First impressions
that activate.
An onboarding that took
without giving anything back
ZoomInfo Lite is the free-tier entry point to ZoomInfo: a self-serve product for sales and marketing professionals who want to experience the platform's data intelligence before committing to an enterprise plan. It exists as a top-of-funnel growth lever. The onboarding is where that either happens or doesn't.
The previous flow collected information at every step and gave users nothing in return. No preview, no signal, no reason to keep going. Drop-off was high, return rates were low. We needed to shift from a one-way data collection flow to a two-way value exchange where every input is immediately reflected back as something useful.
I led the design from discovery through launch as Product Design Director, working across product design, motion, product management, and engineering. The result was a measurable improvement in activation, day-one return rate, and onboarding completion.
Director, not spectator.
I led this initiative from the inside out: shaping the design brief, running alignment sessions with Product and Leadership, directing the team's exploration, and staying embedded from information architecture through final animation specs. My job is to push the work forward alongside the people making it, not review it from above.
Users didn't leave
because they didn't care.
ZoomInfo Lite is a free, self-serve tier of the ZoomInfo platform, giving sales and marketing professionals access to company and contact intelligence without an enterprise commitment. It exists as a top-of-funnel growth lever, letting the product prove its value before conversion. The onboarding is where that either happens or doesn't.
Users left because the product never gave them a reason to stay. They arrived curious, left without direction, not because the data wasn't there, but because the flow never made it feel relevant to them. Every percentage point improvement in activation has downstream consequences for conversion. We weren't designing an orientation. We were designing a sales motion that had to feel like genuine help.
What we heard in interviews
We give Lite users credits in exchange for their time. That gave us direct access to engaged participants, mostly from small and mid-size companies, people wearing multiple hats across sales, marketing, and operations.
What the data confirmed
Users were time-poor and quick to disengage. The product had two minutes to earn their attention, and it wasn't doing it.
A flow designed to
accelerate understanding
The journey is structured in three acts: learn about the user, show them something relevant, give them their first real action. Every step was tested against one question: does this move the user toward value, or does it ask them to wait?
The design language
behind the work
Before any screen was drawn, we established the interaction and visual language that would govern the experience. These were constraints, not aesthetic preferences. They kept decisions consistent as the team worked in parallel across multiple flow states.
The work moved
the numbers
We measured success across three horizons: activation (did users reach their first meaningful action?), engagement (did they return?), and conversion (did Lite users upgrade?). All three improved.
What drove the improvement
The personalization gate was the single highest-leverage change. Users who completed the role and goal selection steps showed 3x higher 7-day retention than those who skipped any part of the profiling sequence.
Conversion signal
Users who went through the new onboarding were more likely to reach the data export limit (the primary conversion trigger) within their first 30 days. Getting people into the product is what surfaces the upgrade moment.
Qualitative signal
Post-launch in-app feedback surfaced two phrases repeatedly: "It felt like it actually knew what I needed" and "The setup was surprisingly quick." Both mapped directly to the design goals: personalization and speed-to-value.
Internal impact
The work reset the bar for how the broader Lite team approached new feature launches. The split-panel pattern became a reusable primitive. The motion system was adopted by other product teams. And the design team's credibility as a strategic partner grew measurably through this project.
What this project
taught me
Onboarding is the product's first opportunity to demonstrate that it understands who the user is and what they're trying to accomplish.