Activation

Field notes on finding the behaviors that actually move revenue.

• Oct 2026 • 6 min Churn Happens Early New users don't churn like your total user base: they leave FAST, and early. So "early" is where most of your activation leverage lives.
• Sep 2026 • 5 min Early Is Big New users have almost no trust built up yet, which makes early friction more costly than the same friction would be later. The early window deserves more attention than most teams give it.
• Aug 2026 • 10 min So... WTF Is "User Value" Anyway? Every activation strategy rests on a definition of user value. Most of those definitions were never examined. Here I put the common ones through their paces.
• Aug 2026 • 10 min Multipliers: A Field Guide Look at what users who converted actually did, not just where others dropped off. Correlating specific behaviors with conversion rates shows where to invest.
• Aug 2026 • 5 min Why I Stopped Doing UserOnboard to Do This Instead After a decade on UserOnboard, I'm starting Value Paths. Here I share why cohort data and split tests became more interesting to me than teardowns.