There are only so many reasons a user will invite another person they know to use a mobile app. The user will only share an app if the user gets financial value, social capital, an improvement in the app experience, or altruism.

Back in the height of growth hacking, everyone wanted to emulate Facebook and its 7 friends in 10 days metric. Facebook noticed that there was a strong correlation between a user achieving 7 friends in 10 days and retaining long term. Then, they built their entire onboarding around this metric: every new user was pushed to achieve 7 friends on the platform in their first 10 days. Many ascribe Facebook’s insane growth to this strategy.

As product teams develop an onboarding strategy, they will take the time to develop a good activation metric to measure how “good” the onboarding really is. Onboarding serves to “activate” the user: it prepares them to use the product effectively and shows them the core value as quickly as possible. Onboarding is the first time a user will interact with a product, and the first impression will affect long-term retention.