Early-Stage Customer Acquisition & Activation Through UX

How founders acquire and activate as many customers as possible in the most cost-effective way

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Like many UX (user experience) designers, I have an entrepreneurial spirit.

While I spent my career filling my resume with experience designing products for Fortune 500s and iconic brands, behind the scenes I was also passionately researching what it takes to build a sustainable, successful startup for what would eventually become Founders Who UX.

I have collaborated with founding teams, executives, and product leaders in just about every tech industry across the board, MedTech, BabyTech, AgTech, FinTech, PropTech, ParentTech, E-comm, etc.

But in 2020, when I opened up my 3rd-grade son’s computer to see what he was working on in class that day, I saw this screen and knew immediately that I needed to add EdTech to that list as well.

I quickly became obsessed with the important intersection of education and technology. My initial curiosity stemmed from equal parts wonder mixed with frustration. My kids belonged to the sixth largest school district in the nation, and also one of the most diverse with 80% minority enrollment.

How could the 260,000 kids in our district, (almost 40% of whom are economically disadvantaged), be expected to learn, let alone love learning from a digital product that was cluttered, hard to navigate, and far from inspiring?

As a parent, I’d listened to enough school board meetings to know the district’s budget was big enough so that it didn’t have to be this way. I was intimately aware of how much good UX/UI costs and knew they could afford something much better.

I went down a year-long rabbit hole trying to answer that question and began regularly sharing my UX insights with our school district’s technology leaders in hopes of improving the learning experience that my kids and community were having.

What I discovered during my research and analysis filled me with hope. I quickly realized that numerous individuals, just like me, were on a quest for the same answer.

The most uplifting part of it all was the sheer abundance of visionaries and entrepreneurs who not only sought the answer but were actively building better solutions. They were developing products that were engaging, inspiring, effortless, and user-friendly. These founders were bringing about the transformative change I had been searching for. Motivated by this, I wholeheartedly immersed myself in figuring out how to best help them succeed.

During this time of revelation, I met Alicia Quan and joined her in her mission to design better ways to support learning at UX of EdTech. In our shared desire to support founders with UX, Alicia and I began having deep conversations about what UX looks like at each stage of a startup. We acknowledged that while the UX process itself has basic steps to follow, it looks and feels tremendously different at each step of a founder’s journey as the company grows.

The Founder’s Journey Series

The purpose of this 4-part article series is to explore how UX methods help founding teams hit key milestones at each stage:

1. Idea to Product-Market Fit
2. Early-Stage
3. Growth
4. Mature & Exit

In my last article, I provided a step-by-step guide outlining the first stage: Idea to Product Market Fit. I explained how founders use different UX methods to turn an idea into a scalable and profitable offering that customers are willing to pay for in order to solve a specific problem or need.

Now we are going to discover what happens next in the early stage after product-market fit is found.

But first, let’s take a beat to acknowledge the massive accomplishment of founders making it this far. Reaching product-market fit is no easy task. Those who have achieved this have officially scaled arguably the highest, riskiest, and most extreme mountain. From here on out, it’s an endurance and strategy game. If this is the moment you’re currently in, congrats.

Now let’s get back to the grind. A founder’s work is far from over…

Stage 2: Early-Stage

As an EdTech founder in an increasingly competitive market, long-term success relies heavily on acquiring users and converting them into customers as quickly as possible (before funds run out).

To pull this off, leveraging UX becomes a powerful tool in attracting, activating, and retaining students, educators, admins, and learning communities alike.

Let’s explore how EdTech founders utilize specific UX tactics and frameworks to transition from free offerings to premium services, unlock higher conversion rates, and foster sustainable growth for their products.

After product-market fit is obtained, the founding team’s focus typically shifts to optimizing talent, leadership, processes, and technology to ensure the company is able to scale efficiently. The solutions used during the climb to reach product-market fit are usually not the same ones needed to enable rapid growth. Many roles, strategies, and systems will be missing and therefore, much of the effort will be spent on the organization itself, instead of the product.

However, for fundraising EdTech founders and bootstrapping ones alike, customer acquisition and activation are still the number one things on their minds. One major challenge they face in this stage is high customer acquisition costs.

Because customer acquisition costs can commonly exceed the lifetime value of the customer, UX/UI experts are usually brought in to help founders acquire and activate as many customers as possible in the most cost-effective way.

Acquiring customers

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Generally speaking, the primary goal of customer acquisition is to increase brand visibility and generate leads that ultimately convert into paying customers. It involves a blend of various marketing, sales, and UX activities aimed at reaching and engaging potential customers.

Customer acquisition in EdTech varies from many other industries in that typically the customer is a very different person than the end-user. Thorough user experience research (UXR) is critical to ensure all needs are being met, both of the customer who is purchasing the product and of the end-user who heavily influences the activation and long-term retention.

Here are 3 common tactics used to acquire EdTech customers:

1. Direct Outreach to Educators and Institutions

Through UX research, EdTech founders identify key decision-makers (aka potential customers), such as teachers, school administrators, or district officials, and reach out to them through personalized emails, phone calls, or networking events. By highlighting the benefits and value of their product or service for educational institutions, founders aim to secure partnerships or licensing agreements that can lead to wider adoption among end users.

2. Freemium and Trial Offerings

Free or trial versions are created to allow users to experience the EdTech product’s features and benefits firsthand. They are often designed with limited functionality or access to premium features. Founders try to attract new users, engage them, gather their feedback, and convert them into paying customers by providing a taste of the value the product offers.

3. Partnerships with Educators and Influencers

EdTech founders often seek collaborations with industry experts who have a strong presence and influence in the education community. By uncovering these individuals through UX research and then partnering with them, founders can tap into their established networks and gain credibility + visibility among the target audience. Partnerships may include co-creating content, guest appearances, or endorsements. The goal is to leverage the trust of these individuals to drive customer acquisition and increase the reach of their solution.

Activating customers

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Activation in EdTech takes place after a customer is acquired. It requires facilitating a seamless and positive user experience to encourage widespread adoption and usage. Activation is the process of onboarding new users and converting them–either as part of a district/school account or a D2C model–to paying, engaged customers. To do this, the founder either hires or contracts learning experience (LX), user experience (UX), and user interface (UI) experts to help them enhance the product so that more customers and users fully experience its value.

Here are 3 common tactics used to activate EdTech customers

1. Streamlining the Onboarding Process

Designers work on simplifying the user’s initial setup by minimizing the number of steps required and providing clear instructions. Many use progressive disclosure techniques, where they gradually reveal more advanced features as users become more comfortable with the product. Others incorporate interactive tutorials or tooltips to guide users through the key functionalities. Some also personalize the onboarding process through targeted welcome emails, interactive tutorials, or even one-on-one support sessions. The team’s goal here is to reduce friction and create a smooth and intuitive onboarding experience so users engage as soon as they enter the front door.

2. Gamification and Progress Tracking

Implementing gamification elements within EdTech products has become a proven tactic well known to significantly boost customer activation and long-term user engagement. By incorporating game-like features such as progress bars, badges, leaderboards, or rewards, designers are able to create a sense of achievement and motivate users to explore the product further. Some add progress tracking features to allow users to see their advancement and growth, fostering a sense of accomplishment and encouraging continued usage.

3. Clear and Engaging UX & UI

UX and UI (user interface) are two types of design that completely rely on each other to create a good digital experience but have very different things to accomplish separately.

5 Ways to Design better EdTech products with UX

Both play vital roles in activating acquired customers. UX/UI designers spend time refining the product to be more visually appealing, intuitive, and easily able to guide users toward their goals. They will take a closer look at the language used to ensure it’s clear and concise and avoids jargon or complicated terminology. They will start grooming the backlog of feature requests and revisiting user stories to ensure they are continually optimizing the experience for the end user. They enhance the overall user experience according to the user’s needs in order to encourage customers to explore the product further.

Continuous user research

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Each tactic used to acquire and activate customers remains centered around bettering the experience for the end user.

EdTech founders who have made it this far understand the importance of continually conducting user research after achieving product-market fit to ensure they remain connected to them. By actively engaging with their customers and end users, founders gather valuable insights that contribute to sustaining success and driving long-term growth.

Founding teams continue to talk regularly with their users through surveys, interviews, and feedback tools to ensure that their solution remains aligned with their evolving needs and expectations. The ongoing dialogue helps them make informed decisions about product enhancements, updates, and new feature development.

Through acquisition and activation research and tests, founders also begin to identify opportunities for innovation and improvement. They closely monitor user behavior, engagement metrics, and usage patterns in order to pinpoint areas that require optimization, new functionalities, or a complete pivot altogether.

Founders use UX design and research throughout the full early stage to drive continuous improvement, ensure their product remains relevant and valuable in the long run, and set them apart from competitors.

TL;DR:

How early-stage EdTech founders acquire and activate customers:

1. Direct outreach to potential customers identified through UXR
2. Offer freemium and trial product subscriptions to showcase the value
3. Forge partnerships with educators and influencers
4. Optimize the onboarding process to make it as simple as possible
5. Add elements of gamification and progress tracking
6. Refine the UX and UI to ensure it’s friction-less, intuitive, and engaging
7. Practice continuous user research to stay connected to the end-user

Nicole Gallardo has almost 2 decades of experience designing digital products that grow businesses and serve communities. She is the Founder & Chief Design Officer at Founders Who UX, a leader in UX and product design committed to empowering growing companies with free resources, team training, and premium consulting services.

The UX of EdTech Community’s purpose is focused on helping UX practitioners who work on products and services that support learning. We also welcome educators, founders, and those in other disciplines looking to develop a UX mindset applied in the industry of education and future of learning and work.

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