Trying to improve your user design? Or perhaps you want to reduce churn? Understanding aha moments can help. This article dives into some examples of companies’ aha moments and explains how to find your product aha moment.

What is an ‘aha!’ moment?

An aha moment is that sudden realization that this product has value! Your users should experience their aha moment at some point during onboarding. This will lead them on their path to activation.

This moment isn’t about educating your customers about the product, it’s about reminding them why they thought it would be useful!

There are often certain actions that prompt (or correlate with) an aha moment. But before we discuss how to find your product’s aha moment, let’s take a look at some examples to inspire you.

Examples of aha moments

Here are some examples of aha moments from a variety of companies.

Slack

Slack is a workspace messaging app.

Slack’s aha moment is when a team sends 2000 messages into a workspace. Once this many messages have been sent, it’s a clear indication that the platform has been adopted into the company’s workflow.

Calendly

Calendly allows people to book meetings within a user's calendar.

Calendly’s aha moment comes as you sign in with google (which allows you to connect your calendar in one step), but seals the deal by prompting users to book a meeting with themselves. This relieves any anxiety users would’ve had about Calendly not syncing to their calendar correctly!

Canva

Canva is a design tool used to quickly create professional graphics.

The onboarding tutorial at Canva shows customers just how quick and easy it is to create professional graphics - giving them that aha moment quickly. The tutorial also allows users to see this without them having to actually create anything.

Headspace

Headspace is a meditation app.

After taking a short quiz in Headspace’s app, users are met with a personalized meditation routine - giving them an aha moment, as they realize how easy meditation can be.

Supermetrics

Supermetrics is a marketing add-on for Google Sheets and Data Studio which turns analytics data into automated reports.

The aha moment when using Supermetrics is when users run their first query and realize how simple the process is.

Wishpond

Wishpond is a marketing campaign platform for creating landing pages, contests, and sending emails.

Users experience an aha moment when they click publish while using Wishpond. This is because of the ease of the platform and the lack of technical skills required to publish a campaign.

Trainual

Trainual is a growth and training platform that allows new employees to quickly get up to speed.

Trainual’s aha moment is when a new member of the team is trained almost entirely hands-off.

Venga

Venga is an analytics tool for restaurant operators.

The aha moment when using Venga is realizing there’s actionable data points for personalization.

Grubhub

Grubhub is a takeaway delivery service.

Customers have their aha moment when they type their address into Grubhub and a full page of restaurant results appears for them to choose from. All this without creating an account!

Pivoting user onboarding during the pandemic - my story
When the pandemic started, and the worldwide lockdowns began, our behaviors drastically shifted from in-person to doing everything online at a faster rate than ever before.
Product-Led Alliance | Product-Led GrowthJulia Kuo

How to find your aha moment

Hopefully, after reading about those examples of brilliant aha moments, you are ready to find your product’s aha moment! Well look no further, here are some key steps you can take to discover your products aha moment.

Research

To find your aha moment it's important to start with what actions your retained customers tend to take when onboarding. Since aha moments are correlated with retention rate, common actions amongst retained customers may be where your aha moment lives.

Equally, you should take a look at what actions churned customers commonly avoid doing during onboarding. These missing actions may lead you closer to your aha moment.

Finally, try asking for user feedback on the onboarding process. You may find new aspects of the onboarding process to consider as an aha moment.

Hypothesize

Once you have a few ideas as to what your product’s aha moment could be you should hypothesize which actions are most strongly linked to it. While working on this, think about what problem your product solves as this may help you to determine the most likely aha moment.

Listing these potential aha moments in order of probability would be a helpful guide for the next stage.

Test

The last step is testing. In order to know what your aha moment is for sure, you should test different possibilities to see which action performs best. Start with the two most likely and run an A/B test using these steps in your onboarding process. This can help to show which step provides more retention - and is more likely to be your product’s aha moment.

Don’t panic if you don’t get it right the first time - this testing stage is about trial and error so you can identify a correct hypothesis. You may even need to go back a step and rework your hypotheses - but don’t give up, you'll find your aha moment eventually!

Final thoughts

Aha moments can really benefit your user’s experience and lead to increased retention rates. By understanding how other companies do it and researching your products aha moment - you are well on your way to these benefits.


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