John Ma | AI-native designer retweeted
i built it. it's A/B tested to death.
we tripled our onboarding from 10 to 30+ screens.
everyone said we'd lose users.
instead:
→ 8M new users
→ 2.5x subscriptions on day one
→ +23% D1-D5 retention
100+ A/B tests later, here's the playbook for a "world-class" onboarding 👇
1/ test absolutely EVERYTHING
i vibe coded v1 in one night. but it took us 2 months to get it right.
i see stunning onboardings on X all the time. reality is brutal: the average user will probably drop on your fancy animation.
don't trust your intuition. measure every click, even if you have a small app. every new screen, every copy change is a bet. tiny changes can have a crazy impact. you'll learn a lot.
→ we added a "skip" button to our mascot's intro. drop-off didn't move. D1 fell 2.9%. we killed the button.
2/ think in STORYLINE, not screens
you can copy CalAI's screens or ours. it won't work for you. it depends on your users. what matters is the sequence. it's your story.
onboarding IS your product. every step should either a) give value now (advice, stats) or b) build value for later (personalization, setup). if you don't nail it, they'll never reach your actual product anyway.
don't show, ask: questions show you know their pain. every question should remind them why they're here.
then add confirmation screens: "we got you", "you're not alone", "here's how we'll help". they sell the value, not the features.
bonus: that storyline writes your paywall for you.
→ "get to your [x] GPA twice as fast with PRO"
3/ STOP optimising for funnel drop
the contrarian one. "37 screens? they must have a crazy drop."
shorter ≠ better. if someone drops halfway, what are the odds they'd have retained or paid? they'd have uninstalled the next day anyway. why optimise for them?
every screen is a trade-off. +2.5% D1 vs −1% onboarding completion, which wins? know what you're optimising for, and cut screens that aren't worth the drop.
trade conversion for retention: more activated users → more retention → more subs
and you can recover the drop: −10% completion at first, now back to 10-screen levels after swapping bad screens to converting ones.
4/ predict your BAD users
cross onboarding answers with long-term retention or subscription CR. the longer the onboarding, the clearer the patterns in how 'bad users' answer, so you can tell whether the ones dropping are worth it.
→ we ask "which feature will help you most?" users who pick 4+ retain 10% better. correlation, not cause, but it tells us which drops we can stop worrying about.
5/ quick wins
- account registration ALWAYS at the end
- copy Nikita Bier's X notification permission screen: +30% opt-ins for us
- personalization works crazy well: an app icon selector with our mascot alone gave +5.6% D1
hmu if you want more details :)
John Ma | AI-native designer retweeted
Huge AI announcements from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Google in the past 48 hours.
Here's everything going on in AI right now:
1. The authors of AI 2027 just moved their timelines up. They now expect AI on par with the best human AI researchers to arrive in 2027, after METR estimated Anthropic is improving about 2x as fast thanks to AI. Daniel Kokotajlo gives it a 50-50 chance by May 2027 and says he's "scared, sad, and angry."
2. Anthropic opened the investor pitch for its IPO, with shares likely trading as soon as Thursday next week. An updated filing also says it has now crossed its own safety line for AI-driven progress.
3. OpenAI launched Businesses in ChatGPT, a beta hub where brands can set up AI agents for shoppers, claim a verified profile, and track how often ChatGPT mentions them. Paid ads can point users to those agents too. This is like the start of SEO for chatbots.
4. Anthropic rolled out Claude Sheets and Whiteboards in beta, made Claude Data generally available, and announced Claude Meetings, an assistant that sits in on your video calls. Add those to Slides, Design, and Docs. Seems like Claude is slowly rebuilding the entire office suite.
5. Anthropic also released Claude Fable 5.2 and Mythos 5.2 yesterday, with Fable debuting at #1 on Artificial Analysis' Intelligence Index, 5 points ahead of Google's Gemini 4 Carbon. It's also 20% cheaper and up to 30% faster than 5.1. Google lost the top spot before Carbon even shipped (!)
6. Meta released Muse Ember, its smallest model, built for high-volume agent work. It ties Claude Haiku 5.5 on the Intelligence Index at roughly one-third of the cost per task ($0.14 vs. $0.41 on an average test). Meta shipped its first Muse model in April and now has an answer for every tier OpenAI and Anthropic sell.
7. Google announced 2 new AI chips coming next year: the TPU 8tx, which keeps data encrypted even while a model is working on it, and the 8i Max, which joins 2 chips into one for agents that need to hold an entire codebase in view. Google already has nearly 100 TPU customers (including Anthropic and Apple) and every available chip is spoken for.
8. Nvidia's top lawyer reportedly emailed agents in August 2025 while they were investigating whether Singapore's Megaspeed smuggled its chips to China. The Commerce Department then halted the case and handed it to the Justice Department. Not a great week for Nvidia.
9. Adobe signed a multi-year deal with Disney to build custom AI models trained on Disney's characters and visual styles, with work already underway for theme parks, film, and ESPN. Pretty interesting to see one of the most protective IP owners in entertainment is now training its own AI models.
10. OpenAI acquired Odessia, a months-old AI trip-planning startup from Sonder founder Francis Davidson, who is joining OpenAI to work on travel. Between this and #3, ChatGPT is coming for shopping and travel.
11. France unveiled the Paris Call for AI Safety and Security, with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Mistral committing to build emergency off switches into their most advanced models. Interesting timing given #1 on this list.
Daily reminder that this is the worst AI will ever be.
John Ma | AI-native designer retweeted
If you design with AI, save this
1. modulify.ai — best vibecoding tool
2. landdding.com — top notch landings
3. modulify.ai/templates — free templates
4. motionin.design — 1 prompt 1 website
5. iconly.design — world best icons
6. fontinlogo.com — fonts behind brands
7. on.design — design community
8. godly.website — award websites
9. 60fps.design — mobile UI animations
10. footer.design — footer inspiration
11. recent.design — next level design
12. backgrounds.supply — backgrounds
13. posts.design — big brands posts
14. beui.dev — animated components
15. wonderlist.design — figma designs
16. mobbin.com — real app screens
17. sent.dm — almost free sms
20. paperanimation.ai — paper anim
18. logotouse.com — premium logos
bookmark this
John Ma | AI-native designer retweeted
STATE OF THE TECH JOB MARKET IN 2026
Twice a year, I dig into trends in hiring and job openings. This is the fifth report I've done, and the most surprising yet:
1. PMs are winning in the AI era
2. Engineering demand has stalled
3. Design openings are at a record low
4. Every role now requires AI skills
5. Tech jobs are concentrating in the Bay Area
6. Remote roles are at a record low
7. The tech job market is growing fast, but mostly outside of software (gasp!)
Full report here: lennysnewsletter.com/p/state…
John Ma | AI-native designer retweeted
Lately I've been working with founders.
Their apps are doing > $50k/mo.
These are the tactics they use to convert more users, and the tactics I used to get to $13k/mo in 3 months.
John Ma | AI-native designer retweeted
Now in beta: Businesses in ChatGPT.
Claim your business, manage your information, and get insights on how people engage with you.
Eligible businesses can also build a Business Agent to answer customers’ questions and help them explore what you offer.
openai.com/index/introducing…
John Ma | AI-native designer retweeted
We all get down. We all come back.
So the only difference between us is how quickly, and fully, can you bounce back?
Two of my favorite rules here are:
90 seconds of suffering - Stole this from Tony Robbins.
When I get upset. I don’t deny it. I don’t resist it. I don’t lie to myself (“I’m not mad, you’re mad!”). Instead, I give myself 90 seconds to wallow in it. Full permission to feel shitty for 90 seconds.
Now, 90 seconds sounds short. In reality, when I do this, halfway thru I’m looking at my watch, because the feeling passes when you don’t resist it. And I’m ready to move back into a better state of mind.
Heal to 101% - One of my favorite big ideas is that every relationship will have arguments - but does the relationship heal to 99% or 101%?
If it’s 99%, that means you lost a little in that fight. A little trust. A little respect. A little love. And over time, losing 1% each time, the relationship will shrink.
But if you can focus on healing to 101%. Bounce back better than where you were before. Then the relationship grows every time.
John Ma | AI-native designer retweeted
Looks like Fable 5.2 is above the already steep trendline on three of the most informative unsaturated benchmarks (ECI is a composite of other benchmarks, Remote Labor measures the ability to do end-to-end freelance jobs, RoboDojo involves controlling robotics).
John Ma | AI-native designer retweeted
When Anthropic release a new model it's always worth taking a look at their updated prompting guide - here's an entertaining tip to make Fable 5.2 less likely to be cautious in how it improves existing code: tell it "This codebase is yours" platform.claude.com/docs/en/…
ALT Say who owns the code Claude Fable 5.2 responds closely to what the prompt says about who owns the code it works on. In Anthropic’s testing on small coding tasks, when a prompt said nothing about ownership or presented the code base as someone else’s, the model tended to add to the existing structure, even when that repeated existing code. It also tended to report nearby problems instead of fixing them. When the prompt says the code base is the model’s own, the model often merges repeated code and makes related fixes without being asked. If you want the model to improve the structure as it works, say that the code is its own: This codebase is yours: what it's for and how it's built are your call, and you'll keep building on it. In Anthropic’s testing on small coding tasks, the model merged repeated code in about half of the tries with this sentence, and in under a tenth of the tries without it. The rate varied by task. The result held when the sentence stood inside a long system prompt
John Ma | AI-native designer retweeted
I had early access to Fable 5.2 for a bit & I think it crosses the line into being a sort of Jagged AGI. Here, I have it launch a business, do academic research, hack hardware, build 3D models & more. I think it is a good illustration of limits & powers: oneusefulthing.org/p/fable-5…
John Ma | AI-native designer retweeted
this is genuinely crazy 😭
>this is ecogpt, Blake Anderson’s ai chat app doing ~$100k mrr
found a few of their slideshow accounts today
one winning format pulling 30m+ views a month across multiple accounts, 10m+ likes combined, random facts and the app sitting right in the middle of the post
slideshows made the cheapest way to recreate the exact effect companies burn millions on every day, being everywhere
a $100k mrr app understood the game and they’re spamming it
what a time to be alive 🏃
you are one format away from changing the trajectory of your app
(full breakdown below)
John Ma | AI-native designer retweeted
CRACKED MARKETING 101
Watch AI agents ship 100+ static ads, make UGC videos for $4 that used to cost $500 and upload everything
Here's the ENTIRE system step by step (and ALL of the skills):
