What is a “better than” moment, and why is it as valuable as the “AHA moment”?

What is the “AHA moment”?

We create products to solve the pain points of our ideal customer profiles. The “aha” moment is that crucial milestone when our ICPs discover a solution to their ongoing pain point in the first moments of using the product.

In other words, it is a critical instant when a new user first recognizes the value of the product and the need. Because it provides enlightenment towards a solution, the “aha” moment is emotional.

When does it happen?

Your ICPs will have some idea about the value you create for them while they are signing up for your product, that is of course if your marketing and messaging are effectively tailored towards their pain points.

Even though they have an idea, they will not stick around too long looking to find the value. In this day and age, where attention span is narrowing, and almost all products are introduced in red oceans, understandably, the “aha” moment (has to) happens during onboarding.

It is worth noting that, for many products, there will be many aha moments within the product journey as your ICPs’ problems upgrade.
Here, we address the initial instant, which plays as a button to switch the evaluating user into activated.

So, what is a “Better than” moment then?

The “aha” moment often translates to a user experiencing a product’s value proposition. So, speaking to a customer’s challenge and being the problem-solver (emotional realization) while underlining what we can do those competitors cannot (functional realization).

While packaging emotional and functional benefits and presenting them at the end of the onboarding in one-go looks like the perfect solution, it is over-optimistic.
Why? Because if you are adapting a product-led growth strategy, chances are your potential user starts the onboarding with comparison in mind.

With a sea of information and many direct competitors to your products, users are looking for the best alternative to solve their problems — without the patience to go through a complete onboarding. Meaning that, if you are not showing why you are the best alternative just after they sign up, they will go silent on you.

And, this is where you leverage the “better than” moment.

“Better than” moment(s) is a concept I created while working on our product’s onboarding. It is an idea of seeing onboarding as a ladder and separating functional realizations from emotional ones to safely lead your users to the aha moment without any distractions. Better than moments build-up to the aha moment.

What does a “better than” moment look like during onboarding?

• Keep your onboarding process short — 4 to 5 steps for beginner milestones.
• Start your onboarding by highlighting why you are better than other competitors. Ideally, the first 3 steps should underline functional benefits — why you are better than other competitors. You can also think this part as where you highlight your USPs.
• Make users experience value in every step of the onboarding process while keeping the takeaways as digestible as possible.
• The last step of your onboarding should seamlessly play to the emotional realization, which you are addressing to solve.

Happy onboarding!