BuzzFeed Onboarding Flows: When High Friction Works
In this post, I will write about high-friction onboarding flows—one of the most effective onboarding designs for single-player consumer apps, and one that many consumer founders seem unaware of.
Onboarding is one of the cornerstones of a successful consumer app, and a lot has been written about it. “The user should arrive at the ‘aha’ moment as fast as possible…decrease the friction between the first visit → creating a profile.” Or, “Lock the app for a user unless the user invites three friends.” “Add as many sign-up methods as possible,” or the complete opposite: “Go only with Apple Sign Up.” Often, a lot of the advice is conflicting because strategies are always changing and are at the mercy of social media algorithms (distribution) and OS updates (build).
What works depends a lot on timing, and one of the most effective growth tricks at this time is the implementation of high-friction onboarding flows—or what I call BuzzFeed Onboarding.
BuzzFeed Onboarding takes the user through a 5- to 15-question quiz that promises a personalized output in the end before showing them the signup and/or payment screen. While a usual onboarding flow would ask for only basic information before taking the user to the app, a BuzzFeed onboarding flow asks the user many personalized questions before they’ve even installed the app.
The reason BuzzFeed Onboarding works is that the user’s desire to see a personalized output is greater than the nuisance of a longer onboarding. That desire also impacts their willingness to pay for a free trial.
Benefits of BuzzFeed Onboarding
It switches the user’s mindset from “Will I like this app?” to “I can’t wait to see my personalized result/report.” This is similar to the personalized experiences that made BuzzFeed’s “This Sorting Quiz Will Tell You Which Hogwarts House You Truly Belong In”-type quizzes so popular.
Sunk cost fallacy: The effort to answer multiple questions creates a sense of sunk cost that leads users to engage more deeply with the app.
It filters low-intent users who will decrease your retention and increase noise: In the 0 → 1 growth stage, you want to get as many high-intent users on your app as possible. Users who are genuinely interested in the value prop of your app will complete the process, while those who aren’t will drop off.
Data collection: The BuzzFeed Onboarding flow allows you to gather a ton of personalized data on your users before they even install the app!
How to Build a BuzzFeed Onboarding Flow
Choose 5-10 thematic questions: The more relevant the questions, the better.
Use single-choice or multiple-choice answers: Try to avoid having users type an answer unless it’s crucial (usually only for inputting their name and email).
Sprinkle in ✨delight screens ✨: The simplest version of this is a screen in the middle of the flow that shares something informative and fun; the more advanced version is a personalized animation.
Examples of BuzzFeed Onboarding
All the onboarding flows are hyperlinked.
Flo Health (Advanced): Palta, the incubator that created Flo, is the holy grail of BuzzFeed onboarding flows. I recommend every founder go through the onboarding of Flo, as well as their other apps.
Zeng AI (Basic): This is a BuzzFeed onboarding flow that my friend and I built to gauge interest in a personalized meditation app. You’ll see it’s less fancy and with less delight than Flo. Yet, we were able to grow a waitlist of 2,000+ users in only a few days and get the early signs of validation we were looking for.
Tolans1 (Unique): I found Tolan via an Instagram ad. The ad took me to its very own BuzzFeed onboarding—perhaps one of the most unique ones. Tolan used voice AI for the entire flow. The “onboarding Crystall” asked standard Myers-Briggs questions, and I answered. In the end, it revealed my type and matched me with a compatible Tolan, who I could only access after paying. I immediately did. In addition, the app had some gorgeous animations. It’s as gamified as it gets.
Final Thoughts
In the end, founders should be discerning about what advice to listen to. Everyone, including myself, feels strongly about things they’ve seen work or not. The only way to know is to try it, since consumer marketing2 is inherently an iterative process. I hope you give BuzzFeed onboarding a try— and discover if higher friction is better for your app.
Tolan doesn’t have a web onboarding flow, you have to install the app. If it were me, I’d create a web version too.
I believe the BuzzFeed onboarding would work well for B2B as well.