UX is Everything - Onboarding is UX

Enterprise tech is in a constant state of flux, driven by promises of cloud-revenue and the relentless pace of technological change. What’s revolutionary today is obsolete tomorrow. Big players scramble to keep up and deliver value from the buzzword du jour, but tankers simply don’t turn into speedboats overnight.

Enterprise Tech has a big challenge. It carries, by definition, a lot of baggage and inertia. There are a lot of big enterprise tech ships trying to pretend they're agile speedboats, when in reality they're massive tankers with a turning circle that crosses timezones.

Then you have the C-suite in clients, who have to bridge the gap between a five-year strategic plan and a six-month tactical delivery cycle. They need to squeeze every drop from their existing enterprise investments while chasing the latest speedboats.

And then in walks marketing. Tech marketing no less:

"We can make your business 465% more productive."

"We can help you save 6bazillion dollars."

"We can make your business 2,000 times better."

"Blockchain. IoT. AI. AI. Buzzword. Buzzword. Buzzword. AI."

Thats all great but there's a disconnect between the outcome of the latest and greatest tech revolution, the promised value, and the reality of adopting it.

Onboarding sucks

In a chat earlier Chris Kernaghan voiced something I've seen countless times over the years. Onboarding sucks. Enterprise-ready means more than just AI-powered magic. It’s HA/DR. Security. Compliance. Controls. Not to mention different time zones, languages, and regulations. The things that keep a CIO awake at night.

DeepSeek doesn’t need to worry about enterprise-scale adoption. OpenAI didn’t pour its energy into perfecting the ChatGPT UI (at least I really hope they didn't) because the magic happens behind the UI.

When a CFO spots magic in a new AI tool and hears marketing's promises - "465% productivity!", "6 bazillion dollars saved!", etc. - the speedboat and the tanker collide. And suddenly, everyone’s scrambling for lifeboats.

To paraphrase: Step 1 and 2 have failed, and marketing is already at Step 3.

Cloud First UX

A decade ago, I worked with a platform that was truly cloud first. It had been designed and built from the ground up based around cloud patterns. Hosting, architecture, onboarding, security, operations, etc. weren't afterthoughts. They were ingrained into the product from the start. It meant onboarding was a dream. A next, next, next, finish (insert credit card here) dream.

They understood what cloud first meant from a UX perspective, and they understood that the CFO wasn't the only persona that mattered. Onboarding is one of the most critical experiences of all.

They knew that UX is everything - Onboarding is UX.