Onboardly
Turn customer onboarding into a repeatable, trackable workflow.
Onboardly is a small B2B SaaS for managing customer onboarding checklists, tasks, owners, due dates, and progress across every new account. It helps customer success, implementation, and operations teams standardize onboarding, reduce handoff mistakes, and get customers live faster with less manual follow-up.
Business Goals
- Reach 100 paying teams within 12 months of launch, with at least 25% converting from free trial to paid.
- Achieve 90% month-3 logo retention by proving onboarding teams rely on the product every week.
- Keep monthly churn below 4% after the first 6 months by embedding the product into customer onboarding operations.
- Drive 40% of new signups from product-led referrals and templates by month 12.
- Maintain a gross margin above 85% through efficient infrastructure and low-support onboarding.
User Goals
- Let teams create a reusable onboarding checklist in under 10 minutes.
- Give account owners a clear view of what is overdue, blocked, or completed.
- Reduce manual status follow-ups by centralizing reminders and progress updates.
- Make it easy to tailor checklists by customer segment, plan, or implementation type.
- Provide a simple audit trail of who completed what and when.
Non-Goals
- Not a full CRM or sales pipeline replacement.
- Not a generalized project management tool with Gantt charts or advanced portfolio planning.
- Not a customer support ticketing system or knowledge base.
- Not a heavy enterprise workflow engine with custom scripting in MVP.
Customer Success Manager Priya, 34 - Priya manages 25 to 40 new customer onboardings at a time. She needs a reliable way to standardize tasks, follow up on overdue steps, and keep internal stakeholders aligned without living in spreadsheets.
Customer Success Manager Priya, 34
- As a customer success manager, I want to apply a checklist template to a new customer, so that every onboarding starts with the same proven steps.
- As a customer success manager, I want to see overdue items by account owner, so that I can escalate quickly.
- As a customer success manager, I want automatic reminders sent before due dates, so that I spend less time chasing updates.
Implementation Lead Marcus, 41 - Marcus coordinates technical setup, data migration, and training for new customers. He needs clear ownership and dependencies so he can spot blockers before go-live slips.
Implementation Lead Marcus, 41
- As an implementation lead, I want to assign tasks to internal teammates and the customer, so that accountability is clear.
- As an implementation lead, I want to mark tasks as blocked with a reason, so that the team understands delays immediately.
- As an implementation lead, I want a progress summary for each account, so that I can prepare status calls fast.
Operations Admin Elena, 29 - Elena sets up templates, permissions, and reporting for the team. She values clean structure, easy bulk changes, and low-maintenance admin controls.
Operations Admin Elena, 29
- As an operations admin, I want to create checklist templates with reusable sections, so that I can standardize onboarding by segment.
- As an operations admin, I want to clone and edit templates, so that I can launch new variants quickly.
- As an operations admin, I want role-based access controls, so that only the right people can edit templates or view sensitive notes.
Checklist Templates and Task Structure · High priority
- Users must be able to define reusable onboarding checklists that can be applied to new customer accounts and adjusted per segment.
- Create, edit, clone, archive, and version checklist templates.
- Support sections, tasks, subtasks, due dates, assignees, and task dependencies.
- Allow template variables such as customer name, plan tier, launch date, and CSM owner.
- Support template tags like SMB, Enterprise, Self-Serve, or Migration.
Customer Onboarding Workspace · High priority
- Each customer account needs a dedicated workspace that shows onboarding progress, owners, notes, and next actions in one place.
- Display checklist progress with completed, overdue, blocked, and upcoming items.
- Allow status updates at task and section level with timestamps and audit history.
- Support internal notes and customer-visible notes with clear separation.
- Provide account overview fields including company name, launch target date, owner, and onboarding stage.
Assignments, Reminders, and Notifications · High priority
- The system should keep work moving by assigning tasks and sending timely reminders to internal teams and optionally customers.
- Assign tasks to internal users or customer contacts.
- Send email reminders for overdue and upcoming tasks based on configurable schedules.
- Support manual nudges from the account workspace.
- Allow notification preferences by user, team, and account type.
Reporting and Visibility · Medium priority
- Managers need a compact view of onboarding health, bottlenecks, and completion trends across accounts.
- Show dashboard metrics for active onboardings, average completion time, overdue items, and blocked tasks.
- Filter by owner, segment, template, and date range.
- Highlight at-risk accounts based on overdue percentage or stalled progress.
- Export CSV reports for leadership reviews.
Access Control and Auditability · Medium priority
- Teams need simple permissions so template editing, account access, and customer-facing visibility are controlled and traceable.
- Role-based access for admin, manager, contributor, and read-only users.
- Track who changed a task, due date, status, or template version.
- Support organization-level and account-level visibility rules.
- Keep an immutable activity log for compliance and support.
Fast Setup for a New Team
- Sign up with Google or email and create the first workspace.
- Choose a starter onboarding template for SaaS, migration, or services.
- Import customers manually or via CSV in under 5 minutes.
- Invite teammates and map roles to internal ownership.
- Create the first onboarding checklist for a customer account.
- Reach first meaningful value in under 15 minutes by seeing a live progress board.
1. Create Template
- The user builds a reusable onboarding checklist from scratch or a starter template.
- Validate required fields for template name and at least one task.
- Allow drag-and-drop reordering with clear empty-state guidance.
- Warn when a template is archived or overwritten by a newer version.
2. Add Customer Account
- The user creates or imports a customer onboarding record and links it to a template.
- Allow CSV import with duplicate detection by company name and email domain.
- Pre-fill variables such as customer name and launch target date.
- Handle missing values by flagging them as placeholders rather than failing the import.
3. Assign Work and Dates
- The user assigns tasks to owners and sets due dates based on the customer timeline.
- Support bulk assignment and due date shifting when launch dates change.
- Surface validation for past due dates and unassigned required tasks.
- Allow optional tasks so the workflow can fit smaller or larger onboardings.
4. Track Progress
- The team updates status in the workspace and sees what is at risk.
- Show overdue, blocked, in progress, and done states with color and text labels.
- Capture comments on each status change for context.
- If a customer or teammate is removed, keep the historical log and prompt reassignment.
5. Review and Report
- Managers review completion trends and export progress for meetings or executive updates.
- Display time to complete, bottleneck tasks, and account health indicators.
- Allow filters by owner, template, segment, and date.
- Export selected accounts or all active onboardings as CSV.
Power Features and Edge Cases
- Conditional task templates based on segment, plan tier, or onboarding type.
- Customer-facing checklist view with limited permissions and selective task visibility.
- Template versioning with rollback to prior versions.
- SLA-style escalation rules when tasks are overdue by configurable thresholds.
- Bulk updates across many accounts for launch date changes or organizational restructures.
- Integration-driven task creation from CRM deal stage changes or form submissions.
Designed for Speed and Clarity
- A clean list-and-board hybrid layout that works well in v0 or Lovable as well as custom web apps.
- Clear status chips, due-date emphasis, and progress bars that read well at a glance.
- Keyboard-friendly task editing and drag-and-drop support for power users.
- Accessible color contrast, text labels on all status indicators, and screen-reader-friendly form controls.
- Fast loading dashboards with optimistic updates and skeleton states for perceived performance.
Priya used to manage onboarding in spreadsheets, with separate docs for tasks, due dates, and customer notes. Every week she spent hours chasing updates across Slack, email, and meetings, and it was still easy to miss a blocker until a launch slipped.
With Onboardly, she starts each new customer from a template, assigns tasks in minutes, and sees overdue items instantly. The team gets automatic reminders, managers get a live progress view, and customers move through onboarding with fewer delays and fewer status meetings.
Over time, Priya’s team standardizes the best onboarding process, reduces manual follow-up, and shortens time-to-launch. That means better customer experience, less operational chaos, and a clearer path to renewals and expansion.
User-Centric Metrics
- At least 80% of customers create and complete their first onboarding checklist within 7 days of signup.
- Reduce average time spent preparing a new onboarding from 60 minutes to under 15 minutes.
- Keep weekly active usage above 65% among paid workspaces.
- Achieve 75% task completion visibility at the account level for active onboardings.
- Reduce manual follow-up messages by 30% within 60 days of adoption.
Business Metrics
- Convert 25% of trial users to paid plans within 30 days.
- Reach 90% gross revenue retention after the first 6 months.
- Maintain monthly churn below 4% by month 12.
- Generate 20% of new leads through referrals, template sharing, or customer word of mouth.
Technical Metrics
- Maintain 99.9% uptime for the core app.
- Keep dashboard and account page p95 load time under 2 seconds.
- Protect all customer data with encryption in transit and at rest.
- Pass quarterly access review and security audit checks with no critical findings.
Tracking Plan
- Track workspace_created when a new team signs up.
- Track template_created when a checklist template is saved.
- Track account_imported when a customer onboarding record is created manually or by CSV.
- Track task_assigned when an owner is set or changed.
- Track task_completed when a checklist item moves to done.
- Track reminder_sent when automated or manual reminders go out.
- Track export_csv when reports are downloaded for leadership or client updates.
Technical Needs
- Frontend built with Next.js and TypeScript for fast UI iteration and SSR-friendly dashboards.
- Backend API with Node.js and a relational database such as PostgreSQL.
- ORM such as Prisma for schema management and migrations.
- Background job system such as BullMQ or a managed queue for reminders and scheduled escalations.
- Authentication with an enterprise-friendly provider such as Clerk or Auth.js plus SSO-ready design.
- File import/export handling for CSV uploads and report downloads.
- Observability with structured logs, metrics, and error tracking via Sentry and OpenTelemetry.
Integration Points
- Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 for sign-in and email notifications.
- Slack for internal reminders and onboarding alerts.
- HubSpot or Salesforce for importing customer accounts and triggering onboarding from deal stage changes.
- Stripe for plan management if billing is included.
- SendGrid or Postmark for transactional email delivery.
Data Storage & Privacy
- Store customer account data, task notes, and activity logs in a GDPR-aligned data model with explicit workspace ownership.
- Separate internal notes from customer-visible notes at the schema and permission layer.
- Support export and deletion requests for personal data where required.
- Encrypt sensitive fields at rest and all traffic in transit using TLS 1.2+.
- Retain audit logs for at least 12 months while allowing configurable workspace retention policies.
Scalability & Performance
- Design for small teams first, but support at least 1,000 workspaces and 100,000 total tasks without major redesign.
- Use pagination and indexed filters for dashboards and account lists.
- Process reminders and exports asynchronously to avoid slowing the UI.
- Cache common dashboard aggregates to keep list views responsive.
Potential Challenges
- Template complexity can overwhelm small teams; mitigate with starter templates, progressive disclosure, and sensible defaults.
- Reminder fatigue can cause notification noise; mitigate with per-user preferences, digest modes, and escalation limits.
- CSV imports may create duplicate or malformed records; mitigate with strong validation, preview, and duplicate matching.
- Permission mistakes could expose sensitive notes; mitigate with clear role boundaries, preview-as-role testing, and audit logs.
- Status data may become stale if users do not update it; mitigate with lightweight updates, reminders, and auto-stale indicators.
Team & resourcing - Small team - 2 full-stack engineers, 1 product designer, part-time PM, and part-time QA/support.
Phase 1: MVP Foundation · Weeks 1-4
- Authentication, workspace setup, and role-based access.
- Checklist templates with tasks, sections, and cloning.
- Customer account workspace with task status updates.
- Basic dashboard for active onboardings and overdue items.
Phase 2: Operational Workflow · Weeks 5-8
- Assignments, due dates, and reminders.
- CSV import and export.
- Activity log and task history.
- Email notifications and basic filters by owner, template, and segment.
Phase 3: Reporting and Integrations · Weeks 9-12
- Trend reporting for completion time and bottlenecks.
- Slack notifications and HubSpot import integration.
- Template versioning and archive flow.
- Customer-visible checklist view with permission controls.
Phase 4: Scale and Polish · Weeks 13-16
- Performance optimization and dashboard caching.
- Accessibility pass and keyboard navigation improvements.
- Advanced rules for conditional tasks and escalation.
- Onboarding analytics instrumentation and admin controls for retention and deletion.
Paste this into Cursor, Bolt, Lovable, or v0 to start building.
Build a small B2B SaaS called Onboardly for managing customer onboarding checklists. Product summary: Onboardly helps customer success and implementation teams create reusable onboarding templates, apply them to customer accounts, assign owners and due dates, track progress, send reminders, and report on onboarding health. It should feel simple enough for small teams, but structured enough to support multiple workspaces, roles, audit logs, and integrations. Default tech stack: Next.js 14, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui, PostgreSQL, Prisma, NextAuth or Clerk, Zod validation, React Hook Form, TanStack Query, and Sentry. Build these core screens and flows: 1. Landing page with concise value proposition and CTA to sign up 2. Auth flow with email and Google login 3. Workspace setup and role-based onboarding 4. Dashboard showing active accounts, overdue tasks, blocked tasks, and completion trends 5. Templates screen to create, edit, clone, archive, and version checklist templates 6. Customer account workspace with checklist progress, assignees, due dates, notes, activity log, and status updates 7. Imports screen for CSV customer import with validation and preview 8. Reports screen with filters by owner, template, and segment, plus CSV export 9. Settings screen for notifications, roles, and integrations Core product requirements: Support checklist templates with sections, tasks, subtasks, optional tasks, due dates, assignees, dependencies, and template variables like customer name, plan tier, and launch date. Support internal notes and customer-visible notes separately. Support automated email reminders for overdue and upcoming tasks. Support Slack notifications for task assignment and escalation. Support CSV import/export and duplicate detection. Support role-based access for admin, manager, contributor, and read-only users. Track an immutable activity log for task and template changes. Data model: Workspace, User, Membership, Role, CustomerAccount, OnboardingTemplate, TemplateVersion, TemplateSection, TemplateTask, OnboardingInstance, InstanceTask, TaskComment, ActivityLog, NotificationPreference, IntegrationConnection, ImportJob, ExportJob. Include timestamps, createdBy/updatedBy, and soft-delete or archive fields where appropriate. UX guidance: Use a clean list-and-board hybrid layout for the dashboard and account page. Make due dates, blockers, and overdue items highly visible. Use accessible colors and labels, keyboard-friendly interactions, and optimistic updates. Show empty states, loading skeletons, and error states. Keep setup time to first value under 15 minutes. Implementation notes: Use server actions or API routes for CRUD. Add validation with Zod. Use PostgreSQL relations for accounts, templates, and task instances. Add seeded starter templates for SaaS onboarding, migration, and professional services. Make the app responsive for desktop and tablet. Include analytics event hooks for workspace_created, template_created, account_imported, task_assigned, task_completed, reminder_sent, and export_csv. Deliver a polished MVP with realistic dummy data, clean components, and production-ready folder structure.
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