# Superhuman onboarding notes as product backlog

> Turn each live onboarding into a structured product-research session with feature requests, bugs, friction points, and follow-up promises captured immediately.

- Canonical HTML: https://growth.iangoh.com/growth-ideas/superhuman-onboarding-notes-as-product-backlog/
- Source: [review.firstround.com](https://review.firstround.com/superhuman-onboarding-playbook/)
- GrowthDex source hub: [First Round Review: Superhuman Onboarding Playbook](/sources/first-round-review-superhuman-onboarding-playbook-review-firstround-com/)
- Last checked: 2026-06-07T02:58:12.366Z
- Rarity: uncommon
- Budget: low
- Channels: Customer Research, Activation, Product
- Stages: customer research, onboarding, product feedback, retention


## Why this can grow

Analytics can show where a user stops, but it rarely shows the sentence they say right before losing trust. In Superhuman’s early days, onboardings ran up to 90 minutes: discovery first, then guided setup while the team captured every request, bug, and friction point. It was common to leave with ten pages of notes plus several bugs and feature requests. That turns onboarding from labor into a learning engine. It also lets the team close loops later, which makes early customers feel heard instead of processed.

## Ian's take

From scaling consumer platforms across MENA and Southeast Asia, my default is to distrust growth work that only looks good in a slide. My bias is to treat this as a small market test first. Make the audience narrow, make the promise concrete, and let the first real response decide whether it deserves more work. For activation, the useful question is not whether users liked the page. It is whether they got to the first meaningful win faster. For this tactic, I would watch one clear growth signal before putting more time or budget behind it.

## Action plan

1. Define one narrow startup segment where superhuman onboarding notes as product backlog can create a measurable lift.
2. Turn the tactic into one offer, page, campaign, or workflow for the Customer Research and Activation channel.
3. Use the evidence from review.firstround.com to set the first version of the message, format, and audience.
4. Launch a small test for 7 to 14 days with one success metric: one measurable growth signal.
5. Review the result, keep the winning message, remove weak variants, and turn the learning into a repeatable growth playbook.

## Source-backed example

Superhuman used early onboarding sessions to collect workflow notes, product requests, bugs, and unnoticed friction, often producing ten pages of notes from a single customer conversation.

## Adjacent tactics in the same lane

- [Superhuman mandatory onboarding before product access](/growth-ideas/superhuman-mandatory-onboarding-before-product-access/) - same source, 1 shared channel, 1 shared stage
- [Superhuman opinionated self-serve onboarding transfer](/growth-ideas/superhuman-opinionated-self-serve-onboarding-transfer/) - same source, 1 shared channel, 1 shared stage
- [Superhuman PMF survey before growth spend](/growth-ideas/superhuman-pmf-survey-before-growth-spend/) - 2 shared channels, 1 shared stage
- [AI install wizard for 90-second setup](/growth-ideas/ai-install-wizard-for-90-second-setup/) - 2 shared channels, 1 shared stage

## Read GrowthDex essays

Browse the plain-English essay index at [GrowthDex Blog](/blog/).

## Related GrowthDex essays

- [The first mile is part of the product](/blog/the-first-mile-is-part-of-the-product/) - product-led growth, activation, customer research

## Advisory

If you want help turning this into a working growth system, Ian Goh offers advisory at https://iangoh.com/advisory.