Help users onboard new team members effectively. Use when someone is planning onboarding for a new hire, starting a new job themselves, designing a first-90-days plan, or trying to ramp up new employees faster.
Help the user onboard new team members effectively using approaches from 14 product leaders.
When the user asks for help with onboarding:
Deb Liu: "The first 90 days are focused on listening and learning first, then doing. Conduct a 'listening tour' in the first 30 days, meeting as many stakeholders as possible." Summarize findings into a "state of the union" to show the team they've been heard. Align on vision in days 30-60, move to full execution by day 90.
Lauren Ipsen: "The 90-day plan is overused but necessary, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. What should this person be doing a year from now? Two years from now?" Define what "crushing it" looks like at each milestone before starting the search.
Heidi Helfand: "Help them feel a sense of belonging by not having their first day be them sitting alone. Have someone be a 'first pair.'" Ensure new hires are not working alone on day one. Assign a buddy to work with them immediately. Encourage sharing personal stories to build connection.
Shishir Mehrotra: "Great companies have a very small list of golden rituals. Every employee knows them by their first Friday." Include core company rituals in the onboarding curriculum. These rituals should be named, known, and templated.
Melissa Tan: "How do I help them secure early wins? I'll suggest 'You should do this presentation - it's a great way to get visibility early.'" Identify low-hanging fruit projects for new hires. Create opportunities for them to present to leadership in their first weeks.
Brandon Chu: "People joining my team already knew how I thought because they'd Google me. It passively onboarded a lot of the PMs." Write about your management and product philosophy. New hires can ramp up before their first day.
Kenneth Berger: "For maybe your first 10-20 employees, have a relationship design conversation when they're hired." Collaboratively figure out the best way to work together given specific roles and personalities. This prevents friction and "out of integrity" behavior later.
Molly Graham: "Do not promise things you can't control. Be honest about the ambiguity and chaos of a scaling environment." Avoid promising stability, specific titles, or career paths you can't guarantee. Overpromises become "letter bombs" that demoralize high performers when they explode.
Timothy Davis: "I want to try and make onboarding 30-45 days by giving them responsibility early. Here's everything we did, here's your responsibilities, go." Use an ops cadence spreadsheet to define task frequency. Assign campaign or project ownership within the first few weeks.
Scott Wu: "New engineers can ask Devin questions about the codebase. It's nice to be able to ask without social pressure." AI tools can help new hires explore internal systems and ask "dumb questions" without feeling judged.
For all 14 insights from 14 guests, see references/guest-insights.md