Screaming at a blank monitor is a very specific type of therapy that I didn’t plan on practicing today. I had 23 tabs open-each one a vital organ of the research for this piece-and with one twitch of a tired index finger, they vanished into the digital ether. The history won’t restore. The cache is a graveyard. I am starting from zero, which is ironically the exact feeling a new customer has about 43 minutes after they sign a contract with your company. They go from being the most important person in your salesperson’s universe to being a ticket number in a queue. It is a violent transition, a sudden drop in pressure that would give a deep-sea diver the bends, yet we treat it like a standard administrative handoff. We spend $1233 on lead generation and 3 months on nurturing, only to hand the prize over to an automated email system that has the emotional intelligence of a brick.
Authorized Spend
Queue Entry
This is the broken heart of modern business, where we are obsessed with the hunt but absolutely loathe the cooking.
The Lesson of the First Fire
I was talking about this with David J.-M. last week. David is a chimney inspector, a man whose profession is literally built on the residue of things that didn’t burn quite right. He’s a man of thick wool coats and soot-stained fingernails who understands the physics of a house in a way software engineers never will. He told me that his most important job isn’t the sweeping; it’s the ‘first fire.’
If he leaves before that fire is roaring, he hasn’t done his job. Most of our onboarding processes are the equivalent of a chimney sweep tossing a box of matches at a customer and shouting ‘Good luck!’ over their shoulder as they drive away in a van.
– David J.-M.
He waits for the 3 specific signs that the draft is established. If he leaves before that fire is roaring, he hasn’t done his job.
The Cost of Short-Sightedness
We suffer from a profound organizational short-sightedness that values the ‘closed-won’ status more than the ‘active-user’ reality. The sales team gets the commission, the gong is rung, the champagne is poured, and the customer is tossed over a 13-foot wall into the arms of an onboarding specialist who is juggling 63 other accounts.
Lifetime Value Drop Based on Initial Experience
If the first 3 days of a customer’s experience are characterized by confusion, the lifetime value of that customer drops by a staggering 83 percent. You haven’t won a customer; you’ve just borrowed their frustration for a few months until they inevitably churn.
The Efficiency Illusion
Automation Hype
We think we are being efficient.
Actual Result
We are just avoiding the hard work.
This is where a system like Brytend changes the physics of the interaction. It’s about creating a structured, visible path that treats onboarding not as a series of tasks, but as a series of triumphs. If the customer doesn’t feel a small victory within the first 13 minutes of using your product, you are losing them.
The Culture of Openers
Why do we prioritize the hunt over the harvest? It’s the dopamine. There is no biological rush in helping a customer set up their API permissions. We have become a culture of openers in a world that desperately needs finishers. We are great at the first date, but we are absolutely atrocious at the first year of marriage. We promise the moon and then deliver a 3-ring binder full of disappointment.
The hidden rot in the timber.
Genuine care, demonstrated early.
Your churn isn’t happening when the customer cancels; it happened 3 years ago when they realized you didn’t actually care if they knew how to use the tool.
The Real-Sales Phase
We need to stop treating onboarding as the ‘post-sales’ phase and start treating it as the ‘real-sales’ phase. The first 33 days are a continuous pitch. You are on trial, and the jury is the person who just gave you their credit card number.
The Customer Trial Status
Building Better Flues
I’m still mourning those 23 lost tabs. But maybe it’s better this way. It reminds me that the digital world is fragile. The connections we make are easily broken. If you aren’t there to hold the customer’s hand when the browser crashes or the integration fails, they will only remember the silence.
The third chance-the first 3 hours-matters most.
We have to build better flues. We have to stay for the first fire. It isn’t about the 63 features you’ve added to the dashboard. It’s about the 3 seconds of relief the customer feels when they realize they aren’t alone in this.
Are you a hunter, or are you a builder of hearths? The answer is usually written in the first automated email you send. And if that email starts with ‘Dear Customer,’ you’ve already lost the fire.