People sign up for my app but never use it. What do I do?

Find where they stop

List the steps between signing up and the first useful moment (the thing your product exists for). For most apps it’s short: confirm email, answer a few questions, connect something or add data, see the first result. Count how many new users get past each step. The biggest drop is where to work.

If you can’t count it yet, record each step as a named event tied to the user, and look again in a week.

The usual culprits

• An empty first screen. A new account with nothing in it asks the user to do all the work before seeing any value. Show sample data, or do the first step for them.
• A step that needs something they don’t have. An API key, a file, a teammate, access to another tool. Let them skip it and come back.
• Too many questions up front. Every field before the first result loses people. Ask later.
• The email confirmation. If the app can’t be used until the email is confirmed, some people never find the email. Let them in first, confirm later.
• The wrong people. If one source’s signups stall far more than another’s, the problem is the promise that brought them, not the product.

Fix one step at a time

Change the step with the biggest drop, then watch the next batch of signups. Changing several steps at once makes it impossible to tell what worked.

Reach out to the ones who stalled

Write to recent signups who didn’t get past the first step. One short, personal email, from you, not a sequence:

“Saw you signed up on Tuesday but didn’t get to your first report. What were you hoping to do? Happy to set it up for you.”

Replies tell you what the step is missing, and some people come back because someone asked. Don’t turn it into an automated drip; a few personal notes teach you more.

With Nordva Launch

Mark each step as a goal (data-nordva-goal="…" on a button, or nordva('goal', 'first-report') from code), call nordva('identify', …) after signup, and a funnel shows how many people reach each step and where they drop off (one funnel of three steps on Free, five of five on Indie). Compare it by source to see whether one channel’s signups stall more than the rest. Launch doesn’t send follow-up sequences; the personal email is yours to write.