At Superhuman, we manually onboard every new user, which has created superfans and allowed our engineers to focus on product development rather than onboarding flows.

I realized that as a CEO, I can define what my role should be at Superhuman. I hired a great president, reducing my direct reports from eight to two, which allowed me to spend 60% to 70% of my time on product, design, and marketing.

We conduct in-person onboarding for new hires, allowing them to spend a week with us in the Bay Area to build relationships and understand the company culture.

Manually doing processes yourself in the early stages of building a marketplace is crucial to understanding what needs to be built, rather than automating everything too soon. When we started onboarding cleaning professionals, we asked them numerous questions over the phone and in person, followed by a test clean. This process led to an acceptance rate of only three to five percent, meaning many candidates never made it onto the platform.

In the early stages, we worked with our first ten hires for a week to assess their fit and capabilities before making a commitment.

We had to manually set up accounts in the early days, which worked well because it reduced friction for users.

As the company grows, onboarding processes need to be formalized to ensure new hires are integrated effectively into the team.

During onboarding, avoid asking too many questions to prevent losing motivated users; streamline the process to get them into the app faster.

In the early days, we focused on hiring the best talent to fill gaps in our skills, which helped us grow from three to over 300 employees in just a few years.