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 👀

LEANcrush

Building the right product better and faster.

I help startups between Seed and Series A to gain more traction and reach Product-Market Fit (PMF) faster by implementing product discovery and delivery processes that allow them to quickly test and iterate business models.

Recent work:
• 🥫KraftHeinz Venture Builder: led team of 15 to test 30 ideas and deliver 3 MVPs to disrupt the $25b Food Market.
• 💰 Q.ai [backed by Forbes]: built team of 10 and delivered V1 AI-investor to 50k early access users.
• 💊 Menavitin by Pelion: launched a new healthcare product in Germany by executing discovery and design sprints.
• 🤖 Hulecos SA: launched discovery-and-design sprints with an MVP to validate a deep-tech and mobile app business.

By combining world-class methodologies such as Customer Development, Lean Startup, Business Model Generation,Value Proposition Design, Jobs-to-be-Done, you’ll be able to: uncover Big Opportunities, Test Riskiest Assumptions and Build Desirable Products.

Fractional Product Leader

Techstars

Mentored +50 startups on:
- Workshopped with +50 startups on PMF Discovery
- Designing their value proposition, identify critical assumptions to find critical risks 
- Building product and launching experiments
- Multiple industries such as education, health, mobile app, SaaS, eCommerce, and fintech.

Startup Mentor for Product-Market Fit

Toptal

I work as a Product Leader solving pressing product challenges and giant market opportunities.

- Launched an award-winning Robo-investor for Forbes as Interim VP Product
- Led a corporate Venture Builder for Kraft-Heinz

A.Team

I helped A.Team to increase the quality of their network by evaluating +5k PM Profiles and interviewing 350 Product Managers (Designers & Marketers) to find superstar builders from companies like Dropbox, Microsoft, Uber etc.

Lead Product Manager & CPO Interviewer

Founder Institute

Worked with +180 startups:
- Identifying assumptions within their business model and building experiments to validate them.
- Building customer journeys, interviewing customers, defining value propositions and customer segments, analysing existing alternatives, prioritising unmet needs and building MVPs for innovative business industries (health, mobile app, SaaS, eCommerce, finance).
- Voted #1 mentor by startups.

Startup Mentor (Customer Development, Product Discovery)

The Kraft Heinz Company

Leading a 15 team of builders to launch innovative companies to disrupt the food industry.

- Designed Discovery and Delivery Sprint Process
- Trained team and Executed multiple sprints
- Results: 300 innovative ideas mapped, 30 validated, 3 MVPs launched

Head of Venture Builder

Building the next generation of ventures to disrupt the food and beverage industry.

Digital Ventures Lead

Fintech co. (backed by Forbes)

Led the creation, since inception, of consumer fintech mobile investing app (backed by major publishing giant Forbes).

- Defined the value proposition, business model and positioning.
- Built 1st prototype and validated assumptions by surveying 1000s of prospects and interviewing 100s.
- Crafted a product vision, strategy and product feature roadmap with job and user stories. 
- Led design sprints to build several iterative MVPs and user-tested with 100s of users.
- Built marketing material ie. landing pages and videos to help gather over 40k early access users
- Led agile development with scrum to deliver an Alpha 1.0, 2.0, and Beta 1.0 (fully working and compliant).
- Managed design, development and marketing projects involving +15 people

The app has garnered multiple Global Fintech Awards.

Interim VP Product

Proudsugar

Built a team of domain domain experts and contracted to high growth startups to help them grow:

- Openme (acq. by Rowl):
Led a team of seven, added analytics, launched surveys, optimized customer journey, built a testing roadmap, redesigned UX, and launched continuous A/B tests for eCommerce Openme.com.

- Plug.dj:
Led a team of nine, added analytics, surveyed and interviewed, redesigned UX, road mapped, and launched  continuous A/B tests for Plug.dj to increase activation, retention and revenue (a web/mobile music startup with 7 million users).

- Pluto.tv (acq. by Viacom):
Worked with a team of seven, implemented web analytics and created dashboard reports for Pluto.tv (an internet TV startup that sold to Viacom for $300 million). This led to identifying product conversion problems, UX redesigns and better KPIs.

- MROSupply: 
Led a team of six, implemented web analytics, interviewed/surveyed customers, identified opportunities, redesigned UX and launched continuous A/B tests for MROSupply (eCommerce with 1 million SKUs for mechanical parts) resulting in an +$5 million/year sales.

- Discuto
Led a team of five for Discuto.io (a B2B SaaS ideation and collaboration platform with +20,000 users), implemented analytics, performed user surveys/interviews, launched a UX redesign, resulting in higher onboarding of 35%, as well as 2x retention.

Co-founder | CEO | CPO

Javier Rincon

Freelance CRO and Web Analytics practitioner. Helped companies establish a web analytics infrastructure to gain insights on major KPIs. Then worked with CRO methodologies to increase main business and product metrics.

- Moviepilot (acq. by Webedia):
Worked with a team of 15, added analytics, did user research, built an opportunity roadmap, and launched continuous A/B tests for Moviepilot (a movie content platform that sold to Webedia), resulting in higher engagement metrics eg. +520,000 active onboarded users/year.

Product Analytics, Growth & CRO specialist

6Wunderkinder

Chief Marketing Officer for globally recognized Berlin startup, 6Wunderkinder, creators of Wunderlist with more than 2Million Downloads and new productivity app Wunderkit.

Building PMF Engines @ startups | Product Leader | Lean

Javier has +15 years experience building products that millions have used. 

• Startups: @Wunderlist (acq. by Microsoft), @Plug.dj, @Open.me (acq. by Rowl), @Pluto (acq. by Viacom), @Moviepilot (acq. Webedia).

• Venture Building: @LaSalle, @Forbes , @KraftHeinz

• Startup PMF mentoring & financing: @Keiretsu Forum, @Founder Institute and @Techstars.

• Industry: Business Intelligence @Oracle; System Analyst @Transmitton Siemens

He's also founder and builder; he ran a product agency in Berlin, co-founded a mobile social offers company in Madrid and launched an e-pharmacy out of University.

He has a MEng in Systems Engineering from Loughborough University in the UK. He's an avid learner, passionate about playing guitar and piano, storytelling in film and comics, war strategy, oil and gold drilling, railroads, and the expansion of empires.

If you want to grow in AI Evals, these are the top 12 experts worth following in 2025. 👇

These practitioners solve real evaluation problems in production and actually share what they learn.

1. Hamel Husain: 
Sets the standard for practical, production-ready eval frameworks.

2. Shreya Shankar
Sharpest thinking on LLM testing, data quality, and reliability.

3. Eugene Yan (Amazon) 
Turns complex eval concepts into actionable systems.

4. Aman Khan (Arize AI)
Building observability and eval tools used by Fortune 500s.

5. Manu Goyal (Braintrust)
Pioneering AutoEvals and production-grade eval workflows.

6. Vikram Chatterji (Galileo)
Building Evaluation Intelligence platform and Luna EFM models for enterprise AI.

7. Kritin Vongthongsri (Confident AI)
Building open-source eval infrastructure with DeepEval.

8. Peter Yang (Roblox)
Shows how product teams should actually approach AI evals.

9. Manouk Draisma (Langwatch)
Focused on end-to-end evaluation and observability for LLM apps.

10. Amy Chen (AI Evals & Analytics)
Teaching practical eval frameworks through hands-on courses and playbooks.

11. MAHESH YADAV (Google)
Ships production AI systems with rigorous eval processes.

12. Rogério Chaves (Langwatch) 
Building production-grade eval and observability infrastructure.

Who else is doing excellent work in evals? Drop names below.  👇

--
📌 Save this list and share with your network!

Fractional AI Head of Product | Evals | The bottleneck guy

Most teams don’t need more evals — they need the right ones.
Evals aren’t one-size-fits-all.

You can measure your agent factually, behaviorally, structurally… but what matters depends entirely on your use case.

In our latest "AI Rapid Roundtable", we explored how to make evals actionable.

Here’s what we covered with Bauke Brenninkmeijer (orq.ai / MLOps Community Amsterdam) and Adrian Tineo, Ph.D.:

◼︎ Why evaluating agents “in a billion different ways” can be confusing
◼︎ How grouping evals by use case helps teams find a meaningful baseline.
◼︎ Why starting with 10 well-chosen evals beats tracking 100 vanity metrics.
◼︎ How teams can layer in business-specific evals as they mature — instead of forcing generic frameworks.
◼︎ The real goal: turning evals into a feedback loop for better agents, not just better dashboards.

The truth is, evals aren’t about measurement — they’re about learning.
And the teams that learn fastest will be the ones that win.

👇 Watch the full episode → YouTube link in comments

#AI #Evals #LLMs

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