The previous XAA acquisition funnel prioritised speed to market over design maturity. This trade-off led to an experience that was technically constrained and difficult to evolve—introducing friction, reducing conversion — a 94% drop off, and undermining user confidence in the Xero brand. This was an opportunity to redefine how users discovered and adopted XAA by creating an onboarding experience that was effortless, engaging, and distinctly Xero. By improving clarity, delight, and usability, we aimed to increase signups, accelerate onboarding, and boost first-task completion—reducing time to value for customers.
Looking at the industry
The competitive analysis provided insights into how both direct and indirect competitors approached their signup and onboarding journeys. By examining standout apps beyond our direct competitors, we identified best practices and explored how to adapt them to the accounting context.
Bringing the team together
Drawing on Design Sprint methodology, I ran a series of focused mini-sessions to explore the problems in depth. While the team had initial ideas for their acquisition areas, I first mapped the current experience, uncovering customer pain points, goals, and risks. These workshops accelerated progress—bringing technical, design, analytics, and product experts together in the same room reduced the need for endless meetings and ensured alignment from the start.
A tight timeline
Given the tight project timeline, I established a multidisciplinary timeline early on and collaborated with product and engineering to set up regular rituals for sharing progress and updates. This kept the team aligned while helping design understand where their capacity could have the greatest impact.
3 steps, 1 solution
The acquisition flow comprised three key journeys—signup, onboarding, and first-task completion. It was essential that the experience felt seamless and consistent, guiding users naturally from one step to the next without confusion or friction. As design lead, I oversaw and supported the designers responsible for each area, while remaining hands-on across concepting, art direction, and prototyping to ensure a cohesive end-to-end experience.
A reimagined experience
It was important to design an experience that built trust, inspired excitement, and felt both authentically native and unmistakably Xero.
Experimenting in market
While some early user testing was conducted, the goal was to move quickly to market and experiment frequently. To enable this, I created an experimentation framework that product managers could use to ideate, assess risk, and prioritise opportunities. The framework also included templates for documenting each experiment’s progress, metrics, and outcomes—helping the team learn and iterate with consistency and speed.
Results
This work shifted the trajectory of the channel. Paid organisational activation increased by +43%, with the UK leading performance globally. What began as a growth initiative evolved into a core revenue driver—now contributing 10% of Xero’s total revenue and continuing to scale.
“This is so awesome to see in mobile - so many improvements and reimagining, way to go team!”
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, CEO Xero
