Subscribe now

I’m stepping away for a bit (maternity leave 👶), and wanted to share something I’ve been building behind the scenes. Over the past 6+ years from leading growth at Miro to working with 35+ SaaS teams — I’ve been collecting real product decisions from the best PLG and AI companies.

Not frameworks, but actual patterns: how they design onboarding, reduce friction, drive activation, and build growth loops. This newsletter is built around that collection — 100+ best practices across the entire user journey, all in one place.

The goal is simple: help you skip weeks of competitor research and move straight to better product decisions.

Share

This post is brought to you by Softr — a great example of how quickly product building is changing.

Non-technical teams can now build products that used to require full engineering support. I recently used Softr to create a platform for my self-paced course, and the AI co-builder handled the backend logic, user access, and data structure in minutes.

Instead of thinking “I need a developer” or “this is too complex,” you can just build, test, and iterate directly. It feels like a combination of Airtable, Lovable but focused on actually shipping products fast.

👉 Try Softr now (+free credits)

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore more fantastic tools 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

🎉 Today I launch my new self-paced course!

I turned everything I’ve learned into a self-paced course — User-centric PLG in the AI era.

It’s the same frameworks, templates, and real product breakdowns I used while leading growth at Miro and advising 35+ teams — now structured into a clear system to help you build your own PLG roadmap (from quick wins to big bets).

I made this version simpler and more flexible: 60+ self-paced lessons, 29 videos, 30+ flows teardowns, and 20+ templates you can apply immediately, at your own pace. Early-bird price is currently $399 (70% lower than the original $1,199 live cohort) — valid today.

👉 Join the course now with discount

Now, let’s dive into today’s issue.

10/100 PLG best practices in AI Era

I want to give you a shortcut into some of the best practices so you don’t have to spend days (or weeks) on competitor research and reverse-engineering what works. I’ve already done that part for you, using examples from teams like Figma, Notion, Canva, Linear, Intercom, and more.

In this resource, you’ll find curated examples across the entire product journey — from first visit to activation, habit formation, and monetization — with real screenshots and notes on what makes them effective.

👉 Get 100 PLG best practices

Let’s dive into 10/100 best practices 👇

1/10. Magic Patterns: User‑generated content gallery:

• 🏃‍♀️ Flow step: Website

• ⭐️ Best practice: User‑generated content gallery

• ✅ Why it works: Showing what others are building (“see what others are building”) adds inspiration and trust.

2/10. Softr: Real use cases as AI prompt suggestions:

• 🏃‍♀️ Flow step: Website

• ⭐️ Best practice: Real use cases on homepage 🧭

• ✅ Why it works: Showing specific use cases (event planning, CRM, knowledge base) helps users immediately understand what they can build and reduces the “blank page” problem.

This is especially important for AI-first builders, where too much flexibility can actually slow users down without clear starting points.

By the way, I recently checked the entrire process of creating a platfrom on Softr and recorded my process.

👉 Check my Loom video about Softr

3/10. V0: Google One‑tap sign‑up:

• 🏃‍♀️ Flow step: Sign Up Flows

• ⭐️ Best practice: Google One-tap sign-up 🪶

• ✅ Why it works: One-tap registration removes friction and captures users at the moment of highest intent without forcing a full sign-up flow.

In one of my client cases, adding Google sign-up + contextual motivation (like replying to comments or unlocking content) significantly improved conversion from visitors to registered users — especially for high-intent traffic coming from shared links.

4/10. Dropbox: Progressive disclosure for profiling:

• 🏃‍♀️ Flow step: Sign Up Flows

• ⭐️ Best practice: Step-by-step profiling 🪜

• ✅ Why it works: Breaking questions into smaller steps reduces cognitive load while maintaining a sense of progress — a pattern that consistently improves completion rates in onboarding flows.

5/10. Intercom: Gather intent during profiling:

• 🏃‍♀️ Flow step: Website

• ⭐️ Best practice: Gather intent early 🎯

• ✅ Why it works: Capturing user intent upfront allows the product to personalize the experience immediately, especially critical for AI-first tools where relevance defines perceived value.

6/10. Clay: What problem do you want to solve first:

• 🏃‍♀️ Flow step: Website

• ⭐️ Best practice: Problem-first segmentation 🎯

• ✅ Why it works: Asking what users want to achieve (instead of who they are) creates instant relevance and helps guide them быстрее to their first meaningful outcome.

7/10. Airtable: Segment the right intent:

• 🏃‍♀️ Flow step: Path to Aha-moment

• ⭐️ Best practice: Intent-based segmentation 🎯

• ✅ Why it works: Understanding what users are trying to do — not just their role or industry — enables more relevant flows, faster activation, and less friction.

Want all 100+ PLG & AI best practices? access the full resource for free here:

👉 Get 100 PLG best practices

8/10. Canva: Simplify AI access with clear guidance:

• 🏃‍♀️ Flow step: Habit Forming

• ⭐️ Best practice: Clear AI entry points ✨

• ✅ Why it works: Making AI features visible is not enough — users need guidance on how AI improves their workflow to actually drive adoption.

9/10. Figma Make: Cross-platform sharing:

• 🏃‍♀️ Flow step: Sharing & Invitation

• ⭐️ Best practice: Intuitive sharing structure 🔗

• ✅ Why it works: Clear separation of sharing options reduces confusion and helps users quickly understand how to collaborate across different contexts.

10/10. Replit: Clear credits progress

• 🏃‍♀️ Flow step: Upgrade & Trial Activation

• ⭐️ Best practice: Transparent credit tracking 📊

• ✅ Why it works: Separating credit usage from product progress helps users understand limits without interrupting their workflow or creating anxiety.

What’s behind these patterns?

The shift isn’t just toward PLG or AI — it’s toward clarity.

The best products reduce time to value by removing unnecessary steps: less guessing, less setup, fewer decisions. They guide users through intent, not features — and make the next step obvious at every stage.

That’s what connects all of these examples.

If you want to go deeper

I’ve structured these patterns into a full system inside my course, User-centric PLG in the AI era.

It goes beyond examples — into how to identify opportunities, prioritize them, and turn them into a clear growth roadmap (from quick wins to bigger bets).

The self-paced version is now live, with a limited early price ($399).

You can explore it here: academy.growthmates.club

🤝 Ways to collaborate with Kate & Growthmates:

• Onboarding Design Sprint 🏃‍♀️

  I will work closely with your team to help you fix your product growth challenges and improve the first user experience that can drive x2 uplift on your Activation.

  ⚡️ Fully booked. Join a watlist →

• PLG Advising for your company 🧠

  Hands-on, in-depth advising across product, UX, and growth to build a scalable, sustainable PLG system that will last for years.

  ⚡️ Fully booked. Join a watlist →

• User-centric PLG Course 🎓

  A self-paced course built on the same frameworks, templates, and product breakdowns I used while leading growth at Miro and advising teams like Grammarly and Amplitude — now structured to help you build your own PLG roadmap.

  ⚡️ Today’s early-bird price is $399. Join today →

• Brand Partnerships 📩

  Let’s tell your product story to a trusted audience of 30,000+ product, design, and growth leaders — and co-create meaningful content that inspires the wider product and design community.

  👉 Send an inquiry to hello@growthmates.club

• Premium Edition 💎

  If you’re getting value from this newsletter, get access to full archive with more frameworks, teardowns, and exclusive content on PLG, Activation, AI, and how to build meaningful products that delight users.
  
  👉 Upgrade to Premium and get full access.

This is all for today, dear readers. If you found this helpful, please share your reaction and leave some comments 💜 It would give huge support for me to continue creating this!

If you find this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend, and consider subscribing if you haven’t already. There are some discounts available, and maybe you can expense this :)

Subscribe now

Connect with me on LinkedIn and learn more about my work on Growthmates.club.

With best regards,
Kate Syuma

Subscribe now

Users don’t want to learn your tool anymore. They want outcomes immediately.

We’re moving from: users learn the product to get value → products act with users to deliver value immediately. This might sound like a small shift.

But it changes what onboarding is, what activation means, and how users experience value from the very first interaction.

Share

This post is brought to you by Amplitude — meet Amplitude AI Assistant: Example of how this pattern is evolving inside more mature products

This shift is not just happening in new AI-first tools. It’s also starting to reshape how existing platforms think about activation, support, and product experience.

Bringing behavioral context to AI tools like Claude and Cursor will help your team make smarter, faster product decisions. What used to require a data analyst, tool expertise, and hours of work now happens in minutes right inside your AI workflow.

Try AI Assistant from Amplitude 👉

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore more fantastic tools 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

Now, let’s dive into today’s story 👇

How AI onboarding looks today

Over the past months, I’ve been looking closely at how this shift shows up in real products. I analyzed 6 AI onboarding flows:

1. Lovable,

2. Replit,

3. Softr,

4. MagicPatterns,

5. V0,

6. Figma Make.

I’ll share a deeper breakdown of each in a separate post, but even at a high level, one pattern is clear:

These AI products don’t try to teach you how they work. They start working with you immediately.

Get free resource ->

In the full teardown board, I break down:

• Complete onboarding flows across all 6 products,

• Behavior patterns behind what works,

• Common mistakes that slow activation,

• Emerging patterns defining AI onboarding today.

4 main patterns across AI products

Across Lovable, Replit, V0 and other products, I noticed a similar trend:

• No sign-up interruption

• No navigation learning before the outcome

• Progressive reveal that leads to immediate output

The main shift: AI products move from time-to-value → time-to-completion of the first meaningful prompt. And the quality of that first outcome is all that matters.

Let’s check some of them 👇

Softr is using an investment loop with pre‑signup creation 🏦. The user starts building the app and answers questions before being asked to register. By the time the registration prompt appears, they are already invested and motivated to continue.

👉 Check full Softr Onboarding

V0 starts generating the first outcome without asking you to sign up after the prompt 🤓. 4/6 AI tools asked me to sign up immediately, but V0 is not interrupting the first time to value. Their sign-up flow is almost invisible, with only 3 simple steps.

👉 Check full V0 Onboarding

MagicPatterns introduces its features while the first value is being created 🧭. Immediately after sign‑up, a feature introduction (comments, infinite canvas) appears while the first generated output is already visible. While the AI generates, Magic Patterns shows useful tips about credits, shortcuts, and design systems, keeping the user engaged.

👉 Check full MagicPatterns Onboarding

But what about profiling data? Lovable is still collecting it 👀. However, after signing up, I already expected to see some work-in-progress on the prompt or loading state, but it's missing. Instead of that, Lovable asked me for some profiling info (only name and role), which is also understandable if you want to learn who’s your TOP ICP or personalize the experience further.

👉 Check full Lovable Onboarding

…and this is just a glimpse of what I unpack in the full teardown board 👇

Get full board with 200+ screenshots →

A new norm? AI assistants as an Activation tool

This shift is not only happening in new AI-first products. It’s also starting to reshape how more mature platforms think about activation, support, and the product experience itself.

A recent example is Amplitude and their AI Assistant release. At first glance, it might look like another chatbot. But what’s actually changing here is the role this type of interface plays inside the product.

Traditionally, support has been a fallback. Something users turn to when the product fails to guide them. It usually lives outside the core experience, disconnected from what the user is actually trying to do.

AI assistants don’t just answer questions. They help users finish what they started.

Instead of waiting for users to get stuck and ask for help, they operate inside the product, in context — and that’s where they begin to influence activation.

Here are three capabilities that make this shift meaningful:

1. Context-aware guidance, not generic answers.

Traditional chatbots rely on documentation. They respond to what users ask, but they don’t truly understand what’s happening.

AI Assistant is different. It uses behavioral data to understand where users are, what they’ve already done, and where they’re likely to struggle next. That means guidance is grounded in real user context, not generic help content.

The result is a very different experience. Users don’t have to explain their situation or search for the right question. The product already has enough context to guide them forward.

2. From answers to in-product action.

Most support tools stop at explaining what to do next. But explanation is often not enough, especially in complex workflows.

AI Assistant can go further. It can trigger in-product walkthroughs, guide users step-by-step through tasks, and help them move forward without leaving the experience. Instead of switching tabs, interpreting documentation, and trying to replicate instructions, users stay in flow and continue making progress.

This is where time-to-value starts to compress. Not because users learn faster, but because they don’t have to translate instructions into actions.

3. Turning friction moments into activation moments.

In most products, friction is where activation breaks.

A user gets stuck, loses momentum, and either abandons the task or leaves the product entirely. AI assistants change how these moments are handled.

Instead of being a dead end, friction becomes a signal. The product can detect when users are struggling and step in with relevant guidance or actions at the right moment. What used to be a drop-off point becomes an opportunity to move users closer to completion.

Support is no longer separate from activation. It becomes part of it.

The future onboarding? Removing “translation work”.

What’s really changing here is not speed. It’s cognitive load.

Traditionally, users had to translate:

• “What I want to do” → “Where do I click?”

• “What I see” → “What does this mean?”

• “What’s next” → “What should I do?”

AI is starting to remove that translation layer. The product no longer waits for users to figure it out. It meets them at the level of intent.

PLG in AI era? I’m preparing something new for you… 🤓

For a long time, I kept postponing the self-paced version of my course. It always felt too big, too messy, and easy to delay while client work and life kept moving. There was always a reason to wait — a crowded market, uncertainty about where to start, or simply not having the energy to figure everything out upfront.

Submit form → 60% off launch

But recently, I realized I can’t keep putting it off. With motherhood ahead and ongoing deadlines, I focused on building something useful that doesn’t depend on me being there live.

Once I stopped overthinking, things moved much faster — now the course centers on how Product-led Growth is evolving in the AI era and what teams need to rethink in onboarding, activation, and monetization.

I’m shaping it now and created a short 3-minute form for anyone who wants early access and to help improve it ✨ If you fill it out, I’ll share early access before the public launch — and the self-paced version will be about 60% more affordable than the original live course.

🤝 Ways to collaborate with Kate & Growthmates:

• Onboarding Design Sprint 🏃‍♀️

  I will work closely with your team to help you fix your product growth challenges and improve the first user experience that can drive x2 uplift on your Activation.

  ⚡️ Fully booked. Join a watlist →

• PLG Advising for your company 🧠

  Hands-on, in-depth advising across product, UX, and growth to build a scalable, sustainable PLG system that will last for years.

  ⚡️ Fully booked. Join a watlist →

• PLG Training for your team 🎓

  A structured PLG training using the same frameworks I’ve taught teams at Grammarly, Autodesk, Monday.com, Intercom, Atlassian, and more.

  ⚡️ Fully booked. Join a watlist →

• Brand Partnerships 📩

  Let’s tell your product story to a trusted audience of 30,000+ product, design, and growth leaders — and co-create meaningful content that inspires the wider product and design community.

  👉 Send an inquiry to hello@growthmates.club

• Premium Edition 💎

  If you’re getting value from this newsletter, get access to full archive with more frameworks, teardowns, and exclusive content on PLG, Activation, AI, and how to build meaningful products that delight users.
  👉 Upgrade to Premium and get full access.

This is all for today, dear readers. If you found this helpful, please share your reaction and leave some comments 💜 It would give huge support for me to continue creating this!

If you find this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend, and consider subscribing if you haven’t already. There are some discounts available, and maybe you can expense this :)

Subscribe now

Connect with me on LinkedIn and learn more about my work on Growthmates.club.

With best regards,
Kate Syuma

Subscribe now

For the last few years, we’ve all heard: “designers use AI now.” But as we started digging into this topic together with Eugene Trofimov, it became clear we’ve been asking the wrong question.

It’s not whether designers are using AI — it’s how AI is fundamentally reshaping the roles, processes, and career paths that have defined design for decades.

To get past the noise, we analyzed the State of AI in Design Report 2025 by DesignersFund (a survey of 500+ designers and leaders) and combined it with Eugene’s experience interviewing 500+ designers for FAANG companies.

The result? A much more nuanced picture than the usual headlines.

This isn’t about replacement. It’s about evolution. And if you’re not paying attention to how your workflow is changing, you might miss a major shift in your own career.

Let’s break down what’s actually happening.

Share

Before we dive in… Meet Growthmates Partners 🚀

I curate the Growthmates Bundle to share not just ideas — but the tools I trust and use in my own work. Each one is a handpicked #1 tool for a key product area, and I’m proud to have them supporting this newsletter 🖤

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore these fantastic tools below 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

What you’ll learn in this article:

Today, we’re breaking down what’s actually changing in design careers because of AI — based on real data and real hiring signals:

• Where AI is already replacing effort in the design process;

• How the “60/40 rule” is reshaping what makes designers valuable;

• Why AI adoption looks completely different in startups vs. large companies;

• What new workflows like “vibe coding” signal about the future of product design

Now, let’s dive into today’s story 👇

Introducing Eugene Trofimov

Eugene is a Design Manager from London who’s interviewed 500+ designers for FAANG companies. He’s seen firsthand how AI is reshaping hiring, career expectations, and what makes designers truly valuable in 2026.

This piece is a deep dive into the data to help you understand where AI’s impact is real and where it’s overhyped.

The Pattern: Where AI Works (And Doesn’t) in Your Design Process

For the last few years, we've all heard: "designers use AI now." But I think we're asking the wrong question. It's not whether designers are using AI, it's how AI is fundamentally reshaping the roles, processes, and career paths that have defined design for decades.

Here’s the data that matters:

• Exploration phase (Research & Ideation): 84% of designers use AI regularly;

• Creation phase (Design & Prototyping): 68% use it;

• Delivery phase (Testing & Implementation): 39% use it

Notice the drop? This isn’t random. It reveals something fundamental:

AI is good at generating possibilities. Humans are good at making final judgment calls.

This creates a new skill hierarchy in design teams and if you’re hiring or interviewing, this matters.

What this shift means for your day-to-day:

1. Research went from weeks to hours:

Analyzing 20 user interviews used to take 8-16 hours of transcription, note-taking, pattern-finding. Now Claude, ChatGPT, and similar tools do it in 1-3 hours.

The real win isn’t just time savings. It’s psychological. You enter the ideation phase fresh, not exhausted. Your brain is available for creativity instead of drowning in admin.

2. The blank page is no longer the bottleneck:

89% of designers report their workflow has improved with AI. Why? Because that initial paralysis “where do I even start?” is gone. AI generates rough directions fast. You’re no longer agonizing over the first concept. You’re curating and refining from day one.

3. The 60/40 Rule (this is important for your career):

The first 60% of design work? AI handles it well: layouts, placeholder content, visual directions, interaction flows.

The final 40%? That’s still 100% human: polish, brand voice, emotional resonance, those small interactions that delight instead of just function.

This matters for interviews, salary negotiations, and job titles. The designers who will be most valuable aren’t the ones who use AI best. They’re the ones who understand what AI can’t do and double down on exactly that.

What's Actually Changing in Teams (And Why It's Slower Than You'd Think)

Individual adoption is one thing. But how are teams actually implementing this?

The honest answer: slowly, and unevenly.

The fragmentation problem:

Designers are building their own AI stacks. ChatGPT for ideation → Claude for writing → MidJourney for images → Figma for design → Cursor for code. It works, but it’s exhausting. You’re context-switching constantly, and context-switching kills creative momentum.

The collaboration gap:

Most designers are still experimenting with AI alone, usually at home, in the evenings. It’s not yet part of collaborative team workflows, but why?

• Security concerns (especially at larger companies);

• No clear guidelines on what’s okay to use AI for;

• Tools aren’t designed for team workflows;

• Data privacy questions

The learning problem:

Nearly all designers are teaching themselves AI. There are no formal training programs at most companies. No guidelines. No “here’s how we use AI in our process.” You’re figuring it out on weekends.

The companies that are investing in AI training and clear usage guidelines? They’re seeing real results. Everyone else is playing catch-up.

This creates a new kind of competitive advantage within teams: The designer who’s spent time really understanding AI workflows (not just using it, but understanding its limitations) becomes invaluable. And yes, this is something you should be highlighting in interviews.

Who's Adapting Fastest (And Why It Matters for Your Career Path)

Here’s where it gets interesting for anyone thinking about their next role:

Startups adopt AI into workflows at 2X the rate of larger companies.

Early-stage designers are fully integrating AI into their workflows 2+ times more than those at established organizations. Why the gap?

• No security bottlenecks;

• No 12-layer approval processes;

• No “we have to check with legal”;

• Ability to experiment, fail, and iterate fast

If you’re at a large company, this isn’t doom. But it means something: you need a strategy. You need to find or create a safe space to experiment. And if you’re interviewing, understanding this gap is a huge signal. Leaders who acknowledge it are worth working for.

The Workflow Revolution: Vibe Coding

This is the part that gets weird in a good way.

Some startups are flipping the entire design process. Instead of: Research → Wireframes → Prototypes → Development → Testing, they’re doing:

🟢 Code First → Design on Real User Behavior

Does it always work? No. As projects get complex, AI-generated code becomes “almost right, but not quite,” and experienced developers have to step in and debug. But for early iteration? For testing directional choices fast? It’s genuinely powerful.

This is quietly reshaping what “product design” means. And if you’re interviewing at design-forward startups, knowing about this trend signals you’re thinking ahead.

What This Means for Your Career (The Real Talk)

We’re not in a “designers vs. AI” moment. We’re in a “how will you evolve as a designer?” moment.

Here’s what the data tells us about where the market is heading:

For IC Designers:

• Master the early phases. Become exceptional at ideation, research synthesis, and strategic thinking. This is where AI amplifies you most;

• Learn to prompt well. This is a real skill now. The designers who can write clear, specific prompts get better results;

• Guard the final 40%. This is your moat. Perfect the polish, the voice, the emotional intent. This is what separates good designers from great ones.

For Design Leaders:

• Build team practices around AI, don’t ignore it. The vagueness creates risk and uncertainty;

• Invest in training. Companies that do this see higher retention and better output;

• Redefine roles. With AI handling repetitive ideation, what are your designers doing with the extra time? Strategic thinking? Design system work? User research depth?

For Founders:

• You have an advantage. Integrate AI early while competitors are still debating it;

• Use it ruthlessly for research and exploration. Your edge is speed;

• Remember: the final 40% is what customers actually notice. Don’t ship “good enough” and call it done.

The Bigger Picture: This Is a Career Reset

AI in design isn’t evolving in a vacuum. It’s part of a much larger reshuffling of what design skills are valued.

The timeline matters. Right now (early 2026), you have an asymmetric advantage: most designers and design leaders aren’t thinking deeply about this shift yet. They’re waiting to see what happens.

But the data is clear. The workflow is changing. The processes are changing. The kind of judgment that gets valued is changing. Which means your career path and how you position yourself in interviews needs to change too.

If you’re a designer looking to level up and stay ahead of these changes, understanding how AI really works in teams (not just the hype, but the actual process challenges, the skill shifts, the role evolution) is critical.

That’s actually why Eugene Trofimov built personal Ultimate Interview Course on Maven. The interviews have fundamentally changed. Design leaders are now asking different questions. They want to know: Do you understand the strategic implications of AI? Can you articulate what you bring that AI doesn’t? How do you lead teams through technological change?

These are the questions that separate designers who stay relevant from those who get left behind.

Want to stay ahead of this? Eugene Ultimate Interview Course covers exactly this: how AI is reshaping design careers, what interviews are really asking now, and how to position yourself for what’s coming next.

What phase of your design workflow are you already using AI in? And more importantly: what’s your strategy for the final 40%?

This is all for today, dear readers. If you found this helpful, please share your reaction and leave some comments 💜 It would give huge support for me to continue creating this!

If you find this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend, and consider subscribing if you haven’t already. There are some discounts available, and maybe you can expense this :)

Subscribe now

Connect with me on LinkedIn and learn more about my work on Growthmates.club.

With best regards,
Kate Syuma

Subscribe now

Think about the last time you went through a product onboarding. Did you follow it step by step, or did you skip ahead, click around, get stuck somewhere and wish you could simply ask, “how do I actually do this?”

Most onboarding experiences are still designed as guided tours: linear, predictable, and carefully scripted. But real users rarely behave that way. They come in with different levels of context, move at their own pace, and are usually trying to accomplish something specific — not just learn the product for the sake of it.

So the more interesting question is not how to improve onboarding flows, but what happens when onboarding stops being a predefined sequence and becomes something closer to a real-time collaborator.

Today’s guest post is by Mantas Aleksiejevas, Founder & CEO at Cor, who shares what happens when that idea is put into practice with Voice AI onboarding.

Share

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore more fantastic tools 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

Now, let’s dive into today’s story 👇

What you’ll learn today:

Today, we’re breaking down what actually happens when onboarding is powered by Voice AI — based not on assumptions, but on real user behavior:

• Why users treat Voice AI onboarding more like a live CSM conversation than a product tour;

• How onboarding shifts from passive learning to real work (and why that changes everything);

• The role screen awareness plays in driving deeper engagement and faster setup;

• The kinds of questions users actually ask — and what that reveals about their intent.

Now, let’s dive into today’s story 👇

Introducing Mantas Aleksiejevas

Mantas builds Voice AI onboarding infrastructure — tools that let SaaS companies replace generic product tours and CSM calls with a real-time voice AI that knows your product inside and out. After shipping this to real users, Cor ran structured user research to understand how people actually behave when voice AI is their onboarding guide. What they found challenged almost every assumption the team had going in.

When onboarding meets reality: what Obi by Cor uncovered

For the past year, the team behind Cor has been exploring a simple but important question: what happens when you replace static onboarding flows with a voice AI agent that understands the product inside out, can see the user’s screen, adapts to their needs, builds a personalized plan, and guides them through it in real time?

They didn’t just speculate — they built it, shipped it, and closely observed how users actually interacted with it in practice.

What they found was unexpected. Not because the results were strong (they were), but because user behavior didn’t align with many of the assumptions that traditionally shape onboarding design.

What is Voice AI onboarding, anyway?

Before we get into the data, a quick orientation.

Voice AI onboarding combines three things into a single guided experience: real-time conversation, screen awareness, and deep product expertise. Think of it as a CSM who is always available, never in a meeting, has read every page of your docs, and can see exactly what the user is looking at.

At Cor, Obi deploys in three ways: running onboarding end-to-end for SMB accounts (CSMs only step in when the data tells them to); covering the procedural work between calls for enterprise teams so CSMs can focus on strategy rather than screen-sharing through settings; and handling the ongoing end-user training that enterprise CS teams are frequently asked to deliver.

What we didn’t expect was how users would engage with it.

Finding 1: Users engage like they’re talking to a human

The average user spends 31 minutes with Obi across multiple sessions. That’s not a quick click-through — that’s the kind of time you’d spend on a proper onboarding call with a CSM.

And usage doesn’t cluster around business hours. It spreads across the full day, into evenings, and through the weekend. Users engage when they’re ready to take action, not when a human is available. The pattern is consistent across time zones, which tells us this isn’t an edge case — it’s how users actually prefer to learn.

The old model of “schedule a kickoff call” assumes the user’s readiness fits your calendar. It doesn’t.

Finding 2: They’re not following the guide — they’re getting real work done

This one really shifted our thinking. Users don’t treat Obi as a tutorial to sit through. They configure their product, troubleshoot live issues, connect integrations, and build automations — all within the same session.

The most common workflows users complete with Obi:

• Account setup — connecting channels, configuring preferences, setting up team access;

• Integration configuration — connecting third-party tools, verifying connections, and troubleshooting sync;

• Workflow automation — setting up rules, triggers, AI agents, and automated responses;

• Feature walkthroughs — understanding what the product can do, applied to their specific context;

• AI configuration — connecting knowledge sources, defining behavior and tone, validating prompts live.

This is not orientation content. This is work. The line between onboarding and product usage dissolves when the guide can actually do things with you. Below, you can watch a short demo of Obi by Cor in action.

Finding 3: Screen sharing multiplies the engagement — by a lot

When users share their screen, they spend 3.6x longer and ask 3x more questions.

This makes intuitive sense once you see it. Sharing a screen turns the session from “listening to instructions” into “working together on your actual setup.” Obi sees what the user sees, responds to their specific product state, and guides them through real configuration in real time — not a generic script.

The implication for onboarding design is significant. Screen awareness isn’t just a nice-to-have feature; it appears to be a core driver of session depth and task completion.

Finding 4: Users ask a lot of very specific questions

The average user asks 11.7 questions. 92% ask at least one. And these are not generic queries.

They fall into four categories:

• Capability — Can the product do this specific thing for my use case?

• Procedural — How do I complete this step? Which setting should I choose?

• Troubleshooting — Something isn’t working. Obi resolves it in real time.

• Real-world context — How should I configure this for my specific industry or business?

Users are not passively consuming. They are steering the session toward what they need and applying it immediately. This is exactly what a good CSM call looks like — but at scale, and on the user’s schedule.

Finding 5: 87% of questions get resolved without escalation

87% of questions are resolved without involving a human. The 13% that escalate are genuine edge cases: niche admin settings, account-specific billing issues, and configurations that require offline setup.

What Obi resolves autonomously: product setup, integration troubleshooting, feature capability questions, workflow automation guidance, third-party system troubleshooting.

For teams worried that AI onboarding means worse outcomes — the data doesn’t support that fear. The bottleneck was never human intelligence; it was human availability.

Finding 6: Users don’t start from the same place — and they don’t want to

50% of users skip ahead to the section they need. 38% open with their own question rather than following the default flow.

Starting points vary wildly. Some come in completely from scratch. Others have already poked around and just need help with one specific thing. Others arrive with a precise use case and want to go straight to configuring it. Same product, same onboarding tool — three completely different journeys.

This challenges one of the most persistent assumptions in SaaS onboarding: that training is linear and best delivered through a structured, one-size-fits-all program. Users want to start where they are, move at their own pace, and return when they’re ready for the next step. The right question isn’t “did they finish the onboarding?” — it’s “can they always find a solution to what they need, when they need it?”

What this means for onboarding design

In my previous post, I outlined how onboarding methods have evolved — from static tooltips to personalized product tours, and from scripted chatbots to AI support agents that can actually take action. Voice AI feels like the natural next step in that progression.

But the shift isn’t just a better delivery mechanism. The data suggests it’s a fundamentally different model:

• From synchronous to async — users learn when they’re ready, not when you’re available;

• From scripted to conversational — users steer the session, not the other way around;

• From passive to active — onboarding and doing collapse into the same experience;

• From phase to layer — onboarding doesn’t end; it’s always there when users need it.

If almost half of your users are skipping to specific sections and asking their own questions from the start, they’re telling you something: they don’t want a tour. They want a colleague who knows the product and has time for them right now.

Then “Voice AI” is the first onboarding method that can actually be that.

👉 Try Obi by Cor and get extra usage credits if you mention my name 😉

This is all for today, dear readers. If you found this helpful, please share your reaction and leave some comments 💜 It would give huge support for me to continue creating this!

If you find this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend, and consider subscribing if you haven’t already. There are some discounts available, and maybe you can expense this :)

Subscribe now

Connect with me on LinkedIn and learn more about my work on Growthmates.club.

With best regards,
Kate Syuma

When I started working on this season of Growthmates The Creator’s Path — I was interested in something very specific. Not just creators who build companies or personal brands, but people who continue creating when their circumstances become more complex. People who do not operate in ideal conditions and people who have real constraints. This episode is about exactly that.

My conversation with Caitlin Sullivan is exactly about that. Caitlin is a creator, educator, and former consultant who now teaches teams how to use AI for customer research. But what stood out to me most in our conversation was not the transition itself. It was what forced that transition to happen.

Very early in the episode, she described something that shaped the entire conversation: before becoming a parent, she could always rely on effort. If something mattered, she would simply put more time into it. That strategy worked for a long time — until it stopped working.

It is also the final episode of this season, so before we dive in — thank you for being here. For listening, sharing, and growing with me through this journey 💜

Brought to you by:

This episode is supported by tools I genuinely use and recommend:

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor— AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

Welcome to the season of Growthmates — The Creator’s Path

This episode of Growthmates — The Creator’s Path is about what happens when effort is no longer an unlimited resource.

I was looking for people who are forced to rethink how they work, not because they want to optimize, but because their reality changes. Caitlin’s story is a very honest example of that shift.

For a long time, her work was built around depth, intensity, and the ability to invest as much time as needed. But when time became fixed, that approach stopped being sustainable. Instead of trying to do more, she had to become more selective. What deserves attention. What can be let go. What actually moves things forward.

This shift also influenced how she builds her business. Moving away from purely time-based work like freelancing, she began experimenting with formats that could scale differently — workshops, trainings, and eventually courses. Not because it was the perfect strategy but because it was the only one that could realistically fit into her life at that moment.

At the same time, she went through a phase where demand was clearly growing — people were paying attention, engaging with her ideas, inviting her to speak but that attention did not immediately translate into revenue.

It is about learning how to build when your time is limited, your priorities shift, and your previous ways of working no longer apply.

When time stops being flexible

Before becoming a parent, Caitlin approached work with a level of intensity that is familiar to many ambitious people. If a project required more time, she could extend her working hours, go deeper into focus, and continue until the outcome felt right.

Parenthood removes that flexibility. Time becomes fixed in a way that cannot be negotiated with, and that forces a different kind of decision-making. You can no longer compensate with effort alone. You have to choose more carefully what actually deserves your attention.

That shift is uncomfortable, especially for people who are used to operating at a high level by simply doing more.

Rethinking what “good enough” means

One of the most honest parts of our conversation was about how the definition of “good enough” changes over time.

When you are working without major constraints, it is easy to set high and often rigid standards for yourself. But when your time is limited, those standards need to become more dynamic.

Caitlin described this as a continuous recalibration. What is realistic when you have a newborn is very different from what is possible a year later. And instead of holding on to a fixed expectation, she adjusts based on her current capacity.

This also changes how success is measured. Instead of focusing only on external outcomes, such as revenue or growth, she pays more attention to whether the time she had was used intentionally and whether meaningful progress was made.

Why multitasking doesn’t work

At some point, many people try to solve this problem with multitasking. The idea is simple: if time is limited, you try to use every moment for multiple things at once.

In practice, that approach rarely works. Caitlin shared her own experience of trying to combine work and parenting in the same moments, which often resulted in being only partially present in both. Over time, this creates a sense of constant fragmentation rather than progress.

Info of all Caitlin's courses on Maven

Looking back, she would approach it differently. Instead of trying to do everything at once, she would protect smaller, focused blocks of time and allow herself to be fully present in each role separately.

Building beyond freelance work

Caitlin’s transition from freelancing to more scalable formats is also closely connected to this shift.

Freelancing worked well for her for a long time. She had a strong network, steady demand, and the ability to generate income through client work. But freelancing scales directly with time, and that becomes a limitation when your time is no longer flexible.

Interestingly, the move toward more scalable work did not happen in a perfectly planned way. It happened during a period when her capacity was at its lowest.

She began experimenting with different formats, including workshops, trainings, and content, gradually moving toward products like courses. This was not about optimizing growth. It was about finding a model that could exist within her constraints.

When demand appears before monetization

Another important part of her story is the gap between visibility and revenue.

There was a period when her work was clearly resonating. People were engaging with her content, inviting her to speak, and showing strong interest in her ideas. But that attention did not immediately translate into paid work.

This created a difficult phase where the signals were positive, but the business model had not fully caught up yet. The only way through that phase was to continue building, even without immediate financial validation, and trust that the direction was right.

Thinking in seasons instead of long-term certainty

Toward the end of our conversation, we discussed a mindset that I found particularly helpful.

Instead of trying to design a perfect long-term strategy, Caitlin approaches her work in seasons. Different phases of life require different approaches, and what works today may not work a year from now.

This makes it easier to adapt without feeling like you are constantly changing direction. You are not abandoning a plan. You are responding to your current reality.

As this is the final episode of this season, I just want to take a moment to say thank you. Thank you for being here. For listening, sharing, and following along this path with me 💜💜💜

This season was an exploration of what it really means to create — not in ideal conditions, but in real life, with all its constraints and changes. And while this chapter is coming to an end, it is definitely not the last one.

Stay tuned — we will meet again very soon 🔥

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore more fantastic tools 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

🤝 Want to collaborate with Kate Syuma and Growthmates?

• Explore collaboration with Growthmates here: https://growthmates.club/services

• User-centric PLG in AI era course — join waitlist for future cohorts and get 100$ off: https://maven.com/growthmates/user-centric-product-led-growth?promoCode=growthmates

Follow Growthmates updates on:

• Growthmates website with “The Holistic Growth Playbook”: https://growthmates.club

• Substack Newsletter (for instant inbox delivery):

  https://www.growthmates.news/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/growthmates-podcast/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growthmates/

• X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/kate_syuma

Where to find Kate Syuma:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterina-syuma/

• Newsletter: https://www.growthmates.news/

Where to find Caitlin Sullivan:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caitlindsullivan/

Thank you for listening! Subscribe to the show on growthmates.club and get the free playbook with frameworks and insights.

If you’re enjoying the show, we’d love for you to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Your support helps us reach more listeners like you 💜

For sponsorship and other inquiries, reach out to hello@growthmates.club

Let’s keep growing together!

Subscribe now

If March felt like it went by fast — you’re not alone. It was a full month. Full of decisions, momentum, small wins, and a few deeply personal shifts happening in parallel.

Some seasons push you forward, others make you rethink how you move and this one felt like both. Between relaunching the Growthmates podcast, working closely with clients and stepping into a new life chapter, the past few weeks carried a different kind of weight.

And just in case you missed something during this season of building, reflecting, and quietly redesigning what comes next — I wrapped everything up for you in one March recap 💜👇

🚀 Growthmates Recap: Top of March

If you’re reading this newsletter, thank you — it truly means a lot. March made me pause more than usual and look at things from a slightly wider lens. Not just what I’m building, but how I’m building it.

Share

This month brought a mix of growth and realignment. I shared with 24K+ of you that I’m becoming a mother, continued working with Autodesk as a PLG Advisor, and continue relaunched the Growthmates podcast with a new focus.

But beyond the visible milestones, this month reshaped how I think about work, energy, and ambition. For a long time, I believed that building a company and being fully present in your personal life had to be a trade-off. March was the first time I started designing for both — with more intention, more structure, and more honesty about the season I’m in.

It’s been a defining, slightly uncomfortable, but very grounding shift. Here are the highlights from this month 👇

Before we dive in… Meet Growthmates Partners 🚀

I curate the Growthmates Bundle to share not just ideas — but the tools I trust and use in my own work. Each one is a handpicked #1 tool for a key product area, and I’m proud to have them supporting this newsletter 🖤

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore these fantastic tools below 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

💫 Personal highlights of last month

A season of intentional growth. Behind the scenes, this has also been one of the most structured quarters I’ve ever had. The last 90 days beat my old 6-figure Miro salary. It was a focused mix of client work, partnerships, and content. I’ve been thinking a lot about sustainability and scale. For years, I optimized for learning. Now I’m learning how to balance it with leverage — building things that can grow beyond my direct involvement.

A nonlinear path that finally makes sense. This month, I found myself reflecting on my career journey more than usual. On paper, it still looks anything but linear — from business informatics to design, from marketing to product, from leadership to building Growthmates. For a long time, that felt inconsistent. Now I see it differently. Each chapter added a layer I rely on today — systems thinking, craft, positioning, user psychology, and ownership. What once felt scattered has become a stack.

Designing a business for a new life chapter. One of the biggest shifts this month was learning how to approach work with more intention. Preparing for maternity leave made me rethink everything — from how I structure revenue to how I use my energy. Instead of reacting, I started planning ahead, systemizing what I can, and letting go of what doesn’t truly matter. The biggest realization? You don’t have to choose between ambition and presence. You just need to design for both, in a way that fits the season you’re in.

Working with Autodesk as a PLG Advisor. This month also marked a meaningful milestone — continuing my work with Autodesk, my first Fortune 500 collaboration at Growthmates. We’ve been working closely with product, design, and growth leaders across a complex ecosystem, shaping how PLG operates at scale. What makes this work especially exciting is the level of systems thinking it requires — aligning teams, products, and strategy into one coherent growth approach.

Growthmates podcast: new conversations on The Creator’s Path. We also continued the new podcast season with two conversations that stayed with me. With , we explored the idea that you don’t need permission to think and act like an entrepreneur — it starts with a decision. And with Catt Small, we talked about consistency, creative momentum, and why you don’t need a big audience to begin. Both conversations are, in different ways, about agency — and what it really means to take ownership of your path. Check B

📬 Featured Growthmates resources you might miss:

• Your homepage should convert in seconds, not minutes — I curated 50+ homepage best practices from top SaaS companies and broke down the 3 elements every high-converting landing page needs: clarity, value visualization, and low-friction action.

Get Free 50+ SaaS Homepage

• What AI products get right (and wrong) about onboarding — Lessons and onboarding patterns from AI products like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gamma, Synthesia, and more — based on hands-on research across 7 leading AI tools.

📣 Would you like to share your product story or co-create valuable content together? I’m opening a calendar and planning sponsored engagements 👉 Send your request to hello@growthmates.club.

🚀 Featured LinkedIn posts:

• AI onboarding should guide, not just explain — Most B2B products lose users not because the product is bad, but because implementation is hard. I shared how tools like Obi use real-time screen guidance to replace calls, reduce friction, and build user confidence during activation;

• Time-to-first-value is the new growth metric — Many teams still optimize for the full “aha moment,” but users don’t wait that long anymore. I break down why the best products now engineer fast, early signals of value — often within the first 60 seconds;

  

• Your portfolio is your highest-leverage asset — I shared the exact 10-step structure I used to build a portfolio that still brings clients years later. The key shift: focus on impact, decisions, and outcomes — not just process or visuals;

  

• The scariest career decisions often change everything — A personal reflection on leaving corporate life as an immigrant without a safety net, and how learning to rely on yourself becomes the foundation for real freedom;

• Figma’s onboarding isn’t about features — it’s about momentum — A breakdown of FigJam’s 7-step onboarding flow and why learning through action, not instructions, is what turns new users into active collaborators;

  

• AI prototyping works better with systems, not prompts — Most AI design tools generate beautiful but inconsistent outputs. I explained how Magic Patterns flips the workflow by starting with a design system — leading to faster, scalable UI generation;

  

💡 Solopreneurship milestones:

• Speaking at a new community format in Amsterdam — joining Localie’s Saturday Creative Brunch to share my journey from Miro to Growthmates, and connect in a more open, conversational setting;

  

Join a brunch with me (March 28th) →

P.S. I appreciate how my solopreneurship stories on LinkedIn were well received — I really didn’t expect that resonance, and I truly enjoyed answering each comment and sharing real life stories.

📣 Growthmates reading radar — check this out:

• Turn content into AI playgrounds — by : 350+ newsletters and 300+ podcast transcripts released as AI-ready data. A powerful example of how content becomes infrastructure for building new products and experiments.

• 10 things to invest in for 2026 — by : A sharp list on what actually compounds — from building your POV and network to using AI for leverage and developing resilience in uncertain times.

• What makes a strong design CV today — by : A practical breakdown of why task-based portfolios don’t stand out — and what actually matters: ownership, systems thinking, and real product complexity.

• The hidden cost of the AI era — by : An honest reflection on AI anxiety, pressure to keep up, and identity shifts — and a reminder that uncertainty is shared, not individual.

• Use cases vs JTBD (and why it matters) — by : A simple but useful lens on how jobs-to-be-done and use cases connect — and how this thinking helps identify real product opportunities.

🤝 More ways I can be useful to you:

• Onboarding Design Sprint 🏃‍♀️

  I will work closely with your team to help you fix your product growth challenges and improve the first user experience that can drive x2 uplift on your Activation.

  ⚡️ Fully booked. Join a watlist to work with me →

• PLG Advising for your company 🧠

  Hands-on, in-depth advising across product, UX, and growth to build a scalable, sustainable PLG system that will last for years.

  ⚡️ Fully booked. Join a watlist to work with me →

• PLG Training for your team 🎓

  A structured PLG training using the same frameworks I’ve taught teams at Grammarly, Autodesk, Monday.com, Intercom, Atlassian, and more.

  ⚡️ Fully booked. Join a watlist to work with me →

• Brand Partnerships 📩

  Let’s tell your product story to a trusted audience of 30,000+ product, design, and growth leaders — and co-create meaningful content that inspires the wider product and design community.

  👉 Send an inquiry to hello@growthmates.club

• Premium Edition 💎

  If you’re getting value from this newsletter, get access to full archive with more frameworks, teardowns, and exclusive content on PLG, Activation, AI, and how to build meaningful products that delight users.
  👉 Upgrade to Premium and get full access.

💬 Quote of the month:

“Done is better than perfect.”

SHERYL SANDBERG

This is all for today, dear readers. If you find this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend or another creative builder 💜 It would give huge support for me to continue creating this!

What topics or stories would you want to explore next? Share your thoughts and requests in the comments!

If you like it, consider subscribing if you haven’t already done so. There are some discounts available, and maybe you can expense this :)

Subscribe now

Connect with me on LinkedIn and learn more about my work on Growthmates.club.

With best regards,
Kate Syuma

When I started working on this season of Growthmates The Creator’s Path — I was interested in something specific. Not just creators who built startups or personal brands, but people who managed to build meaningful creative work while still operating inside traditional roles.

People who did not necessarily quit their jobs to become creators and who found ways to integrate creativity into their existing lives. My conversation with Catt Small was exactly about that.

Catt is a Staff Designer at Dropbox, the author of the book The Staff Designer, a writer, teacher, and indie game developer. But what stood out to me most in our conversation was not the number of things she does. It was the way she approaches creativity.

Very early in the episode she explained something simple that shaped the entire conversation: creativity does not appear from nowhere. It requires space, structure, and consistency. And sometimes, it starts with something as mundane as a calendar.

Brought to you by:

This episode is supported by tools I genuinely use and recommend:

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor— AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

Welcome to the season of Growthmates — The Creator’s Path

This episode of Growthmates — The Creator’s Path is about people who treat creativity as something that can be intentionally developed, not something that appears by accident.

I was looking for people who build ideas in public, test concepts before committing to them, and gradually turn side explorations into something meaningful. Catt’s story fits that pattern remarkably well.

Today many people know her as the author of The Staff Designer, a book that explores the path of senior individual contributors in design. But the book did not begin as a book project. It emerged from years of writing, teaching, and sharing ideas online.

Before publishing anything formally, Catt spent a long time writing blog posts on her personal website. She used writing as a way to clarify her thinking about design, collaboration, and career development.

Over time those ideas started resonating with the design community. Eventually she became involved with Rosenfeld Media, first as part of their editorial board reviewing book proposals.

Writing a book in 10–20 minutes a day

One of the questions I hear most often from people who want to create something is simple: how do you find the time?

Catt’s answer is surprisingly practical. She does not wait for large blocks of inspiration. Instead, she builds small routines that allow creative work to exist alongside everything else in life. At one point in our conversation she explained:

“The first thing I’ve always done pretty well is having a strong relationship with my calendar”

Catt Small (Dropbox)

Rather than hoping time would appear, she scheduled small writing sessions. Most days those sessions lasted only 10 to 20 minutes. That may not sound like much. But over time those small daily efforts accumulated into a manuscript. The book was written gradually, over about nine months, in small increments that fit around her full-time work.

The process was not dramatic. It was consistent and that consistency made the project possible.

Testing ideas before writing the book

Another part of Catt’s story that fascinated me was how she approached the book itself. Instead of starting with a manuscript immediately, she first tested the topic through teaching.

She created a course about the Staff Designer role and ran it online. The response surprised her. Hundreds of people filled out the course survey and dozens joined the program.

That signal mattered. The class helped her understand which topics resonated most, what questions people struggled with, and which frameworks were actually useful in practice. Those insights eventually shaped the structure of the book.

Teaching also gave her something invaluable: direct feedback from practitioners.

Many of the questions students asked during the course later became entire sections of the book. In that sense, the book was not written in isolation. It evolved through conversation with a community of designers navigating similar challenges.

Why perfectionism blocks creators

At some point in the conversation we began discussing something many creators struggle with: perfectionism. Catt knows that feeling well. The pressure to publish something polished can easily delay creative work indefinitely.

Her way of dealing with that pressure is surprisingly simple. She often asks herself a straightforward question: what is the worst thing that could happen if I share this?

Most of the time the answer is not catastrophic. You might receive feedback. You might discover that an idea needs refinement.

But the alternative — never sharing anything is far worse. During the episode she reflected on that tension in a very honest way. She would rather try something and learn from the experience than spend years wondering whether the idea could have worked. For creators, momentum often matters more than perfection.

Creative work inside a full-time career

Another topic we explored was the relationship between creative projects and full-time work. Many people assume they need to quit their job in order to build something meaningful. Catt took a different approach.

She wrote her book while continuing to work full-time at Dropbox. That required clear boundaries and transparency with her employer. Most of the writing happened outside working hours, usually early in the morning.

For her, the goal was not to replace her career but to expand it. Writing, teaching, and speaking about design also deepened her understanding of the field. In many ways the creative work reinforced the expertise she was developing as a Staff Designer.

Rather than competing with her career, the projects complemented it.

Creative blocks are part of the process

Like many creators, Catt has also experienced periods where creative work felt impossible.

She described a particularly difficult period around 2020 when global uncertainty and personal stress made it hard to create anything consistently. During that time she stepped back from several projects, including her work in indie game development.

Instead of forcing productivity, she allowed herself to pause. Eventually the desire to build returned. But the experience reinforced an important lesson: creativity does not always move in a straight line.

Sometimes it requires periods of rest before it can re-emerge.

Curiosity as a creative engine

Toward the end of our conversation we talked about what inspires her today.

For Catt, curiosity plays a huge role. Living in New York exposes her to an enormous range of ideas — from museums and conferences to conversations with other creators.

Those interactions often spark new directions for exploration. Creative work rarely happens in isolation. It grows from exposure to different perspectives, disciplines, and communities.

And the more curious you remain, the more opportunities for creativity appear.

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore more fantastic tools 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

🤝 Want to collaborate with Kate Syuma and Growthmates?

• Explore collaboration with Growthmates here: https://growthmates.club/services

• User-centric PLG in AI era course — join waitlist for future cohorts and get 100$ off: https://maven.com/growthmates/user-centric-product-led-growth?promoCode=growthmates

Follow Growthmates updates on:

• Growthmates website with “The Holistic Growth Playbook”: https://growthmates.club

• Substack Newsletter (for instant inbox delivery): https://www.growthmates.news/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/growthmates-podcast/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growthmates/

• X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/kate_syuma

Where to find Kate Syuma:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterina-syuma/

• Newsletter: https://www.growthmates.news/

Where to find Catt Small:

• Personal website: https://cattsmall.com

• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/cattsmall

• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/catt.design

• Book (The Staff Designer): https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/the-staff-designer/

Thank you for listening! Subscribe to the show on growthmates.club and get the free playbook with frameworks and insights.

If you’re enjoying the show, we’d love for you to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Your support helps us reach more listeners like you 💜

For sponsorship and other inquiries, reach out to hello@growthmates.club

Let’s keep growing together!

Subscribe now

AI products are rewriting many product experiences — but onboarding is still where most users decide whether a product will stay in their workflow or disappear after the first session.

Today’s guest post is by — she looked closely at how leading AI products onboard new users today. What patterns still come from classic SaaS onboarding? And what new approaches are emerging specifically for AI tools?

In this breakdown, we’ll walk you through real onboarding flows from products like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gamma, Synthesia, and Manus — highlighting what works, what still feels unresolved, and what product teams can learn from it today.

If you’re building or scaling a product-led company, these insights will help you rethink how fast users reach value — and where most onboarding flows still fail quietly.

Share

Introducing Viktoria Kharlamova (Growth Advisor, ex-Miro Growth)

Viktoria and I actually go way back — we worked together at Miro, where she was the company’s first Growth Product Manager, helping scale the product from an early startup to a global unicorn.

Today, she works as a Growth Advisor and Fractional CPO, helping B2B and B2C companies scale through product-led growth. She’s also deeply passionate about mentoring product managers and helping teams build strong growth cultures from the ground up. And in addition to that, she’s a very close friend of mine 🖤

In this piece, Vicki shares her observations after going through several leading AI onboarding experiences as a real user.

So let’s dive into her guest post👇

Over the last 5 years as a Growth Advisor, I’ve worked with 50+ companies, including Grammarly, Rask.ai, and Higgsfield.ai, and before that, I was the first Growth PM at Miro, for 5 years working on onboarding, activation, monetization, and virality, helping scale it from a startup to a unicorn.

After all that, you’d think I’d be tired of talking about onboarding. But honestly? It’s the one thing I keep coming back to, because it’s also where I keep seeing the same mistakes, no matter the product.

Most products don’t lose users dramatically. There’s no crash, no error screen, no obvious moment of failure. Users just... leave. They signed up, try around, and closed the tab before the product ever got a chance to prove itself. Activation fails quietly, long before anyone notices it in the data.

I recently sat down and went through the full onboarding flows of 7 leading AI-first products as a real user: Gamma.ai, Synthesia, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Midjourney, and Manus. What I found was a clear split between what still holds from the SaaS products and what AI products have had to figure out on their own.

What AI products inherited from SaaS

Some onboarding principles are timeless. No matter how new the technology, certain patterns appeared in every product analyzed.

📌 1. Fast time to value remains non-negotiable

The best flows got users to a real wow moment within three minutes.

Gamma.ai does this brilliantly - you enter a prompt and within seconds you’re looking at a full presentation draft.

Claude follows the same logic: low friction at the start, real output with a landing page with analysis and plan almost immediately.

After 10+ years watching products grow, I'd argue this is the single most important lever in onboarding. Not the copy, not the design, but how fast the product got user to aha moment.

📌 2. Personalization still matters a lot

When a product asks who you are and what you’re trying to accomplish, it’s not just collecting data, it’s telling you this product was built for someone like you. Then it provides you easy to start with the relevant tasks to follow effort-reward and decrease time to value.

Synthesia does this well, asking basic questions about role and goal and then provide easy start tasks.

📌 3. Upgrade and invite triggers need to be earned or positioned correctly.

We learned this in SaaS the hard way. Hitting users with a paywall or a invite your team screen before they’ve experienced any value doesn’t build urgency — it builds skepticism.

Perplexity has a nice take on this: they frame the upgrade as a 7-day gift they’re giving you at registration. Same trigger, completely different feeling.

Want to go deeper? Me and ran a research on User Onboarding and Activation with 80+ companies and turned everything into a practical playbook with experiments insight and — Onboard Report.

What are the pattern in AI products Onboarding

This is where it gets interesting and where I think most teams are still figuring things out.

📌 1. Let users try the product as fast as possible.

The first interaction isn’t a step in a funnel, it’s the opportunity to try before any investments and registeration. If that moment works, everything else gets easier.

Perplexity is a great example, no signup friction, you’re just land in the product immediately.

📌 2. Pre-made content matters more than before. Especially prompts.

In SaaS, features can often speak for themselves. In AI, the blank canvas is a real barrier. Users with lower AI familiarity don’t know what to ask or where to start. The products that offered example prompts, premade dialogues, or clear use case categories dramatically reduced drop-off at the most vulnerable moment — the first interaction.

ChatGPT shows pre-made chats that help users quickly understand what a good prompt looks like and start interacting immediately.

Synthesia with premade prompt for your video, so there is no need to write it from scratch, you can fix detail in 10 seconds and launch generation!

📌 3. Integrations are powerful tools for activation and retention.

AI tools don’t work in isolation, they live inside workflows. The products that surfaced integrations early, like Manus, gave users a reason to keep coming back and made themselves much harder to replace.

In my experience, the switching cost of any tool is almost always tied to how embedded it becomes in daily work. Onboarding is your first real shot at starting that process. After working on the growth of 7 AI product I see that integrations are the great tool to empower LR retention.

📌 4. Regulatory requirements add friction you can’t remove.

Age verification, AI disclosure notices, data consent - all these are unique to AI products and they interrupt the flow. The best products explained why they asking, which made the interruption feel more reasonable.

ChatGPT asks you birthday as do many other AI products. It also explains why they need this info.

📌 5. Value first, payment later.

In most AI products full activation takes time. You need multiple sessions, real use cases, and enough credits to actually form a habit. That means the activation metric correlates more with second and third month renewals than with the first purchase. But users still need to reach an Aha moment before they are ready to pay and it correlates with first payment a lot.

Gamma.ai handles this well: new users get free credits to explore the product, get to that Aha moment, and then the upgrade feels natural rather than forced.

What I’d want to see more of

Across almost all products, a few gaps kept appearing:

1. Measure the value users actually get. Most products have no idea whether their users reached an aha moment or just did some actions. Manus was the only product I saw making a real attempt at this and checking in on the results you got.

1. Ask about AI experience level. Almost nobody does this, and it surprises me a lot. It makes a huge difference whether someone uses AI tools every day or is trying it for the very first time.

2. Wait longer before asking to invite your team. So many products ask you to invite a colleague before you’ve even formed an opinion and got the value. That’s asking for a favor from someone who has no reason to give it yet.

What you can do right now:

Reading about onboarding is one thing. Actually improving it is another. Here’s where to start:

1. Map out your own onboarding flow end-to-end. Go through it as a real user and check the time how long it takes to reach an Aha moment. Then go back through all the principles I covered above and write a list of improvements to implement.

2. Audit your triggers. Find every place in your flow where you ask users to upgrade, invite a colleague, or fill in extra information. For each one, ask: has this user actually gotten value yet and if we position them correctly?

3. Explore all seven AI onboarding flows yourself. The full breakdown with screenshots and my notes is here, use it as a benchmark and a source of ideas for your own product.

Explore the full breakdown

Want to get onboarding right from day one?

Together, we turned all our knowledge and experience into a full course — Self-Serve Onboarding Foundations for Rapid Product Growth.

16 lessons, 4 hours of videos, insights from 80+ companies, and a self-paced format — all for €199. Built by two ex-Miro growth leads who’ve run 200+ experiments and helped scale products from a start-up to a unicorn. If you’re losing users in the first 7 days, this is where to start.

Get course for 199€ today →

This is all for today, dear readers. If you found this helpful — please share your reaction and leave some comments 💜 It would give a huge support for me to continue creating this!

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore more fantastic tools 👇

I curate the Growthmates Bundle to share not just ideas — but the tools I trust and use in my own work. Each one is a handpicked #1 tool for a key product area, and I’m proud to have them supporting this newsletter 🖤

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

If you find this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend, and consider subscribing if you haven’t already. There are some discounts available, and maybe you can expense this :)

Subscribe now

Connect with me on LinkedIn and learn more about my work on Growthmates.club.

With best regards,
Kate Syuma

When I created this season of Growthmates — The Creator’s Path — I was looking for people who do not just work in tech, but who genuinely live as creators. People who do not wait for permission. People who treat their career as something they can design. My conversation with Felix Haas was exactly that.

is an entrepreneur, designer, investor, and part of the team at Lovable. But what stood out to me was not the number of roles he has had (and there have been many). What stood out was his philosophy. Very early in the conversation, he said something that shaped the entire episode:

“I think entrepreneurship is a way of living”.

Felix Haas (Lovable)

For Felix, entrepreneurship is not about having a startup. It is not about a title on LinkedIn. It is about responsibility. It is about understanding that your environment, your career, and your trajectory are outcomes of your decisions. If you are not changing something, you are choosing it. That mindset alone reframes everything.

Brought to you by:

This episode is supported by tools I genuinely use and recommend:

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor— AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

Welcome to the season of Growthmates — The Creator’s Path

This episode of Growthmates — The Creator’s Path is about people who don’t wait for permission.

I was looking for people who do not fit neatly into predefined job descriptions, who design roles before they formally exist, and who treat life as something they can consciously architect rather than passively inherit. Felix is one of them.

He never planned to become a designer, and he certainly did not follow a linear corporate ladder. Instead, he chose to experiment extensively with his career. Over the years, he has held 18 different positions across agencies, corporate environments, startups, venture capital, angel investing, and various side projects.

He did not move through these roles because he was lost. He did it because he was testing.

You are the CEO of your own environment

Felix does not sharply separate “founder” and “employee.” At Lovable, he is not technically one of the founders. Yet he operates with a founder mindset. He takes ownership end-to-end. He thinks systemically. He does not wait for permission to improve something.

He describes entrepreneurship as the ability to design your life. You can design your job. You can design your environment. You can design the people you surround yourself with. But to do that, you need to stop seeing roles as fixed boxes.

One of my favorite stories from the episode was how he visualized joining a venture capital firm before it happened. He screenshotted their team page and added himself into it in Figma. No one saw it. It was not a public manifestation. It was internal alignment.

By the time he spoke with the partners, he did not feel like a candidate trying to get in. He felt like someone who already belonged, and eventually, he did join them. He explained it simply: if you do not believe the role exists for you, why would anyone else believe it?

Why should startups hire founders?

Felix strongly believes that startups should hire people with a founder mentality, even if they are joining as employees. He does not define this by title, he defines it by behavior.

Founders think end-to-end. They move with urgency, take responsibility, they care deeply about outcomes. However, what makes Lovable interesting is that they do not cage those people. They allow side projects.

This might sound counterintuitive in traditional corporate environments where outside work is often restricted. But Felix sees curiosity as a superpower. People who build side projects expand their thinking. They explore. They experiment. That makes them better at their core job, not worse.

You cannot hire ambitious, entrepreneurial people and then expect them to stop being curious.

Make decisions. Even wrong ones.

Felix has worked in a massive German corporation with over 60,000 employees. He has built and exited projects. He ran a design agency, worked in hypergrowth startups, invested and experimented constantly. And walked away from things that no longer fit.

He shared a belief that stayed with me:

“Not making a decision is worse than making a bad one”

Felix Haas (Lovable)

A bad decision teaches you. It gives you data. It sharpens your intuition. Avoiding decisions keeps you stagnant. This is especially important for high performers who overthink their next move. Clarity rarely comes from thinking alone. It comes from movement.

The moment everything changes

Toward the end of our conversation, Felix said something that I believe every aspiring creator needs to hear:

“The moment you start building something, the moment you start putting something out there and people realize that — they’re gonna help you”.

Felix Haas (Lovable)

While you are invisible, it is easy to be ignored. The moment you create and publish, something shifts. Support appears, feedback appears, conversations start, confidence does not come first. Action does and support often follows courage, not the other way around.

What inspires him today

At Lovable, Felix sees something powerful happening. He sees people who never considered themselves builders becoming builders.

He told me about a woman in her mid-forties who works as an English teacher. She does not have a computer science degree.

She has never been through an accelerator. But she built her own educational app for her students. That story moves him more than another experienced founder launching yet another startup. Because if she can build, others can too and that is the shift we are living through.

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore more fantastic tools 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

🤝 Want to collaborate with Kate Syuma and Growthmates?

• Explore collaboration with Growthmates here: https://growthmates.club/services

• User-centric PLG in AI era course — join waitlist for future cohorts and get 100$ off: https://maven.com/growthmates/user-centric-product-led-growth?promoCode=growthmates

Follow Growthmates updates on:

• Growthmates website with “The Holistic Growth Playbook”: https://growthmates.club

• Substack Newsletter (for instant inbox delivery):

  https://www.growthmates.news/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/growthmates-podcast/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growthmates/

• X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/kate_syuma

Where to find Kate Syuma:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterina-syuma/

• Newsletter: https://www.growthmates.news/

Where to find Felix Haas:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/felixhhaas/

• Personal page: https://fh.design/

• X (Twitter): https://x.com/felixhhaas

• Lovable: https://lovable.dev

• Mastering Lovable Playbook: https://designplusai.com/p/mastering-lovable-playbook

Thank you for listening! Subscribe to the show on growthmates.club and get the free playbook with frameworks and insights.

If you’re enjoying the show, we’d love for you to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Your support helps us reach more listeners like you 💜

For sponsorship and other inquiries, reach out to hello@growthmates.club

Let’s keep growing together!

Subscribe now

If it feels like we haven’t properly paused together in a while — you’re right. Winter was full. Full of projects, shifts, new beginnings, long-term decisions, and a bit of quiet magic in between ✨

Some seasons are loud, some are reflective and this one felt like both. Between launching a new podcast season, stepping into a new advisory role, refreshing courses, working deeply with clients, and navigating a very personal life transition — the last few months moved fast.

And just in case you missed something during this winter season of building, reflecting, and becoming — I wrapped everything up for you in one cozy recap ❄️👇

🚀 Growthmates Recap: Top of Winter

If you’re reading this newsletter, thank you truly. Winter always makes me slow down and zoom out a little. It’s the season where the outside world gets quieter — and the internal one gets louder. This winter felt like a real transition moment for me and for Growthmates.

Subscribe now

There were new projects, new responsibilities, new collaborations and a few life changes that reshaped how I think about work, energy, and the future. We relaunched the Growthmates podcast with a fresh focus on The Creator Path — inviting builders who are designing leverage instead of trading time for money. We refreshed and relaunched our onboarding course with Viktoria, making it more practical and accessible than ever.

I joined 4 new clients as a PLG Advisor, including Autodesk — my first Fortune-500 client, and Dealfront — stepping into product at scale again, but from a different lens.

And personally… this winter brought something even more transformative. More on that below 💜 It’s been intense, beautiful, defining. Here are the highlights from this winter season 👇

Before we dive in… Meet Growthmates Partners 🚀

I curate the Growthmates Bundle to share not just ideas — but the tools I trust and use in my own work. Each one is a handpicked #1 tool for a key product area, and I’m proud to have them supporting this newsletter 🖤

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore these fantastic tools below 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

💫 Highlights of last quarter:

A new season of Growthmates podcast - The Creator Path — This winter we relaunched the Growthmates podcast with a clearer focus on The Creator Path — conversations with builders who choose leverage over linear careers. I had the joy of speaking with Nad Chishtie, Ioana Teleanu, and Michael Riddering about long-term thinking, discipline, and the courage to articulate your ideas publicly. One idea that stayed with me: when you share your thinking consistently, you don’t just post — you attract the right people over time. More thoughtful episodes are coming soon ✨

A personal new chapter — This winter also brought a deeply personal shift for me. Two years ago, in a full-time leadership role, I couldn’t imagine how motherhood could fit into a life built around intensity and constant meetings. After two years of building Growthmates and learning to trust myself beyond corporate stability, everything feels different — more grounded, more intentional, more sustainable. For the first time, this new chapter feels possible, and I wanted to share that with you 💜

Joining Dealfront as PLG advisor — This quarter, I joined Dealfront as a PLG Advisor — a step that feels like a natural continuation of my work across activation, onboarding, and user-centric growth. We’re shaping a more unified and scalable approach to Product-Led Growth by aligning product, design, and GTM as one system. I’m grateful for the trust and excited to build at a global scale again — and yes, we’re growing the team.

Growthmates is becoming truly global — This quarter I paused and realized that Growthmates has now reached professionals across 21 countries and 50+ cities, with 3,000+ students joining the journey through my classes and lightning lessons 🔥. From day one, I chose to build globally rather than locally, even when it felt harder. Seeing students from companies I deeply admire join the course reminded me that thinking beyond geography compounds in powerful ways.

📬 Featured Articles & Resources:

• The Creator’s Path episode with Nad — Nad Chishtie on dropping out at 18, the power of generalists, and why AI removes the limits of digital creation;

• The Creator’s Path episode with Ioana — Ioana Teleanu on burnout, identity loss, art as resistance, and why optimizing for humanity matters more than speed;

• The Creator’s Path episode with Michael — Michael Ridd on building leverage, turning a school into a podcast, raising a round, and why creators will become the next generation of founders;

• The 3 PLG experiments that grew Mobbin’s expansion revenue +20% — Quick wins, meaningful shifts, and one big bet that transformed their user journey (with exact tactics you can steal);

• 15 bitter truths about Growth: how to scale without sacrificing quality — A short, practical list of what truly drives sustainable product growth — without breaking experience;

• PLG 2025 Rewind: Biggest trends and major updates — How onboarding evolved, what actually moved PLG, how AI reshaped UX, and more;

• 3 AI tools that can surprise your Growth team — Figma Make, Magic Patterns, Obi by Cor — AI tools that can boost your growth;

• Why users get lost in your product — If users can’t understand how your product is structured, they can’t discover value on their own. Lessons from HubSpot, Asana, Vercel, Calendly, and Pitch;

• Your product should prove its value in under 60 seconds — A strong signal of value matters more than a full “aha” — examples from Duolingo, Miro, Notion, and Foldspace.

📣 Would you like to share your product story or co-create valuable content together? I’m opening a calendar and planning sponsored engagements 👉 Send your request to hello@growthmates.club.

🖤 Personal stories on Creator & Founder Path:

• Year 2 of solopreneurship felt different. Not louder — deeper. I focused less on chasing milestones and more on building with ease, intuition, and scale as guiding principles.

• Growthmates quietly expanded: 15 company collaborations (including Autodesk, Monday, Amplitude, Framer), 5 long-term brand partners, 80+ students in the PLG course, and LinkedIn growing from 10K to 24K+ this year. From the outside it looked “fast” — inside it felt intentional.

• I learned that you can’t build everything at once. Curiosity works better than pressure. And feeling at ease is not laziness — it’s often the foundation for better work.

• 2025 felt like integration. 2026 feels like a transformation, and I’m looking forward to what it’s going to unpack ✨

  

P.S. I appreciate how my solopreneurship stories on LinkedIn were well received — I really didn’t expect that resonance, and I truly enjoyed answering each comment and sharing real life stories.

🚀 Featured LinkedIn posts & Industry buzz:

• Steal 20+ behavioural UX animations for FREE 🔥 — I analysed delightful micro-interactions from products like Slack, Airbnb, Duolingo, and Claude, breaking down the behavioural psychology behind habit-forming animations that turn simple actions into momentum.

👉 Get Free asset →

• Duolingo’s onboarding = Activation masterclass — A step-by-step breakdown of how Duolingo removes friction, builds confidence in under 60 seconds, and makes users feel progress before asking for commitment.

  

• The most damaging PLG myth — Why chasing more experiments no longer drives sustainable growth, and why improving the core product experience now creates far stronger system-level impact than endless A/B tests.

• In 2026, there are zero excuses left — A reflection on launching ideas before feeling “ready” and why the new Creator’s Path podcast season is my tribute to builders who start before they have permission.

• The ultimate growth flow collection (25 Best examples) 🚀 — A curated board of onboarding, activation, sharing, and upgrade flows from Canva, Notion, Figma, Loom and more — built to inspire your 2026 roadmap.

  

  👉 Get Free collection →

• Sign-up ss the most expensive assumption in B2B SaaS 💸 — A practical breakdown of why early profiling shapes activation success, plus a 10-minute AI-powered prototype process teams can test before Q1 planning.

• 4 PLG truths before entering 2026 — Lessons from training 60+ people at monday.com on why growth happens in loops, AI adoption starts with emotional safety, and user psychology still beats feature velocity.

• Steal Canva’s reverse trial flow — A deep teardown of how Canva turns upgrades into earned momentum instead of pressure, and why showing value always converts better than convincing.

📣 Growthmates reading radar — check this out:

• 40 AI x GTM plays that actually drive pipeline — 30 GTM leaders share 40 proven AI workflows across content, prospecting, ABM, and sales — all runnable with standard LLMs and no tech background by

• Turn 320 podcast episodes into AI mentors in Notion — How to transform Lenny’s podcast transcripts into searchable AI personas inside Notion for instant, contextual advice.

• 8 Battle-tested prompt frameworks for PMs — A ready-to-use library of AI prompt frameworks to ship PRDs, docs, analysis, and exec updates faster by

• Prediction: Websites are disappearing — Why AI-era winners replace static landing pages with instant, interactive product experiences by

• I Built my Own executive coach in ChatGPT — A solopreneur story about replacing chaos with clarity by designing a personal AI coach for focus, revenue, and reset before 2026 by

🤝 More ways I can be useful to you:

• Onboarding Design Sprint 🏃‍♀️

  I will work closely with your team to help you fix your product growth challenges and improve the first user experience that can drive x2 uplift on your Activation.

  👉 Work with me → (only 1 slot till April 🔥)

• PLG Advising for your company 🧠

  Hands-on, in-depth advising across product, UX, and growth to build a scalable, sustainable PLG system that will last for years.

  👉 Work with me → (fully booked, available from November 📆)

• PLG Training for your team 🎓

  A structured PLG training using the same frameworks I’ve taught teams at Grammarly, Autodesk, Monday.com, Intercom, Atlassian, and more.

  👉 Work with me → (1 slot till April 🔥)

• Brand Partnerships 📩

  Let’s tell your product story to a trusted audience of 30,000+ product, design, and growth leaders — and co-create meaningful content that inspires the wider product and design community.

  👉 Send an inquiry to hello@growthmates.club (1 slots till May 🔥)

• Premium Edition 💎

  If you’re getting value from this newsletter, get access to full archive with more frameworks, teardowns, and exclusive content on PLG, Activation, AI, and how to build meaningful products that delight users.
  👉 Upgrade to Premium and get full access.

💬 Quote of the month:

“Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while you work.”

HENRI MATISSE

This is all for today, dear readers. If you find this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend or another creative builder 💜 It would give huge support for me to continue creating this!

What topics or stories would you want to explore next? Share your thoughts and requests in the comments!

If you like it, consider subscribing if you haven’t already done so. There are some discounts available, and maybe you can expense this :)

Subscribe now

Connect with me on LinkedIn and learn more about my work on Growthmates.club.

With best regards,
Kate Syuma

When I was at the very beginning of what later became my own “Creator’s path” I met Michael Ridd. At that time, I didn’t even have language for what I wanted to explore. There was only a quiet curiosity about building something of my own. Watching what Michael was creating gave that curiosity direction.

In 2023, he introduced me to Maven — which eventually led me to launch my course User-Centric Product-Led Growth in the AI Era. Since then, the course has scaled to 100+ professionals from companies like Atlassian, Dropbox, Miro, and more.

That same year, Michael left Maven, where he had been a founding designer, and doubled down on his creative path. He built Figma Academy, launched Dive.club, and began developing his own 0→1 product.

From the outside, it looked bold and decisive. From the inside — as we discuss in this episode — it required discipline, consistency, and a willingness to commit to the long game. I was also honored to be a guest on his Dive podcast (We’ve added this to the resources below.)

This time, when we recorded again, the conversation went in a different direction.

Brought to you by:

This episode is supported by tools I genuinely use and recommend:

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor— AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

Welcome to the season of Growthmates — The Creator’s Path

This episode of Growthmates — The Creator’s Path is about what happens after momentum.

We didn’t talk about acceleration. We talked about friction — about what actually starts breaking when companies scale and why most founders misdiagnose the problem. Not because they lack experience. But because complexity is quiet at first.

Anyone who has scaled beyond early-stage chaos has felt this. More customers don’t just generate more revenue — they generate more exceptions, more edge cases, more coordination costs, and more decisions that no longer fit the original structure.

From the outside, it looks like growth. From the inside, it often feels like slowdown.

And that’s where structural clarity becomes more important than speed.

Structural clarity over surface growth

This episode isn’t about branding, performance marketing, or growth hacks. It’s about operating models, decision rights, and the invisible tax companies pay when ownership becomes blurred and incentives drift apart.

Michael has spent years working with scaling organizations, and one recurring pattern keeps showing up: companies add people faster than they add clarity — and then wonder why speed disappears.

That distinction feels simple, but it explains so much. Strategy decks don’t scale companies. Decision architecture does.

Without clear decision rights and explicit trade-offs, teams optimize locally instead of systemically. Marketing optimizes for leads, product optimizes for features, sales optimizes for revenue — and no one optimizes for coherence.

Growth doesn’t create structural problems. It exposes them.

From selling time → to building leverage

We also revisited Michael’s personal shift — from selling time to building leverage.

He once described the turning point as a simple but powerful realization: distribution compounds. He didn’t have a perfectly formed startup idea, but he understood that showing up consistently would create optionality.

For six months, he woke up at 5 AM, opened Figma, created something, and shared it. No guarantees. No immediate payoff. Just signal gathering and repetition.

As he put it:

“I got a little bit militant actually — and it kind of worked.”

Michael Ridd, (Dive.club, InFlight)

That consistency eventually evolved into Figma Academy, then Dive, and later into building a product from scratch.

Building energy, not just optics

One of the most surprising parts of Michael’s journey is that Dive didn’t start as a podcast. It began as an advanced design school that generated over $1M in course revenue. On paper, it worked.

Behind the scenes, however, it was operationally chaotic.

When Michael began recording conversations with instructors, something shifted. It felt energizing. Instead of optimizing for what looked good externally, he started optimizing for what sustained him internally.

The podcast was first tested as a gated lead magnet — and thousands of people signed up just to listen. That was signal. Then came commitment: over 120 consecutive weeks of publishing.

Because when something gives you energy, you can stay in the game long enough for compounding to happen.

Creator and founder are not opposites

Another theme we explored is the blurred line between creator and founder.

Michael challenged the idea that these are two different identities. As software becomes cheaper to build and AI lowers technical barriers, ideas and distribution become primary leverage. In that world, creators are not “adjacent” to startups — they may be the most strategic co-founders.

His podcast became more than content. It became:

• a learning engine;

• a network magnet;

• a long-term distribution asset

And now, as he builds his product, that distribution becomes a structural advantage.

The long game

We briefly touched on algorithms, platforms, and content formats. But the deeper theme of this conversation is much simpler:

You have to choose a game you’re willing to play even when nothing happens. Because for a long time, nothing does.

And then if you’ve designed well — everything compounds:

• Reputation compounds;

• Distribution compounds;

• Skill compounds;

• Trust compounds.

But none of it compounds in public at first. It compounds quietly — in drafts no one sees, in ideas that don’t land yet, in small signals that feel almost invisible.

This episode is a reminder that the real advantage isn’t speed. It’s staying and designing your path in a way that makes staying possible.

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore more fantastic tools 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

🤝 Want to collaborate with Kate Syuma and Growthmates?

• Explore collaboration with Growthmates here: https://growthmates.club/services

• User-centric PLG in AI era course — join waitlist for future cohorts and get 100$ off: https://maven.com/growthmates/user-centric-product-led-growth?promoCode=growthmates

Follow Growthmates updates on:

• Growthmates website with “The Holistic Growth Playbook”: https://growthmates.club

• Substack Newsletter (for instant inbox delivery):

  https://www.growthmates.news/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/growthmates-podcast/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growthmates/

• X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/kate_syuma

Where to find Kate Syuma:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterina-syuma/

• Newsletter: https://www.growthmates.news/

Where to find Michael Ridd:

• Dive Club: https://dive.club

• Inflight: https://inflight.co

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ridd_design

• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/michaelriddering

• Figma Academy: https://figma.academy

• Dive Club Ep. 30 with me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np4ujOy1Yhw

Thank you for listening! Subscribe to the show on growthmates.club and get the free playbook with frameworks and insights.

If you’re enjoying the show, we’d love for you to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Your support helps us reach more listeners like you 💜

For sponsorship and other inquiries, reach out to hello@growthmates.club

Let’s keep growing together!

Subscribe now

Most products don’t lose users because they’re hard to use. They lose them because nothing meaningful happens early enough.

In the first session, users aren’t looking for mastery or feature depth. They’re looking for a reason to believe — that this product makes sense, feels relevant, and won’t make them feel lost or incapable. This issue is about what really matters in the first 60 seconds — and how products can earn confidence before asking for effort.

Share

This post is brought to you by Foldspace

Foldspace is building what activation increasingly needs: an AI-native product experience that lets users act before they learn.

Instead of asking users to figure out where things live, Foldspace embeds an AI co-pilot directly into your product. Users simply express intent — import contacts, prepare for a meeting, move a deal forward — and the agent guides them through the UI or executes the workflow on their behalf.

👉 Try it yourself at Foldspace.ai

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore more fantastic tools 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

Now, let’s dive into today’s story 👇

When nothing breaks, but belief never forms

Activation rarely fails loudly. It fails quietly when belief arrives too late.

Most SaaS products don’t lose users because they’re confusing or underpowered. They lose users because nothing meaningful happens early enough to keep curiosity alive. The first session is rarely about mastery. It’s about whether the product makes sense before it asks for effort.

In those early moments, users aren’t evaluating feature depth. They’re orienting themselves. They’re trying to understand whether this product fits into their world at all.

Users are silently asking:

• Do I understand what this product is for?

• Does it feel relevant to me?

• Can I imagine myself succeeding here?

If the product can’t answer these questions quickly, onboarding doesn’t technically fail. Users simply disengage — not because something went wrong, but because nothing compelling happened soon enough.

Why the first minute is about confidence, not the full “aha”

Activation discussions often focus on the full “aha moment.” But for most products, that moment naturally takes time. Collaboration tools need collaborators. Analytics tools need data. Complex workflows need repetition.

That doesn’t mean the product should feel empty at the start.

What matters in the first minute is not full value, but confidence. Users don’t need proof that the product will solve everything. They need a believable signal that it can solve something — and that they’re capable of using it.

You can see this pattern clearly outside of onboarding, too.

When Miro introduced Intelligent Canvas, the goal wasn’t to make users productive in 60 seconds. The page leads with concrete, familiar scenarios — sprint planning, retrospectives, team workshops — so intelligence feels collaborative, not abstract. Before users try anything, they already understand where this fits in their work.

Notion made a similar shift over time. Earlier versions explained what the product was made of: notes, docs, databases. Today, the site speaks in outcomes: “You assign the task. Your agent does the work.” The first interaction isn’t about learning Notion — it’s about imagining yourself succeeding with it.

This is why time-to-first-value is being reinterpreted. Not as compression, but as direction. Confidence forms when users feel guided rather than tested, and when early progress is visible before commitment is required.

Mini-aha moments exist for this reason. Not as demos, but as confidence builders. When users feel “this can help me,” they’re willing to invest time and move toward deeper value.

When software stops teaching interfaces — and starts acting with users

AI changes activation in a meaningful way when it removes translation work from the user.

Traditional onboarding assumes users must first learn the product. Where things live. How workflows are structured. Which buttons matter. But many users don’t want to learn a system before they see results. They want results first, and understanding later.

That’s what stood out to me when I tried Foldspace.

Instead of being introduced to the interface, I could immediately express intent. Import contacts, view an account, or move a deal forward. Prepare for a meeting. The product acted with me, without requiring me to translate my goals into UI steps.

Foldspace earns belief in the first minute because it:

• Removes the need to understand the interface

• Lets users act before learning the system

• Shows outcomes before explanations

Activation happens not because the product is simpler, but because the user never has to ask where to start.

This idea isn’t new — Duolingo solved it without AI

AI isn’t the only way to earn belief early. Some products have been doing this long before AI entered the picture.

Duolingo is a clear example. I recently shared a breakdown of Duolingo’s onboarding on LinkedIn — and honestly didn’t expect it to resonate this much. But the reaction made sense. What Duolingo gets right is not motivation or gamification in isolation. It’s the emotional state they create in the first 60 seconds.

Within the first minute, you haven’t learned a language. But you’ve learned something more important: you’ve started, you didn’t do it wrong, and you can keep going.

It doesn’t test users. It reassures them. That shift — from hesitation to momentum — is what makes long-term retention possible.

Here are some examples of how Duolingo earns belief early, step by step:

1. It removes the blank page immediately

The first decision is easy: pick a language. No account friction. No long forms. You’re in motion within seconds.

2. It asks questions that feel supportive, not extractive

“Why are you learning?” “How much do you already know?”. It doesn’t feel like data collection. It feels like the product is trying to meet you where you are.

3. It sells the payoff before asking for effort

Before lesson one, Duolingo shows what you’ll gain by continuing — creating motivation before commitment.

Duolingo doesn’t test users. It reassures them.

All of the screens in this flow were pulled from Mobbin, which continues to be my go-to source when I want to study onboarding patterns that actually work.

👉 You can see the full visual breakdown in the carousel — and the original post here:

Get full Duolingo Breakdown →

The 60-second activation checklist

You don’t need benchmarks or dashboards to explore this in your own product. You can sense it by looking at the experience itself.

Ask:

• Can users do something meaningful without knowing where things live?

• Does the first interaction reduce fear or introduce it?

• Is progress visible before commitment is required?

• Does the product behave more like a guide — or a manual?

These questions apply beyond onboarding screens. They touch product structure, naming, defaults, and increasingly, how AI is embedded into workflows.

What this means for modern PLG teams

Across all the examples in this issue, from onboarding flows to AI copilots, one pattern keeps repeating.

Products don’t lose users because they’re hard to use. They lose them because the early experience doesn’t help users orient themselves.

Time-to-first-value is evolving. It’s no longer just about speed. It’s about orientation, confidence, and trust.

The products that win the next phase of product-led growth won’t be the ones with more onboarding steps or clever walkthroughs. They’ll be the ones who earn belief early and allow value to reveal itself progressively.

Because if belief doesn’t form in the first minute, users rarely stay long enough to discover what the product can really do. Designing for the first minute isn’t about speeding users up. It’s about helping them feel grounded — so they’re willing to stay and discover the rest.

🤝 Would you like to work with Growthmates in 2026?

Over the last few years, Growthmates has intentionally moved toward deeper, more focused collaborations — the kind where there’s time to think, challenge assumptions, and build something meaningful with a team, not just for them.

That’s the energy I’m taking into 2026. Because of this, I’m keeping my client work deliberately small and focused. Q1 will be the only window for 1:1 work for a while.

If you’ve been thinking about strengthening your onboarding, activation, or PLG foundation — this is likely the right moment. Here’s what I’m opening up for Q1:

• Onboarding Design Sprint 🏃‍♀️

  I will work closely with your team to help you fix your product growth challenges and improve the first user experience that can drive x2 uplift on your Activation.

  👉 Work with me → (only 1 slot till April 🔥)

• PLG Advising for your company 🧠

  Hands-on, in-depth advising across product, UX, and growth to build a scalable, sustainable PLG system that will last for years.

  👉 Work with me → (only 1 slot till April🔥)

• PLG Training for your team 🎓

  A structured PLG training using the same frameworks I’ve taught teams at Grammarly, Autodesk, Monday.com, Intercom, Atlassian, and more.

  👉 Work with me → (2 slots till April 🔥)

• Brand Partnerships 📩

  Let’s tell your product story to a trusted audience of 30,000+ product, design, and growth leaders — and co-create meaningful content that inspires the wider product and design community.

  👉 Send an inquiry to hello@growthmates.club (2 slots till May 🔥)

• Premium Edition 💎

  If you’re getting value from this newsletter, get access to full archive with more frameworks, teardowns, and exclusive content on PLG, Activation, AI, and how to build meaningful products that delight users.
  👉 Upgrade to Premium and get full access.

This is all for today, dear readers. If you found this helpful — please share your reaction and leave some comments 💜 It would give a huge support for me to continue creating this!

If you find this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend, and consider subscribing if you haven’t already. There are some discounts available, and maybe you can expense this :)

Subscribe now

Connect with me on LinkedIn and learn more about my work on Growthmates.club.

With best regards,
Kate Syuma

A couple of years ago, Ioana and I already recorded a podcast together. Back then, the conversation was about design, tools, and work inside the system.

This time, everything felt different. We met again not to “catch up” — but to reflect. To slow down. To talk honestly about what happens when your professional identity dissolves, when titles stop working, and when the systems you helped build no longer feel aligned with your values.

Ioana recently found herself in San Francisco, at an Adobe AI summit for creators. When asked to introduce herself in a room full of filmmakers, illustrators, and technologists, she froze. For the first time in her life, she couldn’t explain who she was.

Product designer? AI educator? Artist? Creator? Business owner? And then she realized: everyone in the room was going through the same identity crisis.

Brought to you by:

This episode is supported by tools I genuinely use and recommend:

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor— AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

Welcome to the season of Growthmates — The Creator’s Path

This episode of Growthmates — The Creator’s Path is about allowing uncertainty instead of fighting it.

Ioana speaks openly about:

• losing a stable professional identity

• burnout and moral conflict with the tech industry

• questioning whether more AI really means a better world

• and the moment she asked herself: “When do we optimize for humanity?”

After years of working at UiPath and Miro, building award-winning AI products and teaching others how to design with AI, Ioana hit a breaking point.

She no longer believed that impact could only be made inside large systems. So she stepped out. Not into a clear plan — but into space.

The freedom to be without a fixed identity

This conversation isn’t about career growth, tools, or how to “stay relevant” in the AI era. It’s about what happens after everything you used to be stops making sense.

When titles dissolve. When the system you believed in starts to feel misaligned. When productivity no longer answers the most important questions.

A couple of years ago, Ioana Teleanu and I recorded a podcast about design, work, and building inside tech companies. This time, we met in a very different place.

Ioana had just returned from San Francisco, where she attended an Adobe AI summit for creators. Surrounded by filmmakers, artists, and technologists, she was asked a simple question: “So, who are you?”

And for the first time in her life, she couldn’t answer.

“I froze. I realized I had no idea how to introduce myself anymore.”

Ioana Teleanu, AI x Design (ex Miro, UiPath)

Product designer, AI educator, artist, creator, business owner — none of the labels felt fully true. And then something clicked: almost everyone in that room was experiencing the same identity crisis.

When the system stops giving answers

After years at UiPath and Miro — building award-winning AI products, teaching others how to design with AI, and speaking on global stages — Ioana hit a breaking point.

Not because she failed. But because she started questioning what all this optimization was actually for.

“At some point I started asking myself — when do we optimize for humanity?”

Burnout wasn’t just exhaustion. It was a moral and philosophical conflict with the tech industry’s obsession with speed, scale, and sameness.

So Ioana stepped away from certainty. Not into a clear plan — but into space.

Art, uncertainty, and asking better questions

One of the central shifts we explore in this episode is how Ioana reframed creation itself. Design answers questions. Science answers questions. Art raises them.

She talks about how burnout pushed her toward art — not as an escape, but as resistance. As a way to question technology, power, aesthetics, and the future we’re collectively building.

“I stopped trying to explain myself — and started experimenting instead.”

Without art school, credentials, permission. Just curiosity, intuition, and daily visual research.

Freedom before clarity

For the first time in years, Ioana allowed herself to:

• pause without guilt

• explore without a fixed outcome

• stop optimizing for money

• and fully commit to experimentation

Ironically, this was also the period when she started earning more than ever before. Not because she chased growth — but because meaning came first.

We talk about why:

• doing “half-work” on many things leads nowhere

• experimentation requires commitment, not side projects

• money often becomes a byproduct, not a goal

Creating a connection, not performance

This episode is also about sharing work without performing.

Ioana tells a quiet story about posting something on Instagram that almost no one saw — and how it led to a deep human connection that mattered more than any metric.

You don’t need virality. You don’t need to be loud. Sometimes reaching one person is enough.

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore more fantastic tools 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

🤝 Want to collaborate with Kate Syuma and Growthmates?

• Explore collaboration with Growthmates here: https://growthmates.club/services

• User-centric PLG in AI era course — join waitlist for future cohorts and get 100$ off: https://maven.com/growthmates/user-centric-product-led-growth?promoCode=growthmates

Follow Growthmates updates on:

• Growthmates website with “The Holistic Growth Playbook”: https://growthmates.club

• Substack Newsletter (for instant inbox delivery):

  https://www.growthmates.news/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/growthmates-podcast/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growthmates/

• X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/kate_syuma

Where to find Kate Syuma:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterina-syuma/

• Newsletter: https://www.growthmates.news/

Where to find Ioana Teleanu:

• Instagram (UX Goodies): https://instagram.com/uxgoodies

• Instagram (Personal): https://instagram.com/ioana.teleanu

• Instagram (Art Account - Soft Machines): https://instagram.com/softmachines.art

• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/ioanateleanu

• AI for Designers Course (Interaction Design Foundation): https://interaction-design.org

Thank you for listening! Subscribe to the show on growthmates.club and get the free playbook with frameworks and insights.

If you’re enjoying the show, we’d love for you to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Your support helps us reach more listeners like you 💜

For sponsorship and other inquiries, reach out to hello@growthmates.club

Let’s keep growing together!

Subscribe now

Think about the last pricing page you saw. Can you remember what you were actually buying? Was it a product? A suite? Tool?

It might seem like a small detail to spend time on, but this aspect of a company’s verbal identity is crucial for everything from GTM strategy to internal operations. It’s a system that connects how the product is built, explained, discovered, sold, and measured.

Share

Before we dive in… Meet Growthmates Partners 🚀

I curate the Growthmates Bundle to share not just ideas — but the tools I trust and use in my own work. Each one is a handpicked #1 tool for a key product area, and I’m proud to have them supporting this newsletter 🖤

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore these fantastic tools below 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

What you’ll learn today:

Today, we’re unpacking how product taxonomy quietly shapes growth — from onboarding to pricing — and what “good” actually looks like in practice:

• Why deliberate product structure is foundational for PLG growth (and where clarity debt comes from);

• How taxonomy influences positioning, packaging, and pricing decisions;

• How to design a product hierarchy that’s easy to learn today and scalable tomorrow;

• When naming helps differentiation — and when it actively hurts adoption;

• A practical framework to audit or build your product architecture from scratch.

Now, let’s dive into today’s story 👇

Introducing Kaysie Garza

Kaysie combines a decade of tech experience with a background in Linguistics to shape digital experiences and design things that make sense. After finding her place in Product at InVision, she went on to consult for ambitious agencies and high-growth companies. In 2021, she established the content design discipline at Hotjar, then integrated it into a larger analytics company after an acquisition. Today, you’ll find her leading and designing at Contentsquare.

So how does taxonomy trickle into product strategy and its success? It happens through layers. As Jesse James Garrett explains through his framework on the 5 planes of user experience, the structure comes before the surface. In other words, the taxonomy comes before any name.

Today, we’ll cover a handful of information design topics:

• Why deliberate product structure is critical for growth

• What to keep in mind as a PLG company getting off the ground

• How to set up a structure that scales

• Examples of what “good” looks like

In Jesse’s model, the upper planes are where all the product-led growth magic we know about happens — the viral loops, the activation experiments, the onboarding content strategies.

But when new or growing companies jump right into optimizing and flywheeling without clearly defining what their thing is or how it’s structured, growth potential gets limited and clarity debt builds. Positioning isn’t as clear, packaging might not click, and naming could spiral out of control with every new release.

Taxonomy is a system. It’s how you organize, categorize, and label information in a common space (in your case, a product). In a PLG context, your taxonomy must work simultaneously for:

1. Users (to help with learning and adopting)

2. Product teams (when building and shipping)

3. Growth teams (during onboarding and activation)

4. Sales and marketing (for positioning and pricing)

5. Analytics (in measuring usage and value)

Here’s a breakdown of how to apply information design principles for a stronger offering, and how to use that structure to define naming conventions that make sense (and make cents).

Shape your structure with the Principle of Least Effort in mind

Brains get tired. We all want to conserve mental energy, even if you don’t consciously decide to. This is why I recommend aiming for a maximum of about 3 “levels” within a product’s hierarchy. For example, you might classify all your functionality into categories like Product > Tool > Feature, or even just Product > Feature.

✅ Who does it well: Vercel

Simple structures cater to people taking the easiest path to understanding. Imagine this play out on site navigation: a Product dropdown opens to a few tools, and those each open to detailed feature descriptions.

Having just two or three levels is also pretty common across SaaS, and that’s a good thing. Prior knowledge plays a big part in comprehension, so even a new company without the recognition of PLG giants can take advantage of this structural norm.

💥 Why this matters for PLG

Schema Theory focuses on the idea that learners who relate new info to existing mental models are more likely to understand and remember the info. An example of a complicated structure might be a Suite, made of Products, that each contain Tools, that each have multiple Features. This gives your users 4 levels to learn, especially if that isn’t common in your space.

If you’re building a PLG motion or trying to compete with someone more established, don’t reinvent the wheel. Keep your structure simple.

Connect the dots from experience to packaging

This is where I’ve seen the biggest gap between Product and Marketing emerge. Ideally, your classification of functionality aligns with how packages get put together. The most obvious handshake between these happens on your pricing page.

✅ Who does it well: HubSpot

I’ve been working on this topic for years, and I still haven’t seen it done better than HubSpot. When you look across touchpoints, there’s a consistent taxonomy: Platform > Product > Features, and it’s easy to see how they slot actual functionality into each category.

This isn’t just clear and consistent, it’s smart. According to Dual Coding Theory, people remember and learn better when information is given with a mix of text and visuals, like in site menus or navigation. One reinforces the other, and when you’re launching software, learnability is crucial for that growth momentum.

💥 Why this matters for PLG

Your taxonomy will never be fully user facing, but there are hints about whether or not it exists. Usually, that glimpse into your structure happens on pricing pages, navigation menus, help docs, and upsell or cross-sell moments.

These are the places where you have the opportunity to reinforce clarity with dual coding. When you do, there’s a big upside:

• You improve comprehension and recall → good for adoption and engagement

• You reduce cognitive load → good for expansion

• You match language with interface meaning → good for usability and building trust

Treat clarity as infrastructure

Confusion costs money. Without a shared way to classify what you build, more than just user understanding breaks down. It trickles into your operations, knowledge management, research studies, GTM release tiers, localization strategy, and more. When this kind of deliberate structure isn’t adopted and democratized, a lot can go wrong.

In a previous company, I saw pricing page conversions drop 20% after restructuring one product into two. This wasn’t only because of the packaging change. It disrupted the product taxonomy and confused customers about how different features were grouped and related to one another.

In my experience, the issues also tend to compound.

💥 Why this matters for PLG

Easy to start, easy to learn, easy to grow over time. That’s the heart of product-led growth. When users are blocked or stalled from one of those, all three suffer.

If you’re seeing low conversion rates from the pricing page, longer times to value, or limited self-serve upsells from new users, add taxonomy to your list of things to check on.

How to set up (or audit) a foundation to scale

Step 1. Start with an inventory.

List out every single thing you’ve built or plan to build in the next few quarters. Focus on the smallest units of functionality. For this exercise, “workflows and automations” in Asana should break down to workflow builder, task dependencies, rules, custom templates, and so on.

If you’re new or just launched, do this now. The longer you wait to have a clear view of what makes up your product, the harder it is to regain later.

A few other pointers:

1. Start in a spreadsheet, then move to a visual that shows hierarchy later

2. Add a column for “alternate terms” to capture any internal variations of the same thing

3. Use “notes” or another column to loosely track what’s getting measured and how those events are named

Step 2. Define the levels of your architecture.

This takes a few iterations. Try to articulate what makes something like HubSpot’s Sales Hub different from just “lead scoring.” Consider things like how you sell, what users actually interact with, how functionality works together, and the market space your tech fills.

When I did this exercise at Hotjar, the top level of our architecture was defined by this criteria:

• Provides the user with a distinct or new kind of insight

• Creates a specific revenue stream based on a unique value metric

• Introduces Hotjar to a new market space

• A complete, standalone offering

Contrast that with the lowest level:

• Functions as a part of a larger whole

• A building block that adds concrete value

• Individual elements that users interact with to accomplish specific tasks

With that framework applied, screening, video interviews, and the participant pool were parts of a whole. Together, those features created a moderated research product that introduced Hotjar to a different market category and added a distinct value metric (interviews/month).

By documenting this rationale, you can apply it to every new launch. Use it like a decision-making framework to understand when something warrants a bigger marketing splash or could change how you onboard new users.

And for the sake of clarity, use it to create systematic naming.

Step 3. Draft naming conventions.

Don’t worry, they can be simple. These are the rules you’ll apply within your product’s architecture to name new things. Remember, some things don’t need a name at all.

How can you tell what does? Look back at that architecture and the rationale that defines each level. Your lowest level is likely generic functionality, the stuff that makes your product or tool work. This is a great place to keep terminology simple and descriptive.

For example, Pitch is a single product (level 1) made up of many features (level 2). Pitch’s naming conventions at this level might be:

• Use short descriptive terms, in sentence casing

• Phrase as 2–3 word nouns

• Match industry norms

• Add the company name to clarify unique concepts

Clarity at this level, where you have the most “stuff,” supports trying or buying decisions and makes first-time UX easier to absorb.

There are a few cases where it does make sense to give unique names to core functionality. If it’s proprietary, first to market, or technologically more advanced or differentiated, it’s okay to explore branded names.

There’s a theory for this too: the Isolation Effect. It shows that when something stands out, it’s more likely to be remembered. If everything else in your lowest layer has a simple name, a single distinctive name will create a mental anchor to help users understand and remember it better.

✅ Example: Contentsquare’s Smart Capture

You’re likely familiar with “autocapture,” the functionality that means data teams don’t have to set up manual tagging ahead of time to track events.

For Contentsquare, autocapture works a bit differently. So it was a strategic choice to move away from industry language and elevate this with a branded name: Smart Capture. It opens the conversation for Contentsquare to elaborate on a memorable differentiator.

This is just one example of where you might break from a level’s naming conventions. Moderation is key. If you overdo it, your naming might sabotage the levels you set up.

To me, a “bad name” is usually a name that doesn’t need to exist. There are a handful of things that can go wrong in naming — like confusing users or choosing something that doesn’t translate well — but I believe structural disruption is one of the biggest risks.

Here’s a made-up example to contrast Calendly’s personalization features with overly named equivalents.

These names could influence how users see Calendly. Maybe “Brand Center” is actually a product rather than a single personalization feature? In a long list, like a pricing page or pitch deck, it might not even be clear that these 3 features even fit in the same category.

And if every other feature looks like these, the unique names start to look like a list of jargon. The Product > Feature levels break down because naming conventions undermine the whole system.

A few naming pointers:

1. Reserve proprietary names for things that are genuinely differentiated from competitors.

2. Develop different naming conventions for each level, watch out for too much overlap.

3. Use taxonomy to position these named features within your hierarchy.

4. Never use branded names as a substitute for poor architecture.

Taxonomy is your growth infrastructure

As I mentioned, I’ve seen issues compound — but the benefits of doing things well compound too. When this foundation is put in place for emerging PLG companies, the list of improvements touches every corner of the business.

GTM strategy works

• Each layer gets the right emphasis

• Core value is clearly distinguished from supporting features

• True products lead with brand and enable sales

• Competitive positioning sharpens

Analytics and decision-making get more precise

• Feature use and core adoption map to consistent, tangible things

• PMs get better signals about what to invest in

• Stakeholder dashboards reflect insights at the right “level”

Cross-functional alignment improves

• Teams or departments speak a shared language

• The company has a shared mental model of what it builds and sells

• Customer education scales alongside product evolution

• Less rework in docs, courses, and enablement material

Self-serve use feels effortless

• Users skip the “what do I need/what is all of this” conversation

• Time to value speeds up

• Onboarding shifts to teaching value instead of UI

If you’re not sure where to start or what to optimize first, create that inventory. This exercise alone can reveal where you might have hidden cracks, or where you should course correct to prevent clarity debt later.

🤝 Would you like to work with Growthmates in 2026?

Over the last few years, Growthmates has intentionally moved toward deeper, more focused collaborations — the kind where there’s time to think, challenge assumptions, and build something meaningful with a team, not just for them.

That’s the energy I’m taking into 2026. Because of this, I’m keeping my client work deliberately small and focused. Q1 will be the only window for 1:1 work for a while.

If you’ve been thinking about strengthening your onboarding, activation, or PLG foundation — this is likely the right moment. Here’s what I’m opening up for Q1:

• Onboarding Design Sprint 🏃‍♀️

  I will work closely with your team to help you fix your product growth challenges and improve the first user experience that can drive x2 uplift on your Activation.

  👉 Work with me → (only 1 slot till April 🔥)

• PLG Advising for your company 🧠

  Hands-on, in-depth advising across product, UX, and growth to build a scalable, sustainable PLG system that will last for years.

  👉 Work with me → (only 1 slot till April🔥)

• PLG Training for your team 🎓

  A structured PLG training using the same frameworks I’ve taught teams at Grammarly, Autodesk, Monday.com, Intercom, Atlassian, and more.

  👉 Work with me → (2 slots till April 🔥)

• Brand Partnerships 📩

  Let’s tell your product story to a trusted audience of 30,000+ product, design, and growth leaders — and co-create meaningful content that inspires the wider product and design community.

  👉 Send an inquiry to hello@growthmates.club (2 slots till May 🔥)

• Premium Edition 💎

  If you’re getting value from this newsletter, get access to full archive with more frameworks, teardowns, and exclusive content on PLG, Activation, AI, and how to build meaningful products that delight users.
  👉 Upgrade to Premium and get full access.

This is all for today, dear readers. If you found this helpful — please share your reaction and leave some comments 💜 It would give a huge support for me to continue creating this!

If you find this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend, and consider subscribing if you haven’t already. There are some discounts available, and maybe you can expense this :)

Subscribe now

Connect with me on LinkedIn and learn more about my work on Growthmates.club.

With best regards,
Kate Syuma

Last year, at Hatch Conference, I finally had a chance to talk with Nad Chishtie in person.

Not in a rush between talks. Not in a Zoom window. But in a space that felt genuinely inspiring — surrounded by builders, designers, and people who were clearly there to create, not just to perform.

At that moment, I was actively looking for role models for this new season of Growthmates. People who don’t just talk about creativity, but live it — often in unconventional ways.

Nad immediately stood out. Not because of a polished career story, but because of how calmly and honestly he spoke about uncertainty, rebuilding, and starting over.

Brought to you by:

This episode is supported by tools I genuinely use and recommend:

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor— AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

Welcome to the new season of Growthmates — The Creator’s Path

This season is for people who never fully fit into the “standard” career story.

For those who learned by doing — not waiting. Who experimented before they had permission. Who broke things, rebuilt them, and kept going even when the path wasn’t clear.

The Creator’s Path is about unconventional journeys. About designers, founders, and builders who didn’t follow the expected route — and created their own instead.

We’re living in a moment where AI is fundamentally changing how we work. Tools are faster. Barriers are lower. Creation is no longer reserved for a narrow group with the “right” background, credentials, or titles.

But this shift raises a deeper question:

What does it really mean to create — when almost anyone can build?

Nad Chishtie, Head of Design at Lovable

This season explores that question through honest conversations with people who are already living in this new reality — navigating uncertainty, embracing imperfection, and redefining what creative work looks like today.

Nad’s story felt like the perfect place to begin.

From dropping out to building without limits

In this episode of Growthmates, I sit down with Nad Chishtie — Head of Design at Lovable, founding designer, and former game developer who has built products used by over 50 million people across Asia.

Nad dropped out of university at 18. Not out of rebellion — but because the system couldn’t keep up. When Gmail launched with Ajax, he saw the future arriving faster than the curriculum allowed. Using modern tools was forbidden. Curiosity was constrained. And staying no longer made sense.

That decision wasn’t about quitting education — it was about choosing learning over structure.

Being “B+ at many things” is an unfair advantage

Instead of specializing early, Nad became a generalist.

• Design;

• Code;

• Games;

• Systems thinking.

For years, that didn’t fit neatly into job titles. But over time, it became his biggest advantage.

We talk about why being “B+ at many things” enables faster creation, stronger end-to-end ownership, and clearer decision-making — especially in small, high-leverage teams.

“Modern product work became over-fragmented. Too many roles. Too much consensus. And almost no one truly responsible for the whole.”

Lovable was built differently.

AI as a playground — not a shortcut

One of the most powerful parts of this conversation is how Nad thinks about AI.

AI didn’t come up in our conversation as a productivity hack. And definitely not as a replacement for creativity. We kept returning to a different framing — AI as a playground. A space where ideas can be tried, reshaped, and learned through building, not permission.

At Lovable, AI lowered the cost of both creation and deletion. That’s why the team rebuilt the product from scratch — three times. No sunk cost fallacy. No attachment to outdated decisions.

We talk about why perfectionism holds creators back, why starting before you’re ready matters, and how AI makes experimentation safer — especially for people who’ve never seen themselves as “technical.”

For Nad, the real shift isn’t speed.It’s freedom.

Creating software for people the system ignores

Some of the most meaningful stories Nad shares aren’t about scale — but about individuals.

We talked about people building personal software for themselves. About neurodivergent users finally creating tools that fit how they think. About creators who were never the “default user” — until now.

When the barrier to creation drops, software becomes personal again. And that changes who gets to participate.

A future with no creative ceilings

We end the conversation looking forward.

We also touched on what this means for the next generation. A world without a hard skill ceiling. Kids growing up assuming they can build whatever they imagine. Creation no longer gated by credentials, tools, or permission — just curiosity and intent.

This episode isn’t about hacks or frameworks. It’s about what becomes possible when systems stop getting in the way.

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore more fantastic tools 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

🤝 Want to collaborate with Kate Syuma and Growthmates?

• Explore Growthmates Services here: https://growthmates.club/services

• User-centric PLG in AI era course — join waitlist for future cohorts and get 100$ off: https://maven.com/growthmates/user-centric-product-led-growth?promoCode=growthmates

Follow Growthmates updates on:

• Growthmates website with “The Holistic Growth Playbook”: https://growthmates.club

• Substack Newsletter (for instant inbox delivery):

  https://www.growthmates.news/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/growthmates-podcast/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growthmates/

• X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/kate_syuma

Where to find Kate Syuma:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterina-syuma/

• Newsletter: https://www.growthmates.news/

Where to find Nad Chishtie:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadchishtie/

• X (Twitter): https://x.com/nadonomy

• Lovable: https://lovable.dev/

Thank you for listening! Subscribe to the show on growthmates.club and get the free playbook with frameworks and insights.

If you’re enjoying the show, we’d love for you to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Your support helps us reach more listeners like you 💜

For sponsorship and other inquiries, reach out to hello@growthmates.club

Let’s keep growing together!

Subscribe now

I’ve tested dozens of AI tools last year. Some looked impressive on launch day — and quietly disappeared a week later.

Others stuck. Not because they were “more AI”. But because they changed how teams actually work: how we test ideas, qualify users, and help people reach value faster.

What surprised me most? The biggest wins didn’t come from replacing humans — but from removing friction right at the moment of action.

Share

Before we dive in… Meet Growthmates Partners 🚀

I curate the Growthmates Bundle to share not just ideas — but the tools I trust and use in my own work. Each one is a handpicked #1 tool for a key product area, and I’m proud to have them supporting this newsletter 🖤

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore these fantastic tools below 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

What you’ll learn today:

So today, I’m sharing 3 AI tools that genuinely surprised my growth teams — not in theory, but in real workflows:

• Testing ideas with real data before shipping;

• Prototyping critical flows in minutes, not quarters;

• Turning onboarding into human-like guidance;

• Building working apps without waiting for engineering.

Now, let’s dive into today’s story 👇

Read more

Subscribe now

January is different for me. I’m all for working hard — but every year, before things really kick off, I pack a backpack and head somewhere warm with my husband.

It’s become a small ritual for our family. This year, it’s extra special: we’re celebrating 13 years together.

We unplug completely before the year gets loud. Slow days. Long conversations. Uninterrupted time just for two of us (and some silence just for myself 🙏).

This pause gives me space to sit with the bigger questions:

• Why am I doing the work I’m doing?

• What do I want the next 3–5 years to feel like?

• What am I dreaming about for myself — and for us as a family?

• What deeper mission keeps tugging at me, even if I haven’t acted on it yet?

🎁 P.S. I have already shared my approach to yearly planning and some reflection questions here last year — feel free to use my Notion Template, and I hope you’ll find it useful.

I don’t always come back with clear answers. But I almost always return with a stronger sense of direction. So I’m taking a short break this January — to rest, reflect, and make space.

Wishing you a new year with more clarity, intention, and meaningful moments. 💜

P.S. How are you starting your year? I’d love to read your rituals or plans in the comments.

In the meantime, the best way to support Growthmates is to explore what our partners are building 🚀

I curate the Growthmates Bundle to share not just ideas — but the tools I trust and use in my own work. Each one is a handpicked #1 tool for a key product area, and I’m proud to have them supporting this newsletter 🖤

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

More ways to learn from me:

• Onboarding Design Sprint 🏃‍♀️

  I will work closely with your team to help you fix your product growth challenges and improve the first user experience that can drive x2 uplift on your Activation.

  👉 Work with me → (1 slot, earliest availability in February)

• PLG Advising for your team 🧠

  Hands-on, in-depth advising across product, UX, and growth to build a scalable, sustainable PLG system that will last for years.

  👉 Work with me → (1 slot, earliest availability in February)

• PLG Training for your team 🎓

  A structured PLG training using the same frameworks I’ve taught teams at Grammarly, Autodesk, Monday.com, Intercom, Atlassian, and more.

  👉 Work with me → (2 slot, earliest availability in February-March)

• Brand Partnerships 📩

  Let’s tell your product story to a trusted audience of 30,000+ product, design, and growth leaders — and co-create meaningful content that inspires the wider product and design community.

  👉 Send an inquiry to hello@growthmates.club (2 spots left for Q1)

• User-centric Growth Course 🎓

  If these frameworks sparked new ideas — imagine working through your actual product challenge with my feedback, templates, and a dedicated community (AI will be there as well). This week, you can save 150$ for the enhanced program.

  👉 Join with 150$ off → (only 2 discounted spots left for January ❄️.)

• Premium Edition 💎

  If you’re getting value from this newsletter, get access to the full archive with more frameworks, teardowns, and exclusive content on PLG, Activation, AI, and how to build meaningful products that delight users.
  👉 Upgrade to Premium and get full access.

This is all for today, dear readers. 💜

If you find this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend, and consider subscribing if you haven’t already. There are some discounts available, and maybe you can expense this :)

Connect with me on LinkedIn and learn more about my work on Growthmates.club.

With best regards,
Kate Syuma

Subscribe now

This year didn’t rush by — it unfolded. Quietly and unevenly, sometimes slowly, sometimes all at once. 2025 felt like a year of integration. Less about chasing the next milestone, and more about understanding what truly deserves my energy.

For me, it became a blend of building Growthmates more intentionally, deepening my solopreneurship practice, and learning how to create without living in constant “push mode”. There were seasons of focus, seasons of pause, and many moments of recalibration — both professionally and personally.

Before we step into 2026, I wanted to pause and reflect — on what this year taught me, what I’m taking forward, and what I’m consciously leaving behind. Here’s a very honest year-end reflection, wrapped up with the best of Growthmates in 2025 👇

🚀 Growthmates Recap: My 2025 year

If you’re reading this newsletter — thank you 💜 With everything moving so fast in our industry, I truly hope this space feels like a pause — a place where you can slow down, reflect, and get inspired, rather than overwhelmed.

Share

Before we dive in… Meet Growthmates Partners 🚀

I curate the Growthmates Bundle to share not just ideas — but the tools I trust and use in my own work. Each one is a handpicked #1 tool for a key product area, and I’m proud to have them supporting this newsletter 🖤

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore these fantastic tools below 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

What we’ll cover today:

• A very honest year-end reflection — what this season taught me, and what I’m taking into 2026.

• The story behind my 2nd year of going solo — what quietly paused, what unexpectedly scaled, and what’s coming back next year.

• The best of Growthmates in 2025 — most-read articles, top LinkedIn posts, and favorite resources you might’ve missed.

• A few gifts for you toward the start of a New Year. 🎁

Now, let’s dive into today’s reflection 👇

⭐️ What this season taught me

1. What’s about to ship — and why it feels personal.

Not many people know this, but Growthmates started as a podcast.

Three years ago, it was a side project where I interviewed growth-minded people from companies I deeply admired: Notion, Canva, Dropbox, and others. I didn’t have a big plan back then. I just wanted conversations that felt real and inspiring.

Over time, that small side-gig quietly grew into an ecosystem:

1. An advisory practice where I support B2B companies that want to drive growth through user experience and the core product, not surface-level experiments.

2. A newsletter with 7,000+ readers from Amplitude, Intercom, Miro, Atlassian, Grammarly, Framer, and more.

3. An educational course on User-Centric PLG in the AI era.

4. Brand partnerships with products I genuinely use and love.

5. And yes — the podcast.

Last year, I didn’t have enough time (or energy) to give all five equal attention. Something had to pause. The podcast quietly moved to the background.

But next year, it’s coming back from 20th January 🚀 — with a new theme: “The Creator’s Path.”

This season feels especially close to my heart. I recorded conversations with people who create in very different ways, and who deeply inspire me:

• Michael Riddering — from creating courses to building companies

• Nad Chishtie (Lovable) — why self-made generalists will shape the future

• Ioana Teleanu — how to become a creator and pivot your career

• Felix Haas (Lovable) — about lifelong “creator mindset” over job titles

• Catt Small (Dropbox) — creating courses, books, advising with FT job

I hope 2026 becomes a year of creative endeavors for many of us — whether that’s a business, a course, content, or a product you’ve been postponing for too long.

2. What it looked like from the outside vs. what was really happening.

From the outside, I heard a lot of things like:

• “Kate, you grew so fast.”

• “Wow, you built such a big business.”

• “How do you even manage all of this?”

Inside, it felt very different.

Read more

Subscribe now

2025 felt like the year PLG quietly rewired itself. After dozens of product reviews and advisory sessions, one pattern kept repeating for me: PLG is evolving faster than expected, and even last year’s playbooks already feel outdated.

Onboarding got more human (ironically, thanks to AI), activation became harder to earn, retention turned into the #1 growth pain across AI and enterprise SaaS, and “shipping fast” finally stopped justifying forgettable products.

If 2024 was about “AI inside the product,” 2025 became the year AI started shaping the product experience itself.

Share

Before we dive in… Meet Growthmates Partners 🚀

I curate the Growthmates Bundle to share not just ideas — but the tools I trust and use in my own work. Each one is a handpicked #1 tool for a key product area, and I’m proud to have them supporting this newsletter 🖤

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore these fantastic tools below 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

What you’ll learn today:

• The biggest PLG shifts I’ve seen across 2025.

• How onboarding and activation quietly got reinvented.

• Why quality became the new growth lever (and why A/B tests couldn’t keep up).

• What AI actually changed in UX — beyond the hype.

• And what all this means for your roadmap in 2026.

Now, let’s dive into today’s story 👇

PLG’s Biggest Trends in 2025.

👉 AI-native UX is redefining PLG.

AI copilots, assistants, and adaptive onboarding became standard in B2B SaaS. Products now personalize experiences and predict friction before it happens. We’re talking about hyper-personalised onboarding and other flows as the future of PLG, and it’s getting closer, and more predictions like this.

👉 Growth teams’ headache is Retention, not more Sign-ups.

Read more

Subscribe now

After leading Growth Product & Design at Miro, I’ve seen how easy it is for teams to over-optimise for metrics and under-invest in experience. And in the last months, after speaking with 200+ people at Autodesk and training 60+ growth practitioners at Monday.com, one thing became clear:

PLG doesn’t work without UX — and UX doesn’t scale without PLG thinking.

This merge (PLG + UX) has been at the core of my work for years. It’s also what I started translating through my early posts, including:

• High-quality principles for PLG;

• UX × PLG: How to multiply your value;

• 6 steps of holistic onboarding, etc.

Today, I want to share 15 bitter truths about growth — the ones that help you move fast, innovate boldly, and still keep product quality high.

Share

Before we dive in… Meet Growthmates Partners 🚀

I curate the Growthmates Bundle to share not just ideas — but the tools I trust and use in my own work. Each one is a handpicked #1 tool for a key product area, and I’m proud to have them supporting this newsletter 🖤

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore these fantastic tools below 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

• Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

• 🆕 Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.

What you’ll learn today:

• Why PLG only works when UX is baked in from day one.

• How focusing on core value, loops, and holistic flows accelerates sustainable growth.

• The key principles that help teams move fast, experiment boldly, and still protect product quality.

Now, let’s dive into today’s story 👇

15 bitter truths about growth.

Over the years, I’ve distilled hundreds of experiments, talks, and hands-on product work into 15 core truths. Here’s what actually moves the needle when growth and quality go hand in hand.

1️⃣ Data tells you WHAT, users tell you WHY.

Your dashboards highlight where the problem is, but they never reveal the underlying cause. Without qualitative checks, teams keep fixing symptoms, not mechanisms. Add short validation loops (5–7 moderated or unmoderated tests) after each major experiment — your insights will instantly become more actionable.

The only way to check the why is to do some user validation.

2️⃣ User-centricity isn’t optional in PLG, it’s the core.

Read more