Otrafy
Redesigning Otrafy’s Onboarding for Effortless Adoption
From three months to five days: Make onboarding frictionless, enticing, and most importantly—fast.
01. Project overview
Objective
Otrafy, a SaaS platform for supplier management in the food industry, was preparing to launch a freemium model at the IFT Global Expo.
The goal: Get as many food manufacturers as possible to sign up by allowing them to manage one type of supplier documentation for free (Kosher or Halal certifications).
The challenge: The onboarding process took months—a dealbreaker for companies just looking to test the platform.
Results
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Onboarding time slashed from 3+ months to just 5 days
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Industry leaders including Pepsi.co signed up for the freemium plan
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70% of freemium users completed onboarding without customer support
💻 Context: Web Platform. B2B, SaaS.
👩💻 Role: Lead Product Designer (End-to-End UX UI)
🤝 Team members: Product Owner, Developers, Data Scientists
⏳ Time Frame: 2 weeks (Sprint leading up to IFT Expo)
02. Defining the Problem
Why Are Users Avoiding a *Free* Trial?
To gain a comprehensive picture of what was blocking adoption, I conducted interviews with users, stakeholders, and industry experts Here’s what I uncovered:
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80% of QA employees didn’t have decision-making power—they needed to quickly show ROI to their managers.
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Data security concerns were a major friction point—users were hesitant to share sensitive company info upfront.
Would You Spend Months Manually Entering Data to test Our New Product?
For a usability study of the existing onboarding flow I stepped into the shoes of a busy QA manager at a food company, drowning in compliance paperwork. At IFT Global Expo for Food Science and Innovation a vendor pitches you a platform that can automate supplier documentation—great!
Except…
Before you can try out the platform you have to manually enter:
✔ Every supplier your company works with
✔ Every product they supply
✔ Every relevant certification (Kosher, Halal, Organic, etc.)
No wonder onboarding took months!
For paid clients, Otrafy’s customer support team handled data entry. But with hundreds of freemium sign-ups expected, that approach was impossible to scale.
How do we create a self-service onboarding experience that was:
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Fast enough to complete in days, not months
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Effortless for users with minimal data input
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Compelling enough to hook companies into upgrading
03. Solutions and iterations
Offer Value First
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Key Insight: Insight: Users were hesitant to share company data with a new platform.
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I flipped the onboarding flow—instead of asking for a full data migration upfront, we first showed value.
Only essential questions were asked first (Name, Role, Company).
During the onboarding we highlighted ROI-focused benefits—like “Save 40+ hours a month on supplier management.”
Users could explore key features before entering any data.
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Result:
Higher engagement from first-time users.
x5 increase in unassisted form completion rates (vs. previous flow).
Leverage Users' Existing Workflows
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Key Insight: Companies already tracked supplier data in Excel.
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I worked with developers to create an Excel upload system that allowed users to instantly import supplier information instead of entering it manually.
Users copied their existing spreadsheet into our clear and well designed Excel template (no data re-entry needed).
Our system automatically mapped key fields (e.g., supplier names, certification types, tec.) and seamlessly migrated the data into the platform
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Result:
Data migration time reduced from 3 months to 5 days.
70% of freemium users completed onboarding with zero customer support.
3. Say Less, Do More
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Key Insight: The old onboarding form overwhelmed users with unnecessary questions.
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I collaborated with our data scientist to identify the most essential data points needed to start.
By applying progressive disclosure, I broke onboarding into a handful of small, digestible steps, each framed around a clear benefit:
📝 Instead of: “Enter your company size”
✅ “We’ll customize your experience based on your team size.”
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Result:
Time to complete onboarding reduced by 70%.
Higher completion rates (users weren’t scared away by long forms).
04. Results & Impact
Great UX can be a bridge between usability and business success
A 3-month onboarding process was never going to work for a freemium model. By making onboarding frictionless, fast, and value-driven, we turned hesitant users into engaged clients—without requiring manual customer support.
Key Wins at the IFT Expo:
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Onboarding time slashed from 3 months to 5 days
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Freemium sign-ups exceeded expectations by 300%
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70% of users onboarded without customer support
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PepsiCo signed up and continues using Otrafy for Kosher & Halal certification management
Lessons learned:
✅ Users resist effort, not technology. Design for the path of least resistance.
✅ If a feature doesn’t show immediate ROI, users won’t care.
✅ Meet users where they are (in this case, Excel).
