Sub Club Podcast Episode Summary
Episode: Why Web Onboarding Should Sell The Problem, Instead Of The Solution – Leon Sasson, Rise Science
Date: March 5, 2026
Host: David Barnard
Guest: Leon Sasson, Co-founder and CTO at Rise Science

Episode Theme Overview

This episode explores critical learnings from Leon Sasson of Rise Science on designing onboarding flows for subscription apps, with a focus on why onboarding for web users should primarily sell the problem before positioning the solution. Leon shares practical insights into user acquisition channels, creative iteration, the impact of demographics, and experimentation with pricing and trial strategies. The conversation is particularly relevant for growth leaders, marketers, and product teams seeking to unlock new approaches in an evolving privacy and attribution landscape.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Background & Initial Failures in Web Onboarding

• Rise Science’s web onboarding journey: Multiple failed attempts at simply porting app onboarding flows to the web revealed fundamental differences (02:04).
• Naive assumptions: Early efforts tried to mirror app onboarding, blaming lack of deep integrations (e.g., HealthKit, wearables) for failure (02:04–03:30).
• IDFA and ATT changes: The privacy changes in mobile advertising were a catalyst to initially look to web, but only recent years brought success (02:04–04:00).
• Learning: Treating web onboarding as a clone of app onboarding ignores massive differences in audience, user intent, and value perception (04:58).

“We sort of started from scratch about this is not at all related to the app. Right. This is a web funnel and let's make that work unrelated to what works on the app.”
— Leon Sasson (04:58)

2. Audience Differences: Web vs. App

• Web audiences are distinct: Top-of-funnel web users skew older and are more “E-commerce-native," often less inclined to download apps (06:06–07:50).
• Opportunity to reach new demographics: Web can unlock access to users not captured by app campaigns, particularly older demographics (07:55).
• Value proposition needs to change: On web, users are in exploration mode—more receptive to content that helps them realize they even have a problem, rather than jumping straight to a solution pitch (08:38).

“The audience that you often attract to a web funnel tends to be very different than the audience that you attract to an app funnel.”
— Leon Sasson (06:11)

• Marketing and Ad Creative: Different marketing creative can succeed on web vs. app channels because the resonance of messaging changes with the audience (09:49–10:15).

3. Framing: Sell the Problem, Not The Solution

• App onboarding = “Time to value": Fast-track users to the “aha!” moment, as they arrive solution-seeking.
• Web onboarding = “Problem awareness": Guide users to recognize their need or pain before asking them to commit.
• Product implication: Web onboarding should personalize and surface the user’s problem, delaying detailed solution pitch until there’s buy-in (11:01–12:49).

“[On web] trying to understand and make them realize like, oh, this is the problem you have. Let's now talk to solutions later…helping them realize that they might have a problem and that we could have a solution for them.”
— Leon Sasson (10:43)

• Practical example: If a user is tired and doesn’t know why, the web flow helps them see that sleep is the underlying issue, then offers the app as the answer (11:01–11:52).

4. Creative and Testing Strategies

• Creative is persona-focused, not channel-focused: Creative themes are matched to user personas discovered on each channel, rather than explicitly being designed as “web” or “app” creative (12:49–13:24).
• Algorithm feedback loops are quicker on web: Attribution, targeting, and success/failure feedback is much faster for web campaigns, enabling more rapid creative and funnel iteration (13:36–15:23).
• Testing approaches: Most creative is tested simultaneously for both app and web, with the algorithm helping determine winner (12:49, 15:23).

“On web a lot of that iteration cycle tends to be much, much, much faster which is a huge unlock for web.”
— Leon Sasson (15:11)

5. Funnel Customization and Personalization

• The “holy grail” is matching creative, audience, and funnel: Customizing onboarding flows to specific creative and personas is possible on web—and harder on app due to download friction (15:46).
• Examples: Persona-driven funnels, e.g. differentiating between users who want productivity vs. women dealing with sleep issues during menopause (16:35–17:07).

“You can have very different creatives and funnels for very different Personas. And it’s all customized…If you can really tie the funnel to the user audience that you’re reaching, you can just reach a lot more people and let the algorithm just find those people for you.”
— Leon Sasson (16:35)

6. Pricing, Packaging, and Trials

• Web and app pricing/package strategies should diverge: Web users are in a different phase of consideration, demanding distinct pricing/offers (17:31).
• Discounted paid trials outperform free trials on web: Heavily discounted trial periods (rather than true free trials) deliver higher-quality acquisition and better outcomes for both user and algorithm optimization (19:07).
• Operational complexity increases on web: Apps have to own the entire billing and support experience, including refunds, chargebacks, and cancellation flows—user trust is paramount (17:31–19:01).

“We tend to not offer free trials on web…offering heavily discounted trial period… ends up being a lot more promising for a bunch of reasons. It helps the algorithm optimize a lot better.”
— Leon Sasson (19:07)

“Apple does solve the problem for users. And users know how that works. When you are on web, that's your problem now and you have the trust of the customer.”
— Leon Sasson (17:34)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It was a lot about time to value. Hey, get to time to value. Get to the aha moment…On web, we realized that because people tend to be a lot higher on the consideration phase, often you’re just going trying to go deeper on understanding the problem and personalizing it, but not going straight into solutions because they might not be sold on the solution yet.” — Leon Sasson (10:08)
• “The billing sort of work stream of the journey needs to be just super polished. Everything from starting to canceling to changing plans and that we just spend a tremendous amount of time polishing that as much as we can. So that cannot be sort of an understatement of like, oh, we'll do that later after with signal.” — Leon Sasson (17:48)

Segment Timestamps

| Timestamp | Topic/Quote | |-----------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:04 | Rise Science’s early failed web onboarding attempts | | 04:58 | Realization: web onboarding must be fundamentally different than app onboarding | | 06:11 | Differences in web vs. app audiences | | 10:08 | Onboarding differences: time-to-value vs. problem-awareness | | 12:00 | David recaps the logic behind deeper problem exploration in web onboarding | | 13:36 | Creative iteration cycles are faster on web due to better feedback and attribution | | 15:46 | The potential for matching creative and funnel to specific user personas on web | | 17:31 | The increased need for polished billing UI/UX on web; trust considerations | | 19:07 | Discounted paid trials outperform free trials for web onboarding |

Actionable Insights

• Treat web onboarding as its own product, not an extension or mirror of the app experience.
• Web users are less solution-aware; focus the onboarding and first-touch creative on surfacing and personalizing their underlying problem.
• Demographic differences on web can open up entirely new user bases; tailor creative and flows accordingly.
• Creative testing is faster and easier with web, due to less data obfuscation in attribution; leverage this to iterate more rapidly.
• Where feasible, align specific onboarding flows and offers to the user persona and creative they first engaged with (“persona-matching” funnels).
• Discounted paid trials can be superior on web (vs. free trials), but all elements of the funnel—product, marketing, pricing—must be rigorously tested.
• Investing in seamless billing and support on web is essential to maintain trust and operational viability.

Closing

Leon encourages listeners to try the Rise app, mentions ongoing hiring for product, engineering, and marketing roles, and welcomes connections from others in the app and consumer space (20:24).

For more details, including links mentioned, visit the show notes and Leon’s site at leonidesigns.com.