| Source | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCtwBQYD18U |
|---|---|
| Readwise URL | https://read.readwise.io/read/01ktgv7nva6739wb9a8ttr2asq |
| Readwise ID | 01ktgv7nva6739wb9a8ttr2asq |
| Date | 2026-02-06 |
| Author | notJust․dev |
| Category | video |
| Cover image | https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zCtwBQYD18U/sddefault.jpg?v=6984b648 |
What’s up, NotJust developers?Welcome back to a new episode of NotJust podcast.Today, I invited a very special guest.Today, I invited the co-founder of Screens Design, Alex.Alex, before Screen Designs, actually built and grew an application, bootstrapped it, and then sold it for more than $1 million at the beginning of 2025.Instead of buying Lambos, he invested more time, more effort, and resources in screen designs, making the biggest platform out there for inspirations for UX onboarding screens.
And now it actually can help you build your onboarding, your screens, your paywalls with the help of AI.So Alex knows a thing or two about the best practices and highly effective onboarding flows.That’s why I invited him today here so we can pick his brain, learn from him, study what he knows and what he saw working in the industry so that we can implement this in our own applications and grow together.
Hello Alex and welcome to the podcast.How are we feeling today?Amazing after your intro.That was a big deal.Thank you so much for that.It makes me proud of myself, I guess.
I’m going to jump right into this because I want to extract the maximum amount of knowledge from you.And by the end, we are actually going to look at some examples together and actually build some onboarding screens here live.So I’m excited for that as well.
But first, I wanted to ask you, why is onboarding so important?You’ve built a business based on the onboarding flows, and we’re doing a podcast today focused on onboardings, butwhy is it such a big deal?
It’s such a big deal because we learned the hard way that without a very strong onboarding flow, you would not be as profitable or as profitable as you could be.When we started out, us, the math didn’t make sense in our social media growth app that we sold.And we realized the hard way that we had to improve both on the acquisition side, so as far as ads, creatives, and hooks.
And also on the onboarding and paywall side.A lot of people these days only speak about paywalls, but in my opinion, onboarding flow and paywall are uh the same thing together.Focusing on the paywall will only lead to minor results. Of course, a very bad paywall compared to a very good paywall makes a difference.But then, if you put on top of it also a very strong onboarding flow, then you will see that the numbers start to change dramatically.And so that’s how we learned that onboarding flows were huge.
And then we started testing every single screen, understanding psychological principles of onboarding flows, what to put there, what not to put there.And with relentless iteration, then we managed to build a very, very profitable app.
Then we sold it for a good amount at the beginning of 2025.And then, from there, we knew that we built our own library internally to studying other apps and what they were doing.And we did understand that, uh, without a good library, you couldn’t do the experiments that otherwise, uh, would lead you to success.
We realized that there were other libraries, but they were only focused on the UX, UI side.And, uh, instead, for us, it was all about uh nailing the onboarding flow.
And that’s how Screen Design was born.And we decided to make it public out there because nothing like that existed.And yeah, it’s been a very, very uh fun ride since one year.
We’re growing.Nicely, and it’s super interesting.
Perfect, yeah, I’ve been using it for more than one year, I think, as inspiration. And now I’m using it to actually generate stuff, which we’re gonna do a bit later.
But I wanted to uh follow up with a question, what is the actual goal of onboarding?Like, when I, as an indie developer, go and implement an onboarding, what am I trying to achieve there?
You’re trying to achieve a couple of things.At the end of the day, it is about uh having your user understand what the benefits, uh, what your app does, uh, and why they should choose you and not the competition, maybe.So you’re positioning your angle and uh clarifying uh what your features are.
Uh, at the end of the day, as a user, the goal is clarity.But, as a developer, the goal is profits, clearly.So, an app with a strong onboarding flow will allow users to say, yes, this is for me.Let me go on and start my free trial, or let me go on and convert.And, so, this will make a huge difference to your bottom line.
Okay, so we’re trying to meet at the middle.From one side, like the user is, when downloading an app, he’s still not very sure if this is what he needs.Like, the question in his mind is like,a user doesn’t even understand what the app really does.They get the gist of it a little bit with App Store screenshots, but then they do not.When they are onboarded, if the onboarding flow does not clarify what the app does, many times the user will be puzzled.And because of that, their attention will be lower.And even before retention, the conversion would be just suboptimal.And also on the user side, that could have been an app that helps him, but he doesn’t know enough, he doesn’t trust it enough.And so I would say a lot of it is also about removing friction and, on top of that, applying strong psychological principles that entice users to go ahead and start trials orconversions.
Okay, yeah, that totally makes sense.And you touched a little bit about, when talking about this, you touched a couple of metrics, such as retention, conversions, and so on.What are the must-track numbers when we’re talking about onboarding?What should the developer track so he knows that, okay, I’m improving this or not?I’m seeing results or not?I’m very data-driven, so that’s why I’m asking this question.Yes.So, what matters a lot is open app to start trial.
Back in the day with our app, we managed to have an open up to start trial.We started maybe at 15, 20, and we managed to drive that until 33%.And when you do the math, when you have a 33% open up to start trial, that is very, very high.Hmm.Be totally fair, our app was in the business niche, so it also depends a lot on the niches.But that doesn’t mean that you should never stop iterating and never stop improving, uh, Kaizen style, Japanese style, mean, uh, on it.
And then the other one is, uh, a trial to paid.And so…When you have, for example, like us, we did have 33% and then 33%.So one third of the users would start the trial, they would end up paying as well.And then 33% of the user would open it up, start the trial.Those are very, very solid numbers.If you do the math, that amounts to around 10%.
And so, when you have a customer who, like 10% of the customers, will just open the app the first time and end up being paying customers, that is a very, very, very good number.And so, these are the two main ones that we did use.I know that other companies use other ones, but those are the ones that, for us, make sense as business owners in the app space.
And then every single screen.So let’s say that the onboarding flow is made by, we call them steps, basically.Let’s say that the onboarding flow can be five steps, 20 steps, some apps go crazy and do quizzes with 70 steps.And there are reasons for that.But you want to have, uh, some sort of analytics.We use Mixpanel.There are others available as well.And then you want to do a lot of A/B testing with Remote Config.
And so, you want to basically split users and say, for example, OK, these 400 users todayare seeing A and these 400 users are seeing B.And then you have to be careful, though, because you cannot change, let’s say, onboarding steps at a time, because then you don’t know if it’s like step number five, delivering results or step number two, delivering results.So what we did was basically every day we would show, we change only one onboarding step for a couple of days, let’s say.
And once we did have enough statistical significance, so hundreds or thousands of users who saw, uh, the same onboarding step flow, let’s say ten steps, but step number two wasdifferent in, uh, crowd number A versus crowd number B.And so,and then we started looking at the data and saying, OK, this is driving better results.
This is driving a minor uplift.But then, this is also a business made of small uplifts of 1%, 2%, 3% that, stuck together, at the end of the day, make up the whole difference between making millions and not.And so, this was our relentless focus.
So we would come up with an hypothesis.And that’s why screen design is so useful, because it allows you to study what other winners are doing and all their fresh new apps are doing, even in different niches.And they allow you to say, oh, why don’t we test this?We could do that.
We can try that.And so, you come up with your own hypothesis.You have your own onboarding flow.And then, once you have your own onboarding flow and enough users, you start showing, start only changing.
One step at a time.So, we can start from step number one, you show it to 400 users, and 400 users see step number B.And then, you have test and control, test and control.
And so, this allows you, at the end of the day, to change your numbers from 20% open up to start tryout to 33%.And that makes a huge difference at the end of the day, because it allows you to be more profitable, spend more money on ads.
That’s amazing.Like in the last couple of minutes, you basically put together a framework of improving the business of a mobile application focused on improving onboarding.Yeah, we had to learn it the hard way and this is what worked for us.And also, we realized very quickly that the temptation is always too low.Let’s compare onboarding flow A to onboarding flow B.And onboarding flow A is like 10 steps and onboarding flow B is 20 steps, and they’re totally different.And it is a temptation, and you could do that in a way.But on the other side as well, once you’ve got something that starts to seem like it’s working, then you have to optimize like crafting a statue.
You cannot jump on a totally different onboarding flow.You need to test the single steps.Then you’re totally free to test something totally different.But you have to do it with your mind in the right place.Because otherwise, you start to hypothesize.Yeah, because like I was saying, otherwise,Sorry, then you start to hypothesize, oh, it’s because now I put step number three or step number five.But you don’t really know.You only know how users, at the end of the day, convert or not convert.But you cannot really assess with certainty what is driving it.So that’s why you need to do it with small changes.Would these changes be?Like as small as the copy, like images, or complete new screens.Like, I put a new screen focused on social proof and I test that.Yes, even there, I am not a fan of those people who simply say, like, for example, change a button from orange to red and they say that this is a test.In my opinion, this is not enough.
A screen is enough, and it’s a good size as far as a test, but I would not simply gocrazy like testing, you know, a different font for the button, for example, because…
Unless you’re a huge app like Duolingo or something like that, you don’t have enough users who come through your app in order to test that.So, it’s like a meal, I would call it.You cannot eat kilos of stuff, but you should also not go for the smallest insignificant details.You should test one screen at a time, and you should have hypotheses.And this is why screen design is so useful because you have hypotheses.That come and say, okay, I will test this screen that has these different psychological principles and I will put it there.Then, the numbers will drive new tests, new hypotheses that you can come up with.
Yeah.I think it’s about the long, low hanging fruits.So, unless we optimized everything else and we ended up like without any other ideas to optimize, that we are trying to optimize the color or the font, like that means that, uh,we are huge enough.Like Duolingo can afford that because most probably they optimized everything else.But for us in the developers, I think there are so many more opportunities for, for thebigger changes other than the colors and so on, like the psychology on the length.
And speaking about the length, you touched on this, like some apps have two, three steps.Some apps go as crazy as 30 plus steps.What do you think is a good length and what does it depend on?Because I know that that’s where it depends.It tells you drives the higher conversions.But let’s say, for example, in the fitness, uh space, dieting space, there are apps that can go up to 80 onboarding steps, like Noom, for example, these types of apps.Yeah, why do they do that?Because they try to build a quiz and they tell you.Well, you give me all this information.Number one, we make you uh committed to this app.
And number two, we can offer you a better experience because by uh giving us data on how tall you are, what weight do you have, uh age, preferences, and so on and so forth, issuesthat you have currently, we can personalize more the experience.And the two things go hand in hand, basically.The more data they have, the more committed you are.The more committed you are, the more data they get.And so at the end of the day, this drives good numbers for them.
But it totally makes sense for someone to come up with an hypothesis and say, will make a new concept with only seven onboarding steps and make it work.Ah, that’s why I would say to never, M to study from the best.Learn the psychological principles, ah, that do exist since centuries and do work since the beginning of time.
But at the same time, should come up with sometimes uh, with your own ideas, with your own tests, with your own niches, with your own angle.That’s why I always advocate against copycat apps who simply uh, do not put their brain on it.They don’t come up with anything new and they simply go and copy the others.
First of all, you’re going to have problems with Meta, you’re going to have problems with Apple, you’re going to have problems with the apps that you clone.But at the same time, you are doing something that is not so creative and in my opinion, um, will not lead to good results long-term for you as well.
Yeah, I agree.Um, speaking about psychology, I know how important psychology is in the onboarding flows and conversions.Um, what would be the top three principles that someone who doesn’t know a lot about this would learn about and would benefit from if they implement it?
Yes, ah, well, the psychological principles, if you go to screen design, we have built the onboarding radar for that.Oh, the goal for many apps should be to have as large an onboarding radar as possible as a test.And of course, like I always say, uh, mixed panel or whatever analytics you’re using is what matters.So I would say that.It is very, very important one thing.Uh,Feel free to share on the screen right now.
Yeah, so these are the most famous app.But let’s say, let’s give it a random shuffle.Ah, OK, so for example, this is a fasting app with 15 onboarding steps.As you can see, this app, for example, doesn’t go too crazy with 100 onboarding steps.But they do a couple of things well.So, for example, one thing is friction, very, very important.So, a lot of people, especially who are data-driven,they will want to ask people to log in, give me your phone, give me your email.
And users who simply are giving you an opportunity, uh, if you tell them their height, if you ask them for their height in order to personalize better the app, then it makes senseto ask for that kind of stuff in a quiz.But if you simply ask for the mobile phone in order to have the mobile phone in case they drop off,people are going to be pissed off.
And so, that’s going to cause friction.And you don’t want to do that because every second, every download is very expensive in terms of either ASO or ads or whatever.Exactly, unnecessary.Friction is unnecessary by default because if you actually ask forOh, why do you want to fast?And you make people realize why they’re doing that.That’s not going to be friction.That’s going to be, you know, the user understanding why they’re taking the next steps, downloading and using, and paying for your app.And it’s also going to allow you, as an app developer, to personalize better the app for them and the onboarding flow and the paywall at the end of the day.So, it’s going to be a win-win situation.People are going to understand why you’re asking for that kind of stuff and be okay with that.Um, so, it’s really important.A couple of other things, personalization, absolutely great.
If you make the user, for example, even like, okay, asking their name, I would say that is neutral because in one way you’re asking the name on the other side, on the onboardingflow, you can say, hey, Vadim, ah this is why we are doing this for you.You’re not anymore a user.You kind of like start to have a relationship with the app.I see that also Riverside here where we’re recording does this like, cause in Vadim’s studio, know, it’s like a, makes it yours, makes it personalized and it’s a win at the endof the day.So that’s, that’s kind of important.
Then of course,hearing their name like that.That’s true.It’s psychology.Names for sure.Um, I mean, as I was saying before, another thing is also to try to be original.This is also something that uh I push for.OK, this is Shazam.It’s already a big app.But I would argue that some stuff that we did for our app, BoostUp Social,was very, very original.We had an animation of a triangle, and we were saying the corner stuff of a successful presence on social media.It was basically hashtags back in the day, AI chat.Then we were saying, I don’t remember which one was the third, maybe captions or something like that.And we were animating it like a triangle.And that was very innovative.And we saw that thatbrought us like 3 or 4% more open up to.
Like charts and graphs and stuff like that.Exactly.Charts and graphs are the basics, but then on top of that, you put your own creativity and you build something really unique also because you have to consider that people thesedays, they probably open, I don’t know, a couple of apps a month, three, four apps a month.So, in a year, they’ve seen dozens and dozens.And if you can come up with something truly new that makes people say, then, uh, clearly with the right testing framework in place,it’s going to lead to exceptional results because you actually are exceptional, because you are doing something new.So, that’s also something I advocate for and I recommend.And the last one, give me another one maybe, and I will tell you another one.Uh, look, social proof is kind of important.
Another one.Yeah, social proof is really important.For example, this app could do better on it.What we did.For example, in BoostUp social, we had Instagram-style stories, circles.You know, the circles that are at the top of Instagram with the stories?And we basically rebuilt the same thing.And each of the stories, actually inside our paywall, was a user speaking well and recommending our app.And so,we rebuilt that kind of layer of Instagram stories, but we did that with people who recommended our app.
And on Instagram, we would follow and talk to our users, some of our users.And we were, uh, rewarding people for taking screenshots and speaking positively about the app.Then we would capture that and put it inside our onboarding flow.And this was very, very important because we were actually challenging our new users and saying, don’t believe, tap to find out.And then people would have this kind of row of, uh, Instagram-style story circles.
And this also drove amazing results for us.That social proof plus familiarity because they are familiar with the UI of Instagram.Yeah.And I would recommend, don’t only stop at showing some fake reviews or something like that.If you actually have good reviews and you should absolutely go and get them, give proof.Try to make it for the user that, oh, actually, he has the proof of what they are telling.Maybe I would even lean into video recording these days of actual users recommending the app or stuff like that.Maybe I would have a video of your very good videography, Vadim, of you recording yourself, then refreshing the app store and showing that the reviews are actually there on the app store.
I would not go for the cheap Shopify 2016 tricks of simply putting some reviews out there and people don’t really believe, maybe with some AI.AI generated profile pictures that nobody believes in because that actually can reduce your uh, conversion rates.You lose the trustworthiness.
I would try as much as possible to get even a couple of dozen people only at the beginning to actually like the app and get the proof that they actually like it and then display that.Perfect.That sounds amazing.Now that we’re here on screens design, why don’t you show us a couple of examples of good onboarding flows?So not only should we look at the psychology, but I mean on the radar, but on the actual screen so we can understand exactly like what does social proof look like in an onboardingscreen or what does the personalization or theLet’s do that.So what I am doing right now, I am filtering for apps that make significant revenue, at least 50,000 a month.And then I am uh sorting by the newest ones.So, well, a couple of like, so if we talk about good onboarding flows, uh I will, you see these apps actually are from the same studio.Look, hi, welcome.And then here, hi, welcome.
This is from the same app studio.Yeah, yeah, yeah.But these people are doing well, you see.They have a couple of apps.They’re nailing something.They’re even nailing the onboarding flow.It’s very simple, actually, but um interesting.
Yeah, I mean, these kind of niches, they’re playing more like the niche ASO game of understanding what type of keywords are trending and then building apps on top of it.And then the onboarding flow is…Then the onboarding flow…They probably use the same here as well.As you can see, I knew it.
They’re using the same one.Can work.In my opinion, that’s not the best way to go about the business.Um. But yeah.And always remember that when you see,I mean, because if it’s cookie cutter and you apply the same onboarding flow to multiple apps, ah I would say that you’re leaving profits on the table at the end of the day,because you’re really not crafting the experience.
You’re not creating a new Duolingo or you’re not creating really um a new banger app.Uh, it can work maybe at the beginning when you want to test niches.
So you build,uh, neutral onboarding flow, and you just want to test niches and test if an app can have potential.
And then if you get signals that this app is a winner, then you can start crafting on top of it.Because you always remember that sometimes some apps are purely organic, and they make like 65k in uh profits or minus Apple fees or something like that.
But some other apps maybe are not even profitable, know.Revenue is one metric, but then profits, there is no way to know.Because clearly, profits, there is no way to know.Because you have to account for team size, ads, and so on and so forth.So yeah, I would not take those.I would take those only as good onboarding flows to test niches.Not as good onboarding flows, period.Yeah.
Also, the design is a little bit Android-y.I know that Vadim, you have good design taste, so you can see like this.It’s a little bit dated.It’s like nothing new, nothing special.This app already, much, much more interesting.
So, Photo Editor app.As you can see, this is like the usual, this is the Blinkist trial style.They invented it.They were basically reassuring users on what was going on.with the trial.So today you start the trial.In two days we will remind you before your trial ends so you’re safe.And then in three days, ah, the subscription will start unless you cancel before.That’s also like, ah, removing uncertainty and showing clarity.Like this is exactly what’s going to happen.We’re not gonna, right.By the way, know that the enable free trial toggle is already banned?
Uhhh…You see, there is a toggle, enable free trial.Is, uh, Apple already doesn’t allow these kinds of things.Yeah, for sure, but I am sure that many people play on the margins of the game with remote config or something, or maybe when we recorded this app, it was when it was stillavailable.So, Apple doesn’t allow this anymore?It’s like, the previous week we started rejecting it.Yeah.Yeah.It’s definitely possible that we recorded maybe a month or two ago, and so this was still possible.
Is there any app that you think nailed it?Like some popular application that you think has done an amazing job at onboarding?Alright, then we need to change the filters here, go for something bigger. Let’s see.I will scroll and tell you when I see an app that is very good.For example, this is very good.This uses the new type of stuff, like mascots.Mascots are pretty big because they’re friendly, like having a little teddy bear.Uh, it also creates a striking visual image in your memory.Uh, rather than an abstract icon or something like that.But this is really good, for sure.But as you can see, also, this type of design is, yeah, and as you can see, they’re doing something creative, something fresh, something new.Look at the button, it’s not the usual button.And I think that people, these days, appreciate it.And it’s also what makes you, as a developer, want to wake up andCreate new stuff, um, rather than copying what everyone else is doing, ah, blindly.
Taking inspiration is one thing, but then coming up with your own stuff is going to lead not only to better profits but a more rewarding experience for you as a developer andmarketer.
Yeah.Yeah.I think, the more you do it, the better you’re going to get.And at the beginning, I think it’s important toYeah.Look at this, this, uh, paywall.You cannot do it on, uh, you cannot do it on the usual platforms to give you cookie cutter paywalls.You see, this is something truly creative.I’m wondering, um, how effective is this fancy stuff compared to something, uh, basic that is proven to work?
You know, like, I’m thinking about here, like, the concept of we see always this crazy good-looking websites with 3D, with animations that are just really good to look at, butthey’re not converting very well.And then we seebusinesses that are converting well and are focused on revenue, that have a template from 2010 with big red text saying, like, buy now or something like that, and it’s performingmuch better.
So, I’m thinking here as well, like, the thing is, like, what you’re saying is true, but it’s usually driven by web design agencies who are not focused, like, performance-driven.What you can do, the good thing about this business is, and any business, even with a web business, you can do it, is that you can test, like we were saying before, the 400…ah,400 people see A, 400 people see B.So, nothing is stopping you from having a couple hundred, a couple thousand users see a different paywall, isolate the step, and then see how it works for you.
But you have to do it well also, because, let’s say that you create an app like this and an app like this works because it’s crafty, it’s new, it’s fresh, it’s creative, it’s unique.And then…
You come up here at the paywall step and then you come up with something super cookie-cutter, super modern, like Arial and Blue Button.Ah, I’m not so sure.I’m not so sure about that.Ah, but yeah, I agree with you.There are apps that do well, ah, but you would be surprised because I speak sometimes to some apps that are on screen design and then you see numbers like ATK revenue and stuff like that.Maybe sometimes they spend 75k on ads.So revenue is not always profit.Revenue is like one metric that, of course, is needed to understand what kind of apps are doing well.
Ah, but in my opinion, the real edge, if you want to have a competitive advantage, you cannot simply copy, uh, paste what thousands and thousands of apps are going to do.Because also, you’re going to have so many competitors jumping up.And because they’re using the same framework.Perfect.You got to experiment, A/B test, see what works best.This is critical; without A/B testing, like you have to have a strong hypothesis, you have to have strong opinions, but then you have to pass those through a very strict and rational testing framework, it’s crucial.
Yeah, and you, and you have to continuously improve because maybe you go from 22 to 28 percent, but then you can bring that to 31 percent.Open up to, to start trial, for example, soYou should never stop.I’m going to do, like, after we record this podcast, because recently I launched a new onboarding flow for one of my applications.And I think I’m going to go back to start A/B testing some different screens.So, that’s my takeaway from today.
No, absolutely.And you want to do it with remote config so you are able to have your analytics platform, Mixpanel or whatever you’re using.
And then with remote config, uh can decide ah what type of step of the onboarding flow to change in order to isolate, in order to understand if this is better than that.Another one very good app is female-oriented, was Starla for sure.ahthe minimalistic way.this was one of the new apps that came up and let’s see.I like when the data input is split into like one input per screen.Like it’s not just a form of 10 inputs, like it’s just one input, very focused.Yeah, very clean, very simple, doesn’t scare away users.Yeah, I see they give you the benefit like they ask you for the date of birth, but they don’t only ask for the date of birth, they tell you to align with the stars.I mean, this is very female oriented app who do believe in the…
like that’s another psychology in play.Like whenever you’re asking something, you’re going to have like extremely bad results.If you just say the reason that was tested, like if you are in a supermarket and want to cut the line, if you just say, I cut in front of you?Like you’re going to get most probably no, but if you just give it any reason, like, I cut the line because my kid is outside?Like you’re going to get yes.And it doesn’t matter the reason it’s just to be, it has to be there.Yes, no, no, no, absolutely agreed.Where you were born, yeah, here they probably could test like an improvement, I would say.Could you tell me where you were born again?Like you were saying correctly before, Vadim, they’re not telling you the benefit.
Exactly, they’re not telling you why.So this is the perfect occasion of the framework we laid before, right?You have one screen of the onboarding flow, you need to have remote config.and then you test one like this.Could you tell me where you were born so that we can blah blah.
And then I would test 500 users, 2000 users or something like that, and see what leads to better conversions.
Okay, okay.I’m again here.Again.But don’t be tempted to test two together, right?So the moment that test number one is over, then you can move here and do the same thing we spoke about.Yeah, this is like tricky.
Okay, one big suggestion.If you want to do this, I don’t like to do this, to be honest with you.But I do understand that with all privacy, people, apps sometimes want to understand what’s driving results.Be very careful here.You need to randomize these results.Because if you don’t randomize these results, uh, people are going to be tempted on a statistical basis to tap on Facebook or Twitter just because the thumb is there.But you’re uh, going to get huge false positives because people with the thumb are used to clicking in the middle or something like that.
So they’re going to either tap Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube.But not because they are telling you the truth.You have to account for the fact that 95% of people are going to lie.So you need to randomize in order to clean up the results.And only if you randomize, then over thousands and thousands of clicks, you might get the truth.
Yeah.Screen, just to mention to people, like this screen is important only if you’re running ads on different platforms or not only ads, but influencer sponsorships and so on, becausethis is purely to track the performance of your acquisition channels.If you don’t do that, like don’t put it here.You don’t need these data.Obviously.
Yeah, well said.Well said.Yes.Yeah, here, calculating.I mean, they’re showing you that they’re doing a job for you.Yeah.Yes.I mean, they’re using your data in order to personalize your experience, in order to make it more valuable for you, and that’s not something that they simply tellthe…
the same person, all people.Most of them are just doing uh sleep two seconds, show a loading indicator, and then…Yes.Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s true.Maybe, like, oftentimes you want to have that running for five seconds because it makes users feel that you’re really crunching data, that you’re really doing a job.And so even if there is also rating one second, sometimes you want to have five seconds.I mean, it doesn’t cost the users much.So, I’m all in for that.Yeah.And OK.They show you basically this is a free, free paywall, probably something like that.No.I just saw here the rating of the application.Do you have any opinions on that?Asking the user to rate the app in the paywall.Look, um, for us it worked.
For us, it worked.It does make sense, but maybe, you know, what’s working, like, three months, six months ago, stops working nowadays.So you always have to be a little bit, like, know, careful, and do not assume.Because these are kind of like tactical tricks, more than psychological principles that are valid for hundreds of centuries.Mm-hmm.Stuff, like you were saying before, Apple changes a rule, you cannot do that anymore.You tactically uh can make sense.For us, it did make sense.I think it still holds.Uh, but make sure you revisit these assumptions once a month or something like that.
Uh, always be careful because maybe it works for Starlight, it works for us, but doesn’t work for apps in other niches.So always work for tests, but never take it as a certainty.It’s always a hypothesis and testing game at the end of the day.I mean, with good ideas.With good ideas that make sense.That’s why I wouldn’t simply test the screens green just for the sake of testing it green.Doesn’t make sense, right?Test to have something that doesn’t.Reason behind.
Okay, so here they tell you, okay, science, okay, they give you brain, mind, and play for hard, oh, they rising.Okay, they give you okay, after the data they give you, they tell you who you are basically, okay, they give you proof of the number crunching.Okay.Okay.Yeah.
And that’s why they, uh, they make you happy by telling you how great you are here.And how successful your future is gonna be.As a woman, and then they ask you, uh, do you like me?So that’s why they place it here.Can we gather anonymous data to better include self-protection to your day?Okay, so of course here they give you the reason.Yeah.And then, and now they show you the pro.
Okay, now they show you the pro.And basically here, there’s a table.Yeah.Yeah.Okay.Yeah, and as we were saying before, for example here, yeah, there’s like this kind of review, is probably animated.That’s why screen design is so great because you can check the recording.So it doesn’t rotate.No, it doesn’t rotate actually.Yeah.Maybe, actually, the review’s a little bit like, here is nothing, you know, it’s nothing super creative.And also, there’s a lot of text.I think there is room for testing here.Maybe they’ve tested it so much that they know that this works better for them.But I would have expected something like rotating reviews or something like that.Maybe this one works better, but definitely worth a test.Yeah.
This is a really good one.I like the flow and it’s way more reproducible compared to the focus friend because that one is crazy.Like, the normal developer would not be able to recreate it, but this one, I think anyone can learn and implement some of the things from here.Agreed, agreed.Also, one good tip from Steve Young, a great guy.He has a good podcast as well.He uses Decoy.So, if you want users to subscribe to monthly or weekly or yearly, for example, make sure that one of the plans has a very outrageously high price that you don’t want users toconvert.Users feel,"Okay, this price is like outrageous.I’m making a good deal by selecting the yearly or the weekly or the whatever, the other option, you know."So, and this works surprisingly well as well.
We’ve tested it.We had a lifetime basically for 350, which did make sense because our app was 9.99 a month.So, if you do the math, some people, let’s say you’re a business owner, our app was really rich in value.It had like four or five things inside that really help users.But we would offer a lifetime paid upfront on the onboarding flow.
And this one worked well for people who maybe learned from a friend that the app could be valuable to them.And so, they knew that they could subscribe to the lifetime, uh, and be good, you know, because they have a warm intro to it.But for other users, it serves as a, oh, 350 lifetime.No, no, I’m choosing the…monthly for whatever, 15 a month or something, or 12 a month. It’s a good deal.And, so, this would also remove friction and smooth out the conversion as well.Perfect.
Yeah, I agree.Totally agree.Well, Alex, why don’t you show us how we can create these kinds of um designs?Because I myself, I’m an indie hacker.I can totally build anything out there.Now with AI, like I can do this super fast, but I don’t have like the best designing skills.And this leads me to…In a lot of cases, my pain, my problem is that I feel lost.I feel like I don’t know where to even start implementing onboarding, like what to even look for, how to design, how to implement it.From the designing perspective, from the UI/UX.
And I had this problem like previous week while I was live, I basically spent one or two hoursmessing around with different things myself and I couldn’t like, I didn’t like what I was building.Then that evening I saw on Twitter, somebody tweeted about the new tool from screens design, the AI builder.I gave it a try and to be honest, like I instantly loved what I created there and I implemented the results, the onboarding screens like in no time in my application,that…that gave me another boost of energy, like, oh my God, this is exactly what I was looking for.So I really liked that feature.
Can you please show us and let’s go ahead and generate some onboarding experience for an app?Of course, why not?So, uh, four or five weeks ago, we launched the Create thing.So now Screen Design has the library where you can go study, come up with hypotheses, new apps, new niches, do market research.But then we also are offering to our clients a way to generate very powerful onboarding flows that are based on the principles that we learned from 2,300 apps,uh,winning apps on the app store.And so if you go here or you go to screens design / create, you can uh create new apps, and you will be prompted before a new. Now, I’m logged in, so don’t be scared.
If you are gonna go through it as a new user, you will see the landing page and then you will be able to try it.Actually, we give 10 free credits to anybody.And you can test it out how it works for you.And you will see that it’s so much better than many other players like Google Stage, UX Pilot.This is a totally different level.
But for example, let’s create a new project.So let’s say that I want to start from scratch.But we are also moving into helping apps that already exist to create new features, new parts of the app, new boring screens, new onboarding flows, and new paywalls.Uh,and we are aligning it to your own style.But let’s say that we want to start a new app.And uh, Vadim, what kind of app do we create?Do we create an app for women who want to know about the horoscope or football apps or I don’t know?OK.
I tried to launch an app in that niche and Apple rejected it.So maybe I need to improve that onboarding screens.Okay, Horoscope app for women who, let’s say, 50 plus, like—do we give it a niche or do we keep it broad?
Let’s niche down.50 plus women.OK.Ah, all right.Then create a project.And it will take a little bit of time for the users who are uh, live, not too much.But let’s go crazy a little bit with the onboarding flows and table steps.And then here, as you can see, you can already uh, select what type of principles you want to use in your own um app.
Let’s select these ones, for example.And then you can refine, of course.This is only a start.Ah, the uploads.And we come up with some very good concepts for you, uh, as far as the design of it.And, like I say, there are apps that are a little bit faster at the beginning and they immediately show you stuff.But what we realized is that it is totally worth it to spend 30 seconds waiting, uh, for our system to generate stuff because the results are mind-blowing.And so, as you can see, we’re actually working on displaying these things already.Ah, but let’s simply go with the number one.Your users can go and try it for themselves.
Or do you want to select something?Good.Yeah, that’s good.Let’s go.And so, here, now the app creates, uh, one screen at a time.Uh, and you will see that the results are coherent between, uh, each other.We are not simply taking LLMs here and telling generate an app.There are a lot of optimizations in the background that we use, that we have discovered.And this is what gives us an edge.Uh,You will see that the screens are coherent between each other.
You will see that the screens, um, follow the same style and the logic, uh, is…Can see things appearing on the screen.I’m pretty sure, like, the result is going to speak for itself about the quality of the tool.Uh.
Yeah, but as you can see, this is a 50 plus app and we already generate this uh first image of a woman who’s in her silver years reading a book.Very, very uh interesting, and as you can see, the buttons do make sense uh between each other.Here you can scroll.If you tap on it, you can scroll so you can see actually how the app is.
Not only that, but we have a prototype feature and we have an auto prototype.So for example, this screen is not the best.And I would recommend you, for example, select it and say, oh, I don’t like this screen.Make it simpler.Like split it into different.uh Look, it’s not even that bad at the end of the day, but like we were saying before, worth testing if simplicity, right?Mm-hmm.uh like asking for one thing at a time.So as you can see, the loading bar is coherent and it’s increasing correctly.Here it’s very, very nice, like the before-after, these things work like a charm, and it’s beautiful, like before-after.Yes, with the interaction, it’s beautiful, yes.I’m not sure if it works right now with the HTML, I think not.But uh, once you then transpose it on Cloud Code or on Codex on Xcode, it will be able to do it, no problem.
And here, so these apps, uh these screens are actually HTMLs.They’re not images.So they’re already code that then you can translate to, for example, like you use React Native.But it also works for people who want to go the Zwift route.Um.Yes.That part I think is underrated.Like, um, like the results here you can see for yourself that they are amazing, but what impressed me the most is the ability to export this in HTML format.
That Claude code understands the code.Doesn’t just look at pictures, it understands the code and mapping, mapping from HTML to React Native. For me, it was like so good.Like it was.Yes.Yes.We are also big fans of cloud code here.We use it a lot.Um, look at the animation.So beautiful.Like, already this is like an actual HTML animation that then you can transpose into your app.
And this is like, wow, you know?And here, it’s doing the same thing we were speaking about before.I didn’t prompt it anything, but as you can see, it’s like doing the analyzing, you know?Um, like we were saying before.Yes, yes.Um,Yeah, think, yes.
Yes, yes.And then you can simply prompt it stuff.Yes, as you can see, it has created the screens.Six, nine, ten.Yeah, and two paywalls.Basically two alternative paywalls for you to also test.
I mean.What I would do here is then say, for example, select one screen’s reference it and then, um,others’ reference, as you can see, you can simply click others’ reference andThen you can say generate different variations of this boom and it takes that as, uh, exact screen, and it goesand, uh, with the coherent style of the app, will generate new stuff.
This is why I say, uh, this is only the beginning when you start and you create the onboarding flow, but this is a canvas where you can generate hundreds of screens if youwant.And not only onboarding, you can generate actually the parts of the app.You have dense zones.When the app here becomes bigger, you can, uh, add screens to a zone in order to have everything in a tidy order.Say that you have, uh, the app as three feature areas, and you can order them this way.I also love the prototyping, which makes it interactive.The auto linking of buttons.
Absolutely.Absolutely.So I can show the prototyping feature as well.We can click here.And then, basically, you can go here and connect the screens together.What it can do, actually, is also, uh, do the auto.Yeah, auto is easier.Clearly, if you have a lot of screens, you need to.Uh,Yes.
Ah, let’s see.But I want to do one thing before.I’m not sure if it will work, but we will test because I see that it did, because I only said different variations.Let’s say, uh, simplify.Let’s say, for example, add as a reference and I say, simplify asking only the name.
Asking name,date of birth, and time in three different steps.Let’s see, I’m not sure if it will work, but uh, I’m ready to fail here.We are improving it every week, so if it doesn’t work by next week, it will be better, but I’m up for the challenge.
Okay, in the meantime, okay, auto-prototype.Select screens, okay, I only select the screens that I want because clearly I can have, you know, different screens.So it only asks me for the screens that I want.And here I do connect, boom.And now it will generate the prototype that you can send to anybody or test on your phone, you know, because it will generate a link and the link you can open it on your phone.
It’s a meh.Yeah.You can open it in browser because it’s HTML, right?You can open it in browser, can open oh, it on the browser of your phone, yes.And it will look 92% accurate compared to how the app will actually be.For example, look how good this is already.Man, bingo, right?Yes.Uh, man’s crazy.And consider we only took, like, we only took a few minutes or seconds to do it.
You can go so fast, you can test so much.So this gives you already, as you can see, a 90% accurate understanding of how your app will look like.And if you do share, you can send to friends, you can send to your colleagues, to your employees, to yourself.It creates a link, boom, you copy it, it’s done.
Anyone can.Anyone can access it.Yeah, amazing.That, uh, that, yeah.Oh, nice.Yeah.Look, it worked.So we asked it, like we learned from Starla.
This is why I say the library is so cool, because you go to the library, you get some inspiration, right?And then what you do is you come up with it, because we saw this one, right?And it was all in the same screen, right, Vadim?And then we say, but I saw on Starla, I studied it from the library that maybe we can test to separate stuff to make it easier.
Especially because this app is for 50 plus users.And so here we have…You see, the date already gives a reason, so it applies to our psychology that we discussed about.Yes, yes, this is the powerful thing about screen design.Also, if you go on the right tab here, we have ideas.It’s a little bit hidden, but you can click on it and then we generate ideas based on your app.As you can see here, it’s already suggesting, for example, to start to generate a dashboard.So this is already we are going inside the features of the app.If you want to build a full app, you can do it.We are really strong right now in the onboarding flow because this is how people know us.Uh, as of now, but uh, in the future we will also uh, help our users uh, generate full apps inside.So this is only the start, but I always recommend to start from the onboarding flow and paywall if the app is new.Why?
Because then you can decide the colors in a simple way.You can go about deciding on your copywriting, your psychology, uh your style.Then once you have that, can delve into developing the features and the settings page and the dashboards and uh all of that.
Perfect, I love it, but the only thing I want to ask you, ah I know that new users get 10 credits for free.ah Do our subscribers get any deals from you?Let’s do this.Your subscribers, if they email us, uh they can email me at alex@screensdesign.com, and they tell me I come from Vadim.Not only Vadim, you can offer them 50% off the first month because you’re going to be one of our affiliates.But if they also email me, I will give them…uh, let’s say 20 credits on top of it.So if they come from this video, not only can they get 50% off for the first month, but I will give them 20 credits,until, let’s say, but let’s give it a limit because otherwise until…uh, February 28th, 2026.
Okay, I’m going to try my best to launch this video as soon as possible so people can take advantage of this.But the 50% off for your first month is going to be…stay unlimitedly as long as we exist.But this special offer, as far as credits, we are doing it now.You’re asking me about it.I’m ready to roll, so let’s do it.
As you can see,the link in the description so you can sign up and get 50% off your risk money and then free credits.Because we have never thought about it.You’re asking me now.
I’m telling you yes now.They can simply email me, and once they register, they tell me their email, and I will add credits on the back end side.But as you can see here, beautifully, in the meantime, we also generated from the ideas tab.I highly recommend using this.It already generated a screen from inside, right?So yes, so people can start to see or.This is how my app can be structured.Four icons at the bottom.They can add that to the prototype as well, and they can bring that to Xcode, Codex, Cloud Code, and build it.Perfect, that’s lovely.
Alex, I have one more activity for you.So Alex, you’re the co-founder of screens designs.You know, and you saw thousands of great onboarding screens for mobile applications.I want you to rank the following features and different types of screens when it comes to building highly performant onboarding experience.Let’s create a tier list together.So, UI/UX design—how important is that?Okay, so, but let me check first.I need to give a quick scan because I cannot put everything on S here.UUX design, let’s go.Where do we put it?A tier.Okay.Psychology.How important is that?
Yes.But I would say that psychology and copywriting go together.I would put them together.Yeah, because copywriting is writing basically psychology.Perfect.That pop up to ask for ad tracking permissions in one boarding flow.B AA, it’s important.Yes, well, A, if you run ads.If you run ads, it’s very important.
I mean, because I’m thinking that we run ads, we like to run ads.But if you are an indie who only does ASO, ah then maybe it’s like a D, doesn’t matter.Know, like it depends.Yeah.What about notification permissions?Look, I would say if the app makes sense, it’s very important.If it doesn’t make sense and it’s only a way to spam users, I would put it in a B.Depends.FB.Okay.
If there is no reason to send notifications, like if you are a weather app and you like to hail damage or you’re a habit tracker and need to pop up users, like put your stuff,yes.But if you are an app that is only needed to be used when you want, then it doesn’t matter too much.It’s either S or B, I don’t know.Yeah.
Web pop-up.I think B because it’s nice to have if it makes sense for you in your test. It works, yes, but there are other ways to also get uh reviews like you can actually do outreach. You canask your users uh to rate it in other ways, sookay, social proof.Between B and A.Between B and A, somewhere on A.Let’s go.Feature showcase.Showcasing this is what the application is doing.I think it’s very important.It’s very important.I think so.I think it’s either A or S.Ah,I think, yes.In my opinion, yes.I know it’s a contrary take, but in my opinion, like we were saying at the beginning of the combo, onboarding flow, uh, removing the friction of people being afraid of what theheck the app does, helps a lot.Okay, that’s good.Videos, having videos in in-vote boarding flows.A.A, okay.Yes.Paywalls.Paywall is an S.
That’s probably like a very good S here.Uh, queezing, where, yeah, asking for a lot of information.Quiz can be either an S or a D because it depends on the type of app.As I was saying, this industry is made by niches and verticals.Fitness apps are different than productivity apps and business apps, for example.So if you have a quiz on a productivity business app, probably a D.If you have a fitness app, probably an S.So, and all the way in the middle.It depends on the type of the vertical.I very much agree with you.
Like it’s for some application is S for some it’s D. Let’s put it in S only if it makessense.If it doesn’t, like having progress bar.Look, progress bar is nice to have.Progress bar by itself will not uh change the world, but it can make drop-off users a little bit less because they feel that they see the light at the end of the tunnel.So I would call it a B or an A.A B, let’s put a B.Building your plan, where the thing that we saw like loading, like we are building your plan.The loading, yeah.The loading, I would put it together with the quiz, to be honest with you, because in some apps it makes a lot of sense.
So if you have, it’s like a bit copywriting of psychology.In my opinion, they’re like very much together, you know, they’re very much the same thing almost.So I would not treat them separate.If it makes sense in a fitness app, in an astrology app, yes.As if it’s a business app.You do not need to have a building your plan because you don’t have a quiz.
Perfect.And finally, signing up, we’re creating an account.So signing up in the onboarding flow, but signing up after the onboarding flow is done and people join the app is very important because you can email people, you can havepeople sign in again.If they lose their phone, they can still do it.But it’s nice to have contact with these people, being able to ask for feedback, what kind of features would you like?So yeah, I would call it very important.But not in the onboarding flow.Right after when the trial is activated.Perfect.
That’s exactly the advice I was looking for.Ah, amazing.So we have it.So, as I understand, very important psychology and copywriting.Like in my opinion, this is…Yeah, I think this is…delivering psychology through copywriting, so, you know.Yeah.You show features of the application or ask a quiz if it makes sense.If you do the quiz, you also create a building your plan or a loading screen because that emphasizes that you are using the data that the user gave and your application is working.
And then the paywall.Yeah.Perfect.That’s the secret, the secret sauce for a highly converting onboarding screen.And from probably our conversation today, I think A/B testing should be here with everything together.
Yeah, be testing and have a good, you know, uh analytic system to be test.Yeah, I be testing and good analytic system.Very crucial with remote config.So, you are able to drop tests and start a new test and keep it iteration.Very important.Iterating, iterating, iterating, and hypothesis.Very important.Hypothesis.How do you come up with hypothesis?You go to Screen Design Library.
You can do shuffle, random shuffles, for example.And see stuff and say, maybe I this, maybe I try that.And then that goes through remote config into your testing game.Perfect.That’s exactly what I’m going to do right after this recording.Uh, I personally learned so much from you, Alex.Thank you very much.I really hope that people watching this or listening to this, uh, also learned a lot from you and learned something that they can apply directly to their applications that can havea direct effect on the bottom line, on increasing the revenue, matters, which is quite important for an indie developer.
Sean.Yes.Um, what is there anything you want to say at the end, Alex?
No, just use your link, go to Screen Design, try it out. We give 10 screens for free.Then, uh, if you email us until the end of February, uh, and you say that you come from Vanya, we’ll give you more screens if you become a paid user.Uh, that’s pretty much it.
It’s a really nice game.It’s really interesting.There are very…uh, reliable ways to make good cash with it.Uh, it’s very important that you keep on going, no matter the challenges that you face,you keep iterating, you keep trying to improve your onboarding flows, your app, your product, yourspeed, your ads.And so, at the end of the day, at some point, you will strike gold.Thank you.Thank you very much.
That’s also something close to my heart as well.Now that I’m doing the 10K MRR challenge, this year I’m trying to reach 10K MRR.But that’s another topic.Alex, thank you very much.
Thank you, everyone, for uh listening to… If you enjoyed this, make sure to like this video, the podcast, leave us a review,and let us know what other people from the industry you’d like us to interview.Thank you very much and have a nice day.