Valubyl

Valubyl is a PLG consultancy that has helped 25+ B2B SaaS companies build product-led onboarding that helps new users quickly understand the product and reach value on their own.

Founder

Instantly.ai

PLG Advisor

Stockpress

Gymdesk

echowin

PI.EXCHANGE

Morgen

TrueClicks

Advisor

Databox

https://www.growthunhinged.com/p/the-evolution-of-product-onboarding-databox

DataTrails

Founder @ Valubyl | Product-Led Growth Advisor

Husband, father, and founder, currently building Valubyl.

Valubyl is a PLG consultancy that has helped 25+ B2B SaaS companies build product-led onboarding that helps new users quickly understand the product and reach value on their own.

Sound like something you need help with?

Feel free to send me a DM, email at yaakov@valubyl.com, or book an intro call with the link above.

Yaakov Carno

Everyone's adding AI prompt bars to their product. Almost no one knows how to design them right. So I mapped 40+ AI prompt journeys - from homepage to onboarding - across products like Canva, Notion, Vercel, Wix, and Airtable.

The result?
A full Prompt Bar Journey Library.

A teardown of how top teams are designing prompt-to-value flows that actually activated users - not just impress them.

Inside, you’ll see:
✅ Prompt examples that drive activation - not just “wow”
✅ How top products capture context without any setup friction
✅ The exact moment to execute a prompt (before or after signup)
✅ What happens after the first output (and why most teams lose users there)

If you’re building an AI feature or onboarding flow, this library will save you weeks of trial and error.
It’s for builders who care about activation, not aesthetics.

For teams who want to turn “Try our AI!” into actual adoption.

I built this for growth leads, founders, and PMs shaping how humans talk to AI.

Want the Prompt Bar Journey Library?

1️⃣ Make sure we’re connected
2️⃣ Comment "PROMPTBAR" below - and I’ll send it your way

Helped 30+ B2B SaaS companies upgrade their PLG self-serve onboarding. Building Valubyl and sharing the behind-the-scenes of our PLG revamps.

New Valubyl website is live! 🤩 

For the last 3 years, we've been building a simple and powerful vision:

Turn self-serve onboarding into your strongest PLG growth lever.

30+ clients later… we finally have a site that actually reflects what we do. 

Capturing onboarding and activation work in a website is hard. But this is version 1 and the first step toward showcasing the depth of what we deliver every day.

👉 Activation revamp sprints
👉 PLG execution and advisory
👉 Real results, real case studies

If you're focusing on getting more paying customers from your freemium or free trial, let's chat.

PLG onboarding & activation revamps for B2B SaaS companies

Has SaaS lost it's mind? We've entered the new UX era 🤯 

AI prompt bars are everywhere. And it’s fascinating to see how differently products are using them.

Some feel magical.
Some feel confusing.
And some are quietly redefining onboarding and user activation entirely.

Over the last month, I mapped out 40+ prompt-bar journeys from tools like Canva, Vercel, Lovable, Airtable, and Bolt to see how the best teams are solving this.

The results were wild!!!

A mix of brilliant patterns, clever UX details, and a few surprising misses. 

From “Ask me anything” chaos... 
to onboarding that teaches by doing.

This carousel shares the highlights, and the full deep-dive article (in the comments) breaks down exactly what’s changing in activation.

Thank you Kyle Poyar for another epic collaboration, just keeps getting better! 🔥 

If you’re building an AI product, you're going to want to save this one!

The New UX Era 🔥

“Why would you hire me when you could just do it yourself?”
That’s the question I asked Nathan from Freckle.io on a recent call.
(Yeah, probably not my smartest sales question 😅)

We were chatting about their PLG onboarding project I was working on, and I genuinely wanted to know.

Why choose to work with an agency like mine, Valubyl, when you could just handle it internally…
or even use AI to figure it out?

He paused for a moment and replied:

“There are certain business/product problems where it makes a ton of sense to bring someone in who’s seen that movie many times before, and onboarding and activation is one those.

If you think about a typical product manager or designer,
if they've been in their career for 10 years,
they've probably only worked on onboarding and activation flow maximum 3 times,
most of them maybe once or none”

And he’s right.

You can learn onboarding once. You can design onboarding a few times.

But when you’ve rebuilt 30+ onboarding experiences across SaaS products,
you start to see patterns that others miss.

That’s the superpower of a hyper-niche agency today.

In a world where AI can do “a bit of everything,” what actually stands out is being really good at one thing, not being average at everything. 

Nathan’s answer reminded me why I started Valubyl in the first place.

To go deep.

Not to do everything, but to do one thing. 
PLG activation and onboarding.
Better than anyone else.

New podcast drop with Alex Oppenheimer is live 🎙️ We went deep on what really drives PLG - and why most teams get it wrong.

Here’s what we covered:

> What PLG actually means: your product should do the job of Sales/CS - guide, qualify, and tell the story inside the experience.

> Why focus wins: one lever, done exceptionally well, compounds everything else - activation, retention, and CAC.

> AI ≠ magic: Prompt bars and “wow” moments drive curiosity, but long-term adoption still comes from solving a real problem with guided context.

> Why bring in specialists: Even great teams only tackle onboarding a few times. Repetition across dozens of SaaS products shortens the learning curve - and avoids the usual pitfalls.

And a whole lot more in our 30-min chat…

When I started Valubyl, the goal was simple: solve one painful, repeatable problem - self-serve onboarding and activation. 

At first, we were advisors - helping SaaS teams spot what wasn’t working and what to fix.
Now, three years later, we’ve evolved into an execution-first agency - not just telling teams what to do, but actually doing it for them.

Our core offer: In 2-4 weeks, we ship a redesigned onboarding experience your team can launch and see the results - no fluff, just outcomes.

If you’re trying to turn more signups into revenue, see what great activation actually looks like, and get a better understanding of what it takes to win with PLG - this episode’s for you.

Comment ALEX and I’ll DM you the link...

... just joking :) check the first comment.

One of the biggest ongoing challenges I’ve had as a founder is:
Our website still doesn’t do justice to what we actually do.

Every time I jump on a call with a new prospect, the same thing happens.
They say, “Oh wow - I didn’t realize how deep this goes.”

And that’s when I realize again: the visuals on our site just don’t capture it.

The moment they see inside a before-and-after Figma design from one of our onboarding revamps, or a real activation playbook - they instantly get it.

They see how much value actually comes out of these sprints. 

Not just pretty UX, but full product experiences redesigned around world-class activation.

It’s way more than “onboarding redesigns.”
It’s building the entire self-serve experience for first-time users.

And yet… that rarely comes across from the outside looking in.

I’ve been studying how other teams like Anthony and Rob from FletchPMM show their work - the before/after visuals, clear deliverables, and the way they walk you through what you actually get. It’s so well done.

So that’s my current project:
> Adding more visuals, walkthroughs, and real examples that show what our work actually looks like.

If you’re a founder or consultant, you probably know the feeling - that imbalance between how much depth you deliver and how simply it’s represented online.

I’m finally fixing that this month. 

Thank you Victoria Bakos for all the help! Super excited to share the new website soon!!

One of the clearest signs you’re working with a great team is the way they respond to bad results. 

Anyone can celebrate good results. But the best teams treat every experiment as part of the process, even when it doesn’t go the way you hoped. Learning is everything.

A small moment from working with the Freckle.io team really highlighted this for me.

A few months ago, we shipped a fully revamped onboarding flow. Before launch, they asked me what completion rate I’d expect. 

I said something like:
“Hard to benchmark, but I’d be disappointed with anything under 80%.”

Fast-forward a few months... the data comes in: 30%. 

I won’t lie, it hit me hard 😅 

I care a lot about what we deliver, and I care a lot about our clients.

But I also know this is how growth works. Sometimes you’re right and sometimes you learn the hard way.

Still… something didn’t feel right. 30% just didn’t match what we had built.

Then a couple weeks ago, Andy sent me a message:

"Turns out the old tracking wasn’t counting users who made it all the way through to the table view properly. Once we fixed that, completion jumped to 82.5%."

That obviously made my week. 
But honestly, the part that stayed with me wasn’t the better result, it was how the team reacted when we thought it was 30%.

There was zero blame. Just growth mindset and a keen energy to fix whatever was broken. 

That’s rare and a true testament to the culture Nathan and the team are building.

This is the kind of team you want to build with. This is the kind of team that is going to win BIG! 

It's already clear - Freckle’s growing over 240% month-over-month in signups, and they're just getting started! 🙌

If you’ve ever test-driven a car and suddenly couldn’t imagine giving it back…
you already understand why reverse trials work so well.

When Maja and I were writing our latest piece, we realized the real magic of reverse trials isn’t in the monetization model - it’s in the psychology behind it.

We went into the 4 biggest triggers that make it so powerful 👇

1️⃣ The Endowment Effect
> Once users “own” a premium feature, even temporarily, they value it far more.

↳That’s why free samples work in retail - and why SaaS users feel attached to features they’ve already used.

2️⃣ FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)
> When users see the premium side of your product in action, they don’t want to lose it.

↳ FOMO exists in B2B too lol.

3️⃣ Loss Aversion
> We hate losing more than we love gaining.

↳ Kyle Poyar shared his experience when he tried to downgrade from the premium plan:

"I went to cancel my Canva for Teams account today -- but Canva's cancellation flow was so good that I changed my mind. 
And, no, it wasn't because they made me jump through hoops.

1) They reminded me that I have an amazing deal. I still pay $12.95/month, but prices have increased to $29.99/month. I'll lose my deal if I cancel.
2) They created loss aversion by reminding me of the premium features I've put to use.
3) They made some clever UX choices that subtly influenced my decision."

↳ That’s not manipulation - that’s smart UX reinforcing real value.

4️⃣ Full Product Experience
> Reverse trials let users see everything your product can do before asking them to pay.

↳Would you buy a car without driving it first?

Reverse trials make users feel like the product is already theirs - and that’s the most powerful growth engine there is.

Read the full breakdown/guide below 👇

Took a step back to rethink content here on LinkedIn. Looks like it's paying off 🤯 If you're building in the SaaS and PLG space, we've got some killer content coming up:

More of the good stuff that folks are asking about:

- Behind-the-scenes of how we build world-class PLG self-serve onboarding and activation journeys for our client's at Valubyl 👏 

- Epic free assets like the Prompt Bar Journey Library (about to hit 100K hits 🔥) - see my post from last Wednesday. We're going to be releasing more libraries, breakdowns, and tons of assets from how we're building our PLG canvas V2.

- 3rd collab with Kyle Poyar for Growth Unhinged, wrapping up what's about to be the best guide out there for building AI prompt bar experiences 🤓 

... and lot's more.

See you around 👀

Humanic AI

At Humanic, we are building the world's first prompt based Marketing Automation Platform

Founder/CEO

GrowthSimple

We help Predict User Behavior to enable targeted growth strategies

Find out how SaaS companies use our AI platform and data science services to drive significant revenue growth http://www.growthsimple.ai

Co-Founder

Evernote

Head of product for Growth Infrastructure (Data & Personalization)

Developed an 18-month moonshot personalization strategy to enable  20% topline revenue growth. Resulted in creation of a 6 member dedicated personalization team

Principal Product Manager, Growth

Adobe

Founding PM of the Personalization @ Adobe initiative. Evangelized vision for new personalization platform. Presented to Adobe’s CEO and influenced numerous senior stakeholders across Adobe to adopt the approach.

Responsible for product roadmap and launch. Rapidly delivered 4 versions of the personalization platform with a 30-person remote engineering team. To meet the tight delivery timeline, developed a culture of building tightly to specifications and capturing feedback instantly.

Increased In-App tutorial engagement by an additional 10% by using ML-powered clustering technology to create the radically new user experience. Selected among 50 entries for presentation at the Adobe Tech Summit 2017.

Links:

New Start Screen Experience in Photoshop CC
https://medium.com/@ulm/where-creativity-starts-9cda3e6f5e58#.yxf0k2qcu

Senior Product Manager, Growth @ Photoshop

Yahoo!

Member of the Y! Front Page Personalization Product team, Responsible for the Personalization Platform, which contributed to a 300%+ increase in CTR over 4 years. 

Directed a team of 3 product managers as the lead PM for all Yahoo Video infrastructure; Responsible for product roadmap and all feature definitions, development, and launch of the components of the platform

Shaped, the launch of Y! Screen as a key member of the founding team. Managed multiple stakeholders to collate and curate the largest collection of premium content on the web.

Lead  Product Manager, Front Page Personalization & Flickr Video

Streamlogics

Head of Product and member of the 6-person executive team of a startup with 35 employees.

Drove platform vision to consolidate ~20 different code silos into a single unified platform. Increased capacity to handle webcasts by 4x, more than doubling company revenue to $5.2M.

Built and managed a cross-functional team of 8, including software engineers, a quality engineer, and a technical writer.

Conducted user research sessions and iterated on self-service console design based on user feedback. Trained team of 10 content producers on using the platform.

Director, Product Management

TOS Ltd

Doubled sales to $4M. 

Innovated to create home grown CRM tool to record and capture notes from conversation with prospects. Used system to tenaciously cold call enterprise prospects and follow up at regular intervals. In addition, submitted 30 meticulously written RFP’s to win several Canadian government contracts.

National Sales Manager

FastForward Networks-Inktomi

Radically changed the way product strategy was presented to the executive team – created a wall sized poster in the board room and painstaking compiled sector landscape to clearly visualize the complex online video delivery ecosystem. This large canvas rendering of the competitive landscape made for easy visual digestion and became the reference for subsequent strategy conversation accelerating executive understanding. 

Hired as 9th employee straight from graduate school to build technology to disrupt traditional television broadcast. Wore multiple hats (Software Engineer, Patent writer, QE & Product Manager) as company grew rapidly to 75 employees and was acquired by Inktomi for $1.3B in 2000.

Network Software Engineer

Founder/CEO @ Humanic PLG OS

At Humanic, we are building the lovable for Email Marketing 

Before this, I focused on tackling growth challenges at Adobe Creative Cloud and Evernote. Earlier in my career, I was among the first team members at two successful startups: FastForward Networks, acquired by Inktomi for $1.3 billion, and Streamlogics, which was later acquired by Thomson Reuters.

Arjun Saksena

Fantastic Day 1 of the <ai/> x Marketing Summit. Thanks to all the speakers for sharing their insights on what it takes to be successful with enterprise sales (Sam Allen) Marketing (Kady Srinivasan) Brand (Madison McIlwain) not to mention great talks by Tooba Durraze, Ph.D. and Paul Meinshausen

The one of a kind 'Pitch to a CMO' session was also huge success - thanks to the judges Jeff Yoshimura, Reema Batta Levi Worts and Rahul Awasthy for their real world transparent but yet empathetic feedback. 

and thanks for taking the time and having the courage to pitch:

Vinay Jain building useNotch.ai
Carl Gold building Treatmachine.ai 
Anish Bharadwaj building kiwiq.ai
Anish Chopra building intently.ai and 
Rohit Singh building geoz.ai 

There was plenty of online buzz outside the venue, with lively engagement on our LinkedIn Live and YouTube livestreams.

Take advantage of special pricing for Day 2—click here to register.

https://luma.com/kc10g1or

#GenerativeAI #AIMarketing #Marketing #EmailMarketing #AISEO #SEO

Founder/CEO @ Humanic - Building Agentic Email Marketing

After an incredible third edition of the <ai/> x Marketing Summit, that had my heart rate unusually high throughout the Summit (according to my watch), its time to gear up for our next community event.

​Join the <ai/> x Marketing Community for a modern take on a classic tradition -  the in-person job fair. In a time when most interactions happen online, nothing can replace the value of meeting in person. 

After an uncertain 24 months filled with pessimism about which jobs will survive the rise of AI, we feel that jobs are coming back and AI startups are starting to generate revenue and need the right people.

The end of the year often prompts companies and individuals to reflect and plan for 2026. Most job searches take more time that you think and requires building up a new set of contacts.

If you’re exploring marketing opportunities or considering a career move, join us in person. We’ll have 8–10 companies actively looking to hire for marketing roles.

If your startup is hiring for marketing roles, please register and share your job descriptions, and we’ll follow up with you. 

For detailed agenda and to register click here https://luma.com/fuq9n5d7

#AiMarketing #MarketingJobs #GenAI #Marketing #GenAI #SanFrancisco

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The Battle

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