The problem
Owaves is a daily planning app built around personal rhythms and wellbeing. It needed a clearer path from first open to a useful first experience, with fewer avoidable steps, transparent permission choices and a good path for anyone not ready to connect Health data.
What I did
I redesigned and built onboarding with AI assistance, then shipped it with the team, with the aim of helping people leave their first session with a day they could understand and use. Health connection comes first and is optional; choosing one goal visibly reshapes the day behind a guide people can dismiss and resume, keeping the real app within reach. At completion, a soft subscription offer can be dismissed with Maybe Later, and an instrumented activation funnel lets the team assess the release.
What changed
Estimated first-open-to-account conversion rose 2.8x across matched 30-day periods before and after the release.
How it was measured. Estimated signup conversion divides aggregate Cognito account counts by GA4 first opens, so it doesn’t follow the same individuals through both steps. The two 30-day windows exclude the rollout day; differences in traffic and pre-release testing limit the comparison. These are before-and-after observations of a broader release, so they don’t isolate onboarding from other changes or show gains in retention, subscriptions or revenue.