of onboarding. What did you call

this section? Let's dive in.

>> So, the second part of your onboarding

is the climax. And again, I have two

principles for the climax part of the

story. As in any story, the climax

should be the most exhilarating, fuse

with the most fun, the most entertaining

part. The easiest way to get that done

is through the first principle. Let the

user actually try your main feature

during the onboarding. In PrayerLock's

case, the way we do it is we ask you two

questions and then we generate a prayer

for you. Then the second principle of

the climax on your onboarding is getting

them to leave a review. And the screen

that actually gets them to convert on a

review is showing some type of

gamification aspect, some type of

streak.

In our case, we show their first day

streak of their prayer journey with a

little fire animation. But after showing

that, we then hit them with the review

model. And one of the reasons why

reviews are so important is because most

users will actually never pay,

especially if it's a hard paywall app.

So a review is the next best thing they

can give you. So don't waste that moment

by showing the review model either too

early where the user still getting

familiar with your app or too late where

the emotional peak has already died

down.

>> Wow, this is super cool. I'm actually on

the App Store listing right now and you

have like thousands and thousands of

reviews. Why get so many reviews? What's

the purpose of having a lot of reviews?

Does it bring you more revenue or why do

that?

>> So actually reviews do two things for

you.

The first one and the most important one

is social proof. When you're about to

download the app and you know, in the

App Store and you see 13,000 reviews,

like that gives you much more confidence

that this is you know, something that

you might want to download cuz a lot of

people have done it too. And then the

other reason is for ASO. You know, it's

just how well you rank on the App Store.

So you want to make sure that you're at

least ranking at number one in your

app's name keyword. So my app is called

Prayer Lock. I want to make sure I'm

number one for Prayer Lock.

>> Okay, so let's move to the next pillar.

What's the final pillar of a great

onboarding? Can you walk us through

that?

>> Yeah, so the last pillar of your

onboarding is of course the conclusion.

And for the conclusion, I have three

principles. The first one is to show

them a summary of their journey. You

know, where they are, where they want to

go and how your app gets them there. And

a lot of this stuff sounds very

repetitive because in the introduction

of the onboarding, we were actually

reflecting back the answers. But you

want to keep doing that. Remember,

people, especially young people, have

short attention spans. So, it's a good

thing to be repeating yourself

constantly. In our app's case, we

actually first show them a little

summary here, tell them, "Hey, you're

going to have a prayer habit in 30

days." Try to always connect your app to

a certain habit that they can achieve in

an X amount of days. And then the second

and actually controversial principle is

to tell your users up front that your

app is paid, only if you have a free

trial. If you don't, I would say skip

this cuz you might lose a lot of people

there. And then compare your app against

something they already pay for in real

life. In Prayer Lock's case, we have

this screen where we compare the cost of

one coffee a month to spiritual peace.

So, you want to make the user be

thinking of your app as something that

is very worth it compared to, you know,

some other usual thing that they do with

their day. And then the third and last

principle is to try to get the user to

say that they are committed to using

your app. In our app's case, we

literally just asked them, "Hey, how

committed are you to making this feature

happen?" And usually, we have found that

95% of them will either answer extremely

committed or very committed. If they

were to answer any other thing, we have

custom copy for that situation. And then

as your last screen, I would recommend a

social proof screen, like the one we

have here. And yeah, that's it for the

onboarding. After of course, you have

your paywall, but don't overthink this

part too much. You know, the paywall is

actually not as important as people

might think, at least in the beginning.

The only thing I would say you should

add in your paywall is a notification

reminder 1 day before their trial ends.

That's like the only thing I would say

to focus on for your paywall.

>> Okay, cool. I think a lot of people

watching this might be wondering, "Okay,

this is cool. You showed me your

onboarding. This works great for you.

But what about everyone else that's

building apps? Will this work for them?

What changes would you make?" Uh

what would you have to say about this?

>> So, actually, I wasn't the first one

that did this. I took inspiration from

other apps like Twitter, like CalA I.

You know, a lot of these apps already

have very long onboardings and already

have the principles that I just

described. And if you're thinking it

might not work for your app, just keep

in mind that CalA I was just acquired

for probably multiple nine figures and

they have one of the longest onboardings

in the mobile app space. So, it

definitely works for your app. Just make

sure you follow the principles that I

laid out.

>> Okay, so last question I have, but

before I want to touch on it. You might

be watching this and thinking, "Okay,

this is cool, but how do I get users?"

Well, I'll put a link in the description

down there. Go watch our previous

starter story interview with Mao where

he talks all about that, uh, social

media and how he drives a lot of people

to actually check out the app and then

go check out the onboarding. So,

definitely check that out. Last question

that I have for you, Mao, is for anyone

that is building an app, but they're

want to figure out how I could do

onboarding uh, and do what you've done,

which is built an app from basically

zero to $40,000 a month. What would be

your main piece of advice?

>> So, I would say before you touch your

product, before you add useless

features,

obsess over two things. Obsess over

marketing first and then over your

onboarding. Do that until you hit at

least a 10% download to trial rate. Then

everything else comes after that.

>> Thanks for coming on, Mao, sharing all

this. I think people are going to really

enjoy it and uh, put a note in the

comments what you want to see Mao talk

about next. We can talk about

distribution, we can talk about

anything. So, put a comment in there.

Thanks, Mao, for coming on and sharing.

>> Of course. Thank you, Pat.