Launch HN: Frigade (YC W23) – Faster, better product onboarding
Onboarding is a critical first experience for software products. It makes a big difference for customer activation and retention. However, onboarding experiences often do not get the attention they deserve because, without good tooling, they’re a pain to build. At a previous startup, Christian and I were surprised at how hard it was to get right. It took a ton of time that would otherwise have gone to our core product. We also knew that much better tooling was possible because we had experienced it in the internal tooling at LinkedIn, where we worked at a previous job.
Established software companies such as LinkedIn, Uber, Vanta, and many others invest in internal developer platforms to give their teams advantages like the ability to quickly build great onboarding experiences. But these platforms only get built at scale. With Frigade, our goal is to develop the platform that every growth engineering team would love to have, but can’t afford to build themselves.
There are no-code tools for onboarding (e.g. Pendo, Appcues, Intercom), but they’re rigid and clumsy. They’re built for marketers and managers rather than developers, so they sit on top of your product instead of feeling native. They’re not defined in your codebase, frequently break without teams noticing, and there are limits to what you can build with them. Unlike these tools, Frigade uses native SDKs and provides an API for developers to build new onboardings in code.
How to use Frigade in your product: first install our SDK (React for now); choose a production-ready Frigade UI component or go headless; create a “Frigade Flow” in our admin panel and hook it up to the SDK (Flows are where you set the logic, targeting, content, and more); publish your flow to go live.
Frigade automatically tracks users’ progress through your Flows. Your team can sign in to our admin panel to see which customers have completed what steps or input data, and you can use our API to sync tracking events to your analytics platform, send drip campaign (emails that guide users through setup), or show product reminders (e.g. “Finish connecting your data” banners). Frigade leverages server-driven UI, so once a Flow is live, you can easily update content (e.g. change copy, add another step) and logic (e.g. who should see it and when) in real-time without new code deploys.
We’ve spent most of our time building out the platform with early customers so far, but our self-serve flow is (ironically) coming soon. In the meantime, our demo video gives you the basic picture: https://frigade.com/video/demo.mp4. Please let us know if you’re interested in trying Frigade, we’d love to get your feedback on what we’ve built so far! We work mostly with web-based B2B companies today, and our pricing is competitive with other tools on the market.
What has been your experience with product onboarding? We’d love to hear more about what’s worked well and what’s been a pain in the ass—as well as anything else you’d like to share.
59 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 107 ms ] threadMAUs make sense. Enterprise want a linear spend with volume based discounts and rollover credits.
Congrats on the launch and for giving non-established companies a way to do onboarding! I think saying "unfair" is too strong of a claim here though.
- The demo onboarding flow is embedded into a fictional website (acme.com). That sample website only seems “half-functional”, though, and it took me a while to understand how it relates to the enclosing home page: some controls take effect within the embedded acme.com website (e.g. the clicking on the checklist items, which reveal content in the right-hand panel); some controls take effect outside of the embedded sample website, i.e., on the enclosing home page (e.g. clicking on the “See use cases” button, which makes the entire page scroll down); some controls don’t take effect at all (the items of the fake menu on the left hand side, e.g. “Team”, “Settings”, etc. – except for the “Reset demo” button, though). It might well be just me, but for my taste the overall design approach of the demo feels quite “meta”.
- I was able to complete the first checklist item “Welcome to Frigade!” by clicking the “Mark complete” button. But I couldn’t figure out how to complete the second item (“See use cases”) – even though I saw all use cases. Is that right, or did I miss something? The progress indicator in the lower right-hand corner suggests that I’d be able to complete all 6 steps at least, but clicking on it only brings me back to the embedded acme.com sample website, so I’m seemingly stuck in an endless loop. (I managed to escape, so don’t worry, I’m good!)
- I’m German, and I think the ACME running gag isn’t as well known here as in the US. So I was initially wondering what the embedded acme.com web page was about, what it had to do with the “real” https://acme.com/ website, or maybe with the ACME protocol (Automatic Certificate Management Environment, used e.g. by Let’s Encrypt). Maybe something like example.org might be more clear or ubiquitous? (Although also less funny, admittedly.)
- Agreed it's meta and could be more clear if it were entirely for our own website, or entirely contained within the fictional website at the top. Will keep this in mind for our next pass of the website and demo.
- Yikes. Not great when our tool that helps with usability is confusing to use. In this case, to get credit for step 2, you need to tap on Activation which has a little blinking blue nudge. Sounds like it may be too subtle -- a full on tooltip may make that more clear.
- Yeah, I believe Acme's widespread usage stems from its inclusion in Road Runner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acme_Corporation We're trying to target a global audience, so like the idea of switching to something like "Example.org"
Same feedback as GP. I actually read this comment before I checked it out and still couldn't figure out step two. Had to come back and read your instructions again.
I think it's probably related to what they put in point #1
Edit: Also a bit confusing because there is no feedback after you click "Activation" i.e. no scroll or toast. Adds to the disconnected feel, but again, I think this would probably be fixed if I knew I was looking for stuff outside the demo pane
Looking to begin with a simple native "checklist with videos" inside a web app for product training, but without all the bells and whistles of a Learning Management System.
Signed up.
> There are no-code tools for onboarding (e.g. Pendo, Appcues, Intercom), but they’re rigid and clumsy. They’re built for marketers and managers rather than developers, so they sit on top of your product instead of feeling native. They’re not defined in your codebase, frequently break without teams noticing, and there are limits to what you can build with them. Unlike these tools, Frigade uses native SDKs and provides an API for developers to build new onboardings in code.
pls keep it and keep going. congrats on launch
Love it!
You probably don't need to convince developers that they should use this, you need to convince a PM that this is going to make their lives easier (because it makes their own life easier and their devs'.)
I like the suggestion you gave on how we can frame Frigade. It's a way to finally prioritize better onboarding, and self-serve access to the related data, without committing too much development time.
Do you use any i18n platform? We're thinking of perhaps creating some integrations.
One concern I have, as a European, is GDPR compliance. Since your platform manages data, it's likely that a lot of information is being tracked on your servers. Are you taking GDPR into consideration, and do you have plans for this, such as EU region?
1. What does pricing look like for mobile? I'd love to give your tool a shot.
2. Why make your docs private? If this weren't HN, I wouldn't trust your product or think it was for real given the lack of public docs.
3. When you say you leverage the native platform SDKs, what does that mean for React Native? Do you use any iOS/Android native modules?
2. Thanks for the feedback. We'll get the docs live ASAP.
3. When we say native we just mean it's not a janky iframe or web view, it's actual React Native code.
I just checked out Appcues (didn't know about it until this post), and got sticker shock at the cost.
IMO, $299/mth is high for the value this delivers, however it's possible I don't have a full appreciation of what you're doing yet.
Also, we're a startup, so I'm keen to understand when your pricing kicks in.
Have signed up for your beta!
Eric was kind enough to take the time to send us candid and actionable feedback as he went through Vanta's onboarding which definitely helped us smooth out a couple wrinkles. Thanks so much for that.
We don't "sit on top of your app." We're built into your actual app natively which makes it easier to build for both quality and any custom functionality you need.
I wrote up some longer thoughts on why their approach breaks down https://blog.dopt.com/dopt-vs-other-tools
But I do wonder, what is the plan to achieve VC type returns. The market seems fairly small, and not particularly growing. I would think this is a great indie, profitable business but have a difficult time imagining how it scale to become a meaningful player in the start-up ecosystem.
Could you please offer me some insights?