Onboarding Drop-off Reduced by 60% — Cybersecurity Platform
Redesigned a fragmented onboarding experience into a guided journey that introduces the platform's value early and helps users reach their first meaningful action with less friction.
My Role :
Product Design Lead AI Engineering
Key Metrics :
Onboarding Conversion User Activation
Team :
Product Design Data Analytics AI Engineering Backend Engineering
Project Duration :
4 weeks
Project Background
Cyberbay is a cybersecurity platform that connects companies with ethical hackers to identify and report security vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.
As Cyberbay entered a growth phase, more enterprise clients joined the platform while reward payouts for ethical hackers increased in value. The original MVP — built quickly to validate the product — could no longer support this growing complexity and scale.
The team began a broader platform modernisation, moving from dark mode to light mode and refactoring both the frontend and backend. I played a leading role in shaping this transformation, while also leading a comprehensive UX audit to identify and prioritise long-standing usability issues across the platform.
The audit identified onboarding for ethical hackers as one of the highest-priority opportunities to increase user activation and support the platform’s next stage of growth.
Problem Overview
We gained enterprise clients but lost the ethical hackers they needed
As Cyberbay scaled its enterprise client base, demand for ethical hackers increased. Referral incentives successfully brought new users onto the platform, but many never progressed to becoming active contributors.
The issue wasn't attracting ethical hackers — it was helping them get started. After account creation, users entered the platform with key features locked behind technical requirements and no clear onboarding to guide them through the next steps. As a result, many left before experiencing the platform's value, and the number of active ethical hackers failed to keep pace with growing enterprise demand.
Overcomplicated registration
The registration process collected more information than was necessary upfront, creating unnecessary friction at the very first step of the user journey.
Directionless platform entry
After creating an account, users landed directly in the platform with no guidance. Most key features were locked, leaving users to figure out how to get started.
No visibility into progress
Users had no clear indication of what was completed or what was still pending, making it difficult to track their progress.
Premature technical requirements
Identity verification, Lighthouse VPN setup and payout details were mandatory before users could understand the platform or experience its value.
My Role
As Head of Product Design, I owned the onboarding redesign end-to-end — leading the UX audit, defining the product strategy, aligning stakeholders, and designing the experience from concept to final UI.
Alongside the redesign, I implemented the front-end in the existing codebase, following the project's established framework to bring the approved designs into production. By using AI to support the development workflow, I removed the traditional design-to-development handoff and reduced unnecessary implementation revisions.
Strategy & Approach
Understanding user behaviour through data
To uncover the scale of the issue, I partnered with our data analyst to analyse drop-off data across the onboarding journey. The findings confirmed significant user drop-off before activation, indicating that the existing onboarding experience was preventing ethical hackers from progressing beyond account creation.
Aligning stakeholders on a shared vision
Success was not measured by account creation alone, but by ethical hackers submitting their first vulnerability report.
To align stakeholders on how the path from joining the platform to becoming an active contributor had become disconnected for new ethical hackers, I brought together user behavioural patterns across the onboarding journey with findings from the UX audit. Together, they revealed not only where users were dropping off, but why they were failing to progress. This gave the team a shared understanding of where our product efforts would have the greatest impact.
This led us to a core question:
How might we help new ethical hackers progress from account creation to their first vulnerability report?
Core Product Decisions
From “complete everything to start” to “progress as you engage”
The onboarding experience was redesigned from a fragmented, high-friction process into a guided journey that helped new ethical hackers understand how the platform works before having to complete the technical and security requirements expected of a cybersecurity platform.
Three principles guided the redesign:
Collect only what is needed to get started.
Build anticipation from the start.
Set expectations early, complete requirements later.
Redefined what belonged in registration
Before redesigning the flow, I questioned the purpose of every field: What does a user actually need to create an account?
To answer this, I reviewed the existing registration requirements with the development team. This revealed that only a display name and phone number were required to create and authenticate an account. Email had been included because the platform lacked an in-product notification system and relied on email instead.
I redesigned the registration flow to collect only the information needed to get users started, moving the remaining information to the stage where it became relevant.
Built a clear starting point for onboarding
Adding a guided onboarding journey required careful consideration. While new users needed more direction, adding unnecessary steps risked increasing the very drop-off we were trying to reduce. I therefore kept the journey to just four concise steps, ensuring each one had a clear strategic purpose that moved users closer to experiencing the platform rather than further away.
The first step welcomed users with "Missions are waiting for you," immediately introducing active bug bounty programmes available on Cyberbay and the potential rewards, creating motivation to continue.
Balanced guidance with flexibility
The onboarding journey then introduced profile completion by collecting only the information users needed at that stage, followed by a clear overview of how the platform worked and the first actions they could take after entering Cyberbay.
Both steps included the flexibility to "Skip for now," allowing users to continue to the platform without getting stuck in onboarding.
Made the next steps clear before users moved forward
The third step was deliberately structured around the core participation journey rather than a tour of product features. I prioritised the three actions that created the most value for both sides of the platform — browse active missions, discover vulnerabilities, then submit and get rewarded — because they reflected what ethical hackers came to Cyberbay to do and what Cyberbay needed them to progress towards.
Introduced requirements without creating barriers
The final step set clear expectations for the technical requirements needed to maintain the platform's security and integrity. Rather than restricting access, users could continue into the platform to explore available missions and experience the platform's value, while clearly understanding that the remaining requirements would need to be completed before taking part in bug bounty programmes.
Measurable Outcomes
Since launching the redesigned onboarding experience, 857 new ethical hackers have joined the platform. The redesign also contributed to a 60% reduction in onboarding drop-off across key stages, helping new users progress from account creation to active participation.
Following the launch, I was invited to represent Cyberbay at Black Hat Asia in Singapore, one of the leading conferences for cybersecurity professionals and ethical hackers.
At our booth, I demonstrated the platform to ethical hackers, showing how they could quickly get started, participate in bug bounty programmes, and begin earning rewards. The redesigned onboarding experience generated strong interest. Many joined the platform during the event, while others continued discussions with our triage team afterwards.
Ongoing Product Development
Through Cyberbay's partnership with Cyber Revolution, a cybersecurity education and career development provider, I regularly participate in their workshops for aspiring cybersecurity professionals. These sessions allow me to observe how participants progress through onboarding in real time, providing continuous insight into where they hesitate, the questions they ask, and which parts of the experience can be further refined.
Alongside ongoing user validation, I continue implementing front-end experiences and building production-ready interfaces directly in the codebase using AI as part of my development workflow. This approach continues to add significant value to our product development process at Cyberbay by strengthening collaboration between product and engineering.
Continue Exploring
Onboarding Drop-off Reduced by 60% — Cybersecurity Platform
Redesigned a fragmented onboarding experience into a guided journey that introduces the platform's value early and helps users reach their first meaningful action with less friction.
My Role :
Product Design Lead AI Engineering
Key Metrics :
Onboarding Conversion User Activation
Team :
Product Design Data Analytics AI Engineering Backend Engineering
Project Duration :
4 weeks
Project Background
Cyberbay is a cybersecurity platform that connects companies with ethical hackers to identify and report security vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.
As Cyberbay entered a growth phase, more enterprise clients joined the platform while reward payouts for ethical hackers increased in value. The original MVP — built quickly to validate the product — could no longer support this growing complexity and scale.
The team began a broader platform modernisation, moving from dark mode to light mode and refactoring both the frontend and backend. I played a leading role in shaping this transformation, while also leading a comprehensive UX audit to identify and prioritise long-standing usability issues across the platform.
The audit identified onboarding for ethical hackers as one of the highest-priority opportunities to increase user activation and support the platform’s next stage of growth.
Problem Overview
We gained enterprise clients but lost the ethical hackers they needed
As Cyberbay scaled its enterprise client base, demand for ethical hackers increased. Referral incentives successfully brought new users onto the platform, but many never progressed to becoming active contributors.
The issue wasn't attracting ethical hackers — it was helping them get started. After account creation, users entered the platform with key features locked behind technical requirements and no clear onboarding to guide them through the next steps. As a result, many left before experiencing the platform's value, and the number of active ethical hackers failed to keep pace with growing enterprise demand.
Overcomplicated registration
The registration process collected more information than was necessary upfront, creating unnecessary friction at the very first step of the user journey.
Directionless platform entry
After creating an account, users landed directly in the platform with no guidance. Most key features were locked, leaving users to figure out how to get started.
No visibility into progress
Users had no clear indication of what was completed or what was still pending, making it difficult to track their progress.
Premature technical requirements
Identity verification, Lighthouse VPN setup and payout details were mandatory before users could understand the platform or experience its value.
My Role
As Head of Product Design, I owned the onboarding redesign end-to-end — leading the UX audit, defining the product strategy, aligning stakeholders, and designing the experience from concept to final UI.
Alongside the redesign, I implemented the front-end in the existing codebase, following the project's established framework to bring the approved designs into production. By using AI to support the development workflow, I removed the traditional design-to-development handoff and reduced unnecessary implementation revisions.
Strategy & Approach
Understanding user behaviour through data
To uncover the scale of the issue, I partnered with our data analyst to analyse drop-off data across the onboarding journey. The findings confirmed significant user drop-off before activation, indicating that the existing onboarding experience was preventing ethical hackers from progressing beyond account creation.
Aligning stakeholders on a shared vision
Success was not measured by account creation alone, but by ethical hackers submitting their first vulnerability report.
To align stakeholders on how the path from joining the platform to becoming an active contributor had become disconnected for new ethical hackers, I brought together user behavioural patterns across the onboarding journey with findings from the UX audit. Together, they revealed not only where users were dropping off, but why they were failing to progress. This gave the team a shared understanding of where our product efforts would have the greatest impact.
This led us to a core question:
How might we help new ethical hackers progress from account creation to their first vulnerability report?
Core Product Decisions
From “complete everything to start” to “progress as you engage”
The onboarding experience was redesigned from a fragmented, high-friction process into a guided journey that helped new ethical hackers understand how the platform works before having to complete the technical and security requirements expected of a cybersecurity platform.
Three principles guided the redesign:
Collect only what is needed to get started.
Build anticipation from the start.
Set expectations early, complete requirements later.
Redefined what belonged in registration
Before redesigning the flow, I questioned the purpose of every field: What does a user actually need to create an account?
To answer this, I reviewed the existing registration requirements with the development team. This revealed that only a display name and phone number were required to create and authenticate an account. Email had been included because the platform lacked an in-product notification system and relied on email instead.
I redesigned the registration flow to collect only the information needed to get users started, moving the remaining information to the stage where it became relevant.
Built a clear starting point for onboarding
Adding a guided onboarding journey required careful consideration. While new users needed more direction, adding unnecessary steps risked increasing the very drop-off we were trying to reduce. I therefore kept the journey to just four concise steps, ensuring each one had a clear strategic purpose that moved users closer to experiencing the platform rather than further away.
The first step welcomed users with "Missions are waiting for you," immediately introducing active bug bounty programmes available on Cyberbay and the potential rewards, creating motivation to continue.
Balanced guidance with flexibility
The onboarding journey then introduced profile completion by collecting only the information users needed at that stage, followed by a clear overview of how the platform worked and the first actions they could take after entering Cyberbay.
Both steps included the flexibility to "Skip for now," allowing users to continue to the platform without getting stuck in onboarding.
Made the next steps clear before users moved forward
The third step was deliberately structured around the core participation journey rather than a tour of product features. I prioritised the three actions that created the most value for both sides of the platform — browse active missions, discover vulnerabilities, then submit and get rewarded — because they reflected what ethical hackers came to Cyberbay to do and what Cyberbay needed them to progress towards.
Introduced requirements without creating barriers
The final step set clear expectations for the technical requirements needed to maintain the platform's security and integrity. Rather than restricting access, users could continue into the platform to explore available missions and experience the platform's value, while clearly understanding that the remaining requirements would need to be completed before taking part in bug bounty programmes.
Measurable Outcomes
Since launching the redesigned onboarding experience, 857 new ethical hackers have joined the platform. The redesign also contributed to a 60% reduction in onboarding drop-off across key stages, helping new users progress from account creation to active participation.
Following the launch, I was invited to represent Cyberbay at Black Hat Asia in Singapore, one of the leading conferences for cybersecurity professionals and ethical hackers.
At our booth, I demonstrated the platform to ethical hackers, showing how they could quickly get started, participate in bug bounty programmes, and begin earning rewards. The redesigned onboarding experience generated strong interest. Many joined the platform during the event, while others continued discussions with our triage team afterwards.
Ongoing Product Development
Through Cyberbay's partnership with Cyber Revolution, a cybersecurity education and career development provider, I regularly participate in their workshops for aspiring cybersecurity professionals. These sessions allow me to observe how participants progress through onboarding in real time, providing continuous insight into where they hesitate, the questions they ask, and which parts of the experience can be further refined.
Alongside ongoing user validation, I continue implementing front-end experiences and building production-ready interfaces directly in the codebase using AI as part of my development workflow. This approach continues to add significant value to our product development process at Cyberbay by strengthening collaboration between product and engineering.
Continue Exploring
Onboarding Drop-off Reduced by 60% — Cybersecurity Platform
Redesigned a fragmented onboarding experience into a guided journey that introduces the platform's value early and helps users reach their first meaningful action with less friction.
My Role :
Product Design Lead AI Engineering
Key Metrics :
Onboarding Conversion User Activation
Team :
Product Design Data Analytics AI Engineering Backend Engineering
Project Duration :
4 weeks
Project Background
Cyberbay is a cybersecurity platform that connects companies with ethical hackers to identify and report security vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.
As Cyberbay entered a growth phase, more enterprise clients joined the platform while reward payouts for ethical hackers increased in value. The original MVP — built quickly to validate the product — could no longer support this growing complexity and scale.
The team began a broader platform modernisation, moving from dark mode to light mode and refactoring both the frontend and backend. I played a leading role in shaping this transformation, while also leading a comprehensive UX audit to identify and prioritise long-standing usability issues across the platform.
The audit identified onboarding for ethical hackers as one of the highest-priority opportunities to increase user activation and support the platform’s next stage of growth.
Problem Overview
We gained enterprise clients but lost the ethical hackers they needed
As Cyberbay scaled its enterprise client base, demand for ethical hackers increased. Referral incentives successfully brought new users onto the platform, but many never progressed to becoming active contributors.
The issue wasn't attracting ethical hackers — it was helping them get started. After account creation, users entered the platform with key features locked behind technical requirements and no clear onboarding to guide them through the next steps. As a result, many left before experiencing the platform's value, and the number of active ethical hackers failed to keep pace with growing enterprise demand.
Overcomplicated registration
The registration process collected more information than was necessary upfront, creating unnecessary friction at the very first step of the user journey.
Directionless platform entry
After creating an account, users landed directly in the platform with no guidance. Most key features were locked, leaving users to figure out how to get started.
No visibility into progress
Users had no clear indication of what was completed or what was still pending, making it difficult to track their progress.
Premature technical requirements
Identity verification, Lighthouse VPN setup and payout details were mandatory before users could understand the platform or experience its value.
My Role
As Head of Product Design, I owned the onboarding redesign end-to-end — leading the UX audit, defining the product strategy, aligning stakeholders, and designing the experience from concept to final UI.
Alongside the redesign, I implemented the front-end in the existing codebase, following the project's established framework to bring the approved designs into production. By using AI to support the development workflow, I removed the traditional design-to-development handoff and reduced unnecessary implementation revisions.
Strategy & Approach
Understanding user behaviour through data
To uncover the scale of the issue, I partnered with our data analyst to analyse drop-off data across the onboarding journey. The findings confirmed significant user drop-off before activation, indicating that the existing onboarding experience was preventing ethical hackers from progressing beyond account creation.
Aligning stakeholders on a shared vision
Success was not measured by account creation alone, but by ethical hackers submitting their first vulnerability report.
To align stakeholders on how the path from joining the platform to becoming an active contributor had become disconnected for new ethical hackers, I brought together user behavioural patterns across the onboarding journey with findings from the UX audit. Together, they revealed not only where users were dropping off, but why they were failing to progress. This gave the team a shared understanding of where our product efforts would have the greatest impact.
This led us to a core question:
How might we help new ethical hackers progress from account creation to their first vulnerability report?
Core Product Decisions
From “complete everything to start” to “progress as you engage”
The onboarding experience was redesigned from a fragmented, high-friction process into a guided journey that helped new ethical hackers understand how the platform works before having to complete the technical and security requirements expected of a cybersecurity platform.
Three principles guided the redesign:
Collect only what is needed to get started.
Build anticipation from the start.
Set expectations early, complete requirements later.
Redefined what belonged in registration
Before redesigning the flow, I questioned the purpose of every field: What does a user actually need to create an account?
To answer this, I reviewed the existing registration requirements with the development team. This revealed that only a display name and phone number were required to create and authenticate an account. Email had been included because the platform lacked an in-product notification system and relied on email instead.
I redesigned the registration flow to collect only the information needed to get users started, moving the remaining information to the stage where it became relevant.
Built a clear starting point for onboarding
Adding a guided onboarding journey required careful consideration. While new users needed more direction, adding unnecessary steps risked increasing the very drop-off we were trying to reduce. I therefore kept the journey to just four concise steps, ensuring each one had a clear strategic purpose that moved users closer to experiencing the platform rather than further away.
The first step welcomed users with "Missions are waiting for you," immediately introducing active bug bounty programmes available on Cyberbay and the potential rewards, creating motivation to continue.
Balanced guidance with flexibility
The onboarding journey then introduced profile completion by collecting only the information users needed at that stage, followed by a clear overview of how the platform worked and the first actions they could take after entering Cyberbay.
Both steps included the flexibility to "Skip for now," allowing users to continue to the platform without getting stuck in onboarding.
Made the next steps clear before users moved forward
The third step was deliberately structured around the core participation journey rather than a tour of product features. I prioritised the three actions that created the most value for both sides of the platform — browse active missions, discover vulnerabilities, then submit and get rewarded — because they reflected what ethical hackers came to Cyberbay to do and what Cyberbay needed them to progress towards.
Introduced requirements without creating barriers
The final step set clear expectations for the technical requirements needed to maintain the platform's security and integrity. Rather than restricting access, users could continue into the platform to explore available missions and experience the platform's value, while clearly understanding that the remaining requirements would need to be completed before taking part in bug bounty programmes.
Measurable Outcomes
Since launching the redesigned onboarding experience, 857 new ethical hackers have joined the platform. The redesign also contributed to a 60% reduction in onboarding drop-off across key stages, helping new users progress from account creation to active participation.
Following the launch, I was invited to represent Cyberbay at Black Hat Asia in Singapore, one of the leading conferences for cybersecurity professionals and ethical hackers.
At our booth, I demonstrated the platform to ethical hackers, showing how they could quickly get started, participate in bug bounty programmes, and begin earning rewards. The redesigned onboarding experience generated strong interest. Many joined the platform during the event, while others continued discussions with our triage team afterwards.
Ongoing Product Development
Through Cyberbay's partnership with Cyber Revolution, a cybersecurity education and career development provider, I regularly participate in their workshops for aspiring cybersecurity professionals. These sessions allow me to observe how participants progress through onboarding in real time, providing continuous insight into where they hesitate, the questions they ask, and which parts of the experience can be further refined.
Alongside ongoing user validation, I continue implementing front-end experiences and building production-ready interfaces directly in the codebase using AI as part of my development workflow. This approach continues to add significant value to our product development process at Cyberbay by strengthening collaboration between product and engineering.