Gross; you're hiding the credit card requirement until after I've made an account.<p>As a customer, I would abandon your site faster than anything, no matter how slickly you'd done the presell.<p>And yes, I tried making an account. It's very jarring to suddenly be hit with a credit card wall to actually <i>do</i> anything in the trial. A free trial where I give you my credit card number isn't free. I don't feel this is going to help your conversion rates.
As a consumer I hate this. If you know that you <i>need</i> the software it isn't a big deal to add your CC info, but if you are just trying out some different products/services it is really annoying.<p>Also, I suck at completing timed trials. I sign up for a service, play with it for a bit, and might not come back for a few weeks - usually when the trial has expired. Having to enter credit card information is exactly one of the roadblocks that causes me to abandon ship and put it in the "This is a pain and taking more time than I thought, so I will just do this later." category.<p>So, while I don't think you are losing any customers that already know they need your service, you may be losing some who <i>might</i> need your service, but aren't sure yet.<p>The best onboarding process gets me signed up as quickly as possible (you are clearly doing that) - and takes me through an interactive tutorial (i.e. "Enter your project name here") where you are actually entering information into the system, not just completing some demo that isn't useful.<p>Show users how to do something useful with your service as quickly as possible and you will have their attention. The CC info will be secondary - they will happily enter it when the time comes!
I insist on credit cards upfront on moustachecoffeeclub.com I am sending people a free physical bag of coffee though that costs me around $12 so it's very important that I convert people. But yes, lots of advantages to this approach not least getting rid of time wasters, who always seem to be the most annoying "customers" on the planet :)<p>I think I might do a post sometime about all the fun ways I've sacked my annoying customers. Keeps me interested anyway :)
This appears to be a dupe of <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6600137" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6600137</a> from a few hours ago. However, it's a fantastic article.
It's amazing how HN, a community supposedly filled with entrepreneurs, is so opposed to anything marketing related.<p>Software doesn't sell itself guys...honest, insightful posts about the reasoning behind business decisions that directly affect a product's bottom line are really important and should not be dismissed because they contain "marketing speak".
Brennan, if you are reading this, get rid of that bloody "powered by drip" widget in the bottom right corner. It is annoying as hell that it can't be fully removed from the screen.
-He lost me at the phrase "onboard new users"- ;-)<p>edit: I rescind my comment, I'm not adding anything useful to the discussion here. I still hate the term, but I guess there's not anything better.