Kate Thought

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Onboarding Audit

Onboarding & Activation Audit for Founder-Led B2B SaaS

New customers sign up, and then the founder walks each one through setup by hand. I find where new users stall on the way to their first useful result, and give you a prioritised plan your team can act on.

One onboarding flow

5 business days

fixed price

ordered through Upwork

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Is this for you?

This audit fits if:

  • You run a small B2B SaaS team, and the founder or one person still onboards most customers personally.
  • People sign up or start a trial, but too few reach useful work on their own.
  • You have no product analytics yet, or too few customers for the numbers to mean much.
  • You are about to spend on growth, a product tour or a redesign, and want to know where the real problem is first.

It is not the right fit if your product does not have a working onboarding flow yet, if you need a full UX redesign, or if you need someone to build the changes.

How I audit onboarding

1. Start with what you already have. Customer questions, help videos, call recordings, support emails. Each question points to a screen worth checking. It does not explain why people struggle. I check that in the product.

2. Go through the product as a new customer. I use my own realistic test data, not a clean demo account: messy imports, duplicates, half-filled fields. I test on every device the job needs. If your customers set up on the web and work on a tablet, I test both.

3. Test the states around the task. After an import, with navigation closed, in a different screen orientation, when the connection drops. Many onboarding problems are not on the happy path.

4. Label every claim. Each finding says whether I observed it, you told me, I inferred it, or it still needs testing. I re-check before the report goes out. In one audit I withdrew a finding after a second check on iPad contradicted it.

5. Turn findings into a plan. Findings are ordered by their effect on the path to first value, not by how easy they look. Each one comes with a proposed next step your team can assess.

What you get

Standard package — fixed price, 5 business days, one onboarding flow:

  • A map of your onboarding flow as a new customer experiences it: steps, decision points, and the assumptions the flow makes about the user.
  • Friction analysis: for each step, what works, what likely stops people, and why.
  • 6–10 prioritised improvements with rationale.
  • Open questions your team needs to answer or measure before building the top fixes.
  • A 30-minute live consultation to walk through the findings, and one revision round.

Not included in this package: user stories, screen mockups, a measurement plan or implementation support. If you need these, message me before ordering and I will send a separate offer.

What I need from you

After you order, Upwork asks you to send the requirements. The 5 business days start when I receive them.

  • A short description, 150–300 words: Who signs up? What is the activation goal? What do you already know about where users drop off?
  • Access to your product as a new user would experience it: a trial account, a sandbox environment, or a full screen recording of your onboarding flow from sign-up to the first key action.
  • Optional: analytics data, session recordings or user feedback you already have about onboarding drop-off. Not required, but it makes the audit more specific.

What this audit cannot tell you

An audit shows where the product does not guide the user and what breaks along the way. Without usage data or interviews with your customers, it cannot tell you how many customers hit each problem, or which one costs you the most. The report says this openly.

Examples

Onboarding and activation audit — founder-led B2B SaaS, web and iPad. The founder onboarded customers personally, and there was no product analytics. My inputs were eleven questions customers had asked the founder, nine walkthrough videos, and a discussion with the founder and team. Defects were written as steps to reproduce, actual and expected behaviour. Behaviour changes were written as user stories with Given/When/Then acceptance criteria. The team also received three clickable prototypes, a proposed first sprint and a measurement plan — a larger scope than the standard package.

“Working with Kate has been a fantastic experience! I’ve definitely learned a lot about the product and different ways that we can improve the onboarding experience, and we’ll definitely be working with her again.” — client, 5.0 on Upwork

My work ended at handoff, so I do not have post-implementation results. → Read the case study

Customer-journey and usability review — early-stage B2B messaging SaaS. A separate project from a client’s job post. I went through the journey from landing page to sign-up as three small-business personas, and delivered eleven severity-rated findings, a prioritised fix list and a think-aloud video in 3 business days. The client shipped one fix before the report was delivered.

“Working with Kate was really eye opener for us in terms of how to look at the product. We changed so many things after her review and detailed report she made us! She is highly recommended and we look forward working with her again.” — founder, 5.0 on Upwork

→ Read the case study

How ordering works

  1. You order the audit on Upwork. With Upwork Payment Protection, you fund the project upfront and I am paid once you are satisfied with the work.
  2. You send the requirements: the short description and product access.
  3. I go through your onboarding and send the report within 5 business days.
  4. We walk through the findings in a 30-minute live consultation.

If your onboarding has several paths for different user roles or plan tiers, message me on Upwork before ordering and we will agree on scope and price.

FAQ

Five business days from the moment I receive your requirements: the short description and product access.

The standard package has a fixed price, shown on the Upwork listing. Larger scope is a separate offer.

No. I only need access to your product as a new user would experience it — a trial account, a sandbox, or a Loom recording of the full onboarding flow. Analytics data and session recordings are optional and helpful, but not required.

Yes, with limits. I can find where the product does not guide the user and what breaks. I cannot say how many users hit each problem. To start measuring that with the data you already have, see how to measure user activation without product analytics.

A UX audit finds interface problems. This audit diagnoses product logic — whether your flow asks users to act before they trust your product enough to do so. The fix is usually a flow change, not a UI change.

This package covers one onboarding path. If you have multiple paths for different user roles or plan tiers, message me before ordering and we can agree on scope and adjusted price.

After delivery you can send consolidated feedback once — questions, clarifications, or points you disagree with. I will review and update the document accordingly. It does not cover adding new flows, expanding scope, or restarting the audit.

This package covers one onboarding flow: a flow map, friction analysis, 6–10 prioritised improvements with rationale, and open questions for your team. It does not include user stories, screen mockups, a measurement plan, or implementation support.

About me

I’m Kate (Ekaterina) Vyacheclavova, a SaaS Product Manager and Product Owner with 8+ years in B2B and B2C SaaS.

I work remotely from Tbilisi, Georgia (UTC+4) with teams in the US, UK and Europe.

Professional Scrum Product Owner I (Scrum.org). On Upwork: Top Rated Plus, 100% Job Success, 9,400+ hours delivered.

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