I set Claude Cowork to create an account with Stilnote’s competitors and go through the whole onboarding. A screenshot of every single step.

Why onboarding and not the homepage

Onboarding is the one place a company can’t lie. The homepage is marketing. The onboarding is the strategy: what they ask about first, and what they leave for later.

What do you do?

Ask Cowork to create an account and take a screenshot of every step until the product first does something useful. Cowork opens a real browser and goes through the flow as an ordinary customer. What it should note: what they require before the product does anything useful, and when the card has to come out.

Use one email alias per competitor, for example iCloud Hide My Email or Fastmail. Cowork reads the inbox again after 3, 7 and 14 days. After fourteen days you have their entire lifecycle sequence sitting in one inbox.

Put the screenshots next to your own, and let Claude hold it all up against your own onboarding. Where are you slower. What do they ask about that you don’t. What do they skip that you insist on.

The result: one dated Notion page per competitor. Run it again next quarter.

A diff in onboarding is a strategy that has moved. You see it before it shows up in their press release.

Two caveats

Some signups have a CAPTCHA or require a card, and that’s where the agent stops. Then you take the last steps yourself, with your own name and your own email.

And no, you don’t need a tool for this. Mobbin and Refero have the flows on file, but they are static, and what you’re looking at isn’t necessarily the flow running today. Fine if you have a team and a budget.

Try it yourself

Here’s the prompt. Fill in the square brackets, copy it and give it to your agent. Then it does the work for you.

You are my competitor analysis agent. Your task: go through the whole onboarding at [COMPETITOR] at [URL], the way an ordinary new customer would.

Open a browser and create an account with the email [EMAIL ALIAS, use one alias per competitor]. Use the name [NAME] and make up the rest yourself.

Take a screenshot of every single step, from the first click on "Sign up" until the product first does something useful for me. Don't stop at the welcome screen. Keep going until value has actually been created.

Note along the way: what they require before the product does anything useful. When the card has to come out, and what is free before that. What they ask about first, and what they leave for later. And anything that surprises you: friction, shortcuts, empty screens, smart defaults.

If you hit a CAPTCHA or a demand for a payment card, stop, write down exactly how far you got, and let me take the last steps myself.

Collect it all on one dated Notion page titled "[COMPETITOR] onboarding, [DATE]": the screenshots in order, your notes under each image, and finally a short summary: time to first value, number of steps, and when payment is first mentioned.

In 3, 7 and 14 days: read the inbox for [EMAIL ALIAS] again and add each email to the Notion page with date and subject, so I can see their entire lifecycle sequence.

Finally: compare with our own onboarding at [YOUR PRODUCT, URL]. Where are we slower. What do they ask about that we don't. What do they skip that we insist on.

Best, Martin