Part Two: The product · The first days
Setup has to happen some time, and makers want it done properly at the start. A newcomer has little patience and no proof yet that the product works for them.
A person trying a new product is running a small experiment. They have a problem, some hope, and not much time. They are also still attached to the old way, which at least works.
Most products spend that time on themselves. Create a workspace. Name it. Choose a plan. Connect your calendar. Every step makes sense to the people who built it, because they know what comes after. The newcomer does not. From where they sit, they have done a lot of work and nothing has happened.
So they leave, meaning to come back when they have more time.
What changes this is one real thing they did, early, with their own material. It need not be the whole product. It is a piece of the progress they came for: for a freelance translator trying an invoicing tool, a first invoice she can send to a client tonight. She got somewhere, and after that the remaining setup feels worth doing.
What counts as the first result depends on the product. In a tool people use alone, almost everything else can wait. In a tool built around other people, the first result may be a reply from a colleague, so inviting one person is the path and not a detour.
Early Stripe did this for developers. Its front page showed a few lines of code. Paste them, run them, and a test payment went through. The proof came first and the paperwork later.
Therefore:
Decide what a newcomer's first real result is, and postpone everything between arriving and reaching it that the result does not need. Aim for minutes, and make it something they can use today.
In practice. Sit beside someone signing up and time it. Count the screens and fields before anything useful happens. Ask of each one: could this wait until after?
Goes with. The first result is THE SMALLEST WHOLE THING (26) seen from the newcomer's side. GOOD DEFAULTS (36) stand in for the questions you postponed, and what brings people back tomorrow is THE SECOND VISIT (39).