Simplifying the signup flow

I was working on the signup flow for a B2B SaaS product. Over time, the flow had grown from a simple account creation step into a five-field form that asked new users for information before they had even seen the product.

Analytics showed a significant drop between the second and third fields. Internally, every field had an owner and removing anything felt risky, so the team kept optimizing individual screens instead of questioning whether the information was necessary at signup at all.

I mapped which information was truly required to create an account and moved everything else into progressive onboarding. We reduced the signup form from five required fields to two. I also used AI to summarize support conversations and group recurring signup complaints so we could validate the friction before changing the flow.

Sometimes the best optimization is subtraction. AI helped us find patterns faster, but the real product decision was simplifying the experience.