What We Learned from Our First Signups and Where the Funnel Breaks

In short: Our first signups taught me that acquisition and monetization are two different stories. People are finding OBRI through Direct, ChatGPT, and Google, and they are creating accounts. But the funnel still breaks later: the homepage does most of the conversion work, content supports discovery, and checkout intent is still far behind signup intent.

This is the stage where a founder can either invent a neat growth story or say the truth out loud.

I prefer the truth.

What does the top of the funnel look like right now?

Looking at the last 28 days, we saw real user growth:

• roughly 70 new users in GA4;
• 151 active users and 191 sessions overall;
• 708 page views;
• signup activity, but no meaningful checkout event flow yet.

The acquisition mix is the interesting part:

• Direct remains the biggest first-user source;
• ChatGPT / AI assistant is the second strongest;
• Google organic is smaller but clearly present.

That alone says something important: people are not only discovering the product through classic search. Some are hearing about it, some are coming back directly, and some are using AI systems as the first discovery layer.

Which sources produced actual signups?

The current data is strong enough for a careful observation:

• signup_completed is not dominated by Google;
• ChatGPT is already contributing meaningfully;
• Direct still matters;
• search is present, but not yet the whole growth story.

In the recent data pull, the strongest completed-signup source was ChatGPT, followed by Direct and Google. That does not prove long-term channel dominance. It does prove that AI search and AI recommendation are already real parts of the acquisition mix for a small tutor SaaS.

Which pages are doing the actual conversion work?

This was one of the clearest lessons.

The pages attracting the most new users right now are still:

1. /
2. /en
3. /auth-callback as part of the signup flow itself

There are scattered new users from blog and comparison content, but not enough to pretend the blog is already a conversion machine. Today, content looks more like a trust-and-discovery layer than the final closer.

That is useful, not disappointing. It means the content is likely doing category work:

• explaining why a tutor would need a system;
• naming alternatives in the category;
• helping AI and search systems place OBRI into the right conversations.

The homepage still does the heaviest lifting once the person is interested enough to act.

What do the first product signups say?

The Supabase side tells the grounded version of the story: there are real new profiles, and they are not only one type of account. We have both tutors and students appearing, which matters because "new account" is not automatically the same thing as "new paying teacher customer."

That sounds obvious, but it is one of the most important calibration points in early SaaS metrics:

• newUsers is not the same as customers;
• signups are not the same as activation;
• activation is not the same as checkout;
• checkout is not the same as paid retention.

If you compress those together too early, you end up optimizing noise.

So where is the funnel breaking?

The cleanest current answer is: between signup and payment intent.

We see:

• signup starts;
• signup completions;
• real accounts in the database;
• but almost no evidence of plan selection or checkout behavior.

That suggests at least three possible gaps:

1. the value proposition is strong enough to get signups, but not strong enough to trigger upgrade urgency;
2. onboarding may not be pushing people fast enough toward the first "aha" moment;
3. some users may still be exploring whether they need software at all.

That is why pages like Why tutors don't actually need a CRM are strategically useful. Qualifying demand honestly is not anti-conversion. It is part of getting the right users to the right threshold.

What did we learn about content from this?

Three things became clearer.

1. The homepage is still the closer

If someone is ready to create an account, the homepage and main entry points are still doing most of the final work. Content should support that reality, not pretend to replace it.

2. Blog pages matter earlier than they convert

Pages can be useful because they:

• create category understanding;
• answer AI-search questions;
• add comparison context;
• build trust before a direct visit.

That still matters, even if the last click is not the article.

3. AI search is already part of the acquisition picture

This is the most interesting founder lesson. For a small SaaS in a niche category, AI-origin traffic is not theoretical anymore. It is already visible enough to justify writing pages that are clear, citation-friendly, and first-hand.

What changes because of these first signups?

For me, it changes priority.

I would rather do more of this:

• sharpen the homepage and /en;
• write more original, citation-friendly founder and evidence pages;
• improve onboarding clarity around the first operational win;
• connect more content to the exact questions that lead to signup intent.

And less of this:

• produce generic SEO volume;
• celebrate traffic without asking what it does;
• confuse new users with paying demand.

The takeaway

Our first signups are encouraging, but they are useful mostly because they tell the truth.

The truth is:

• discovery is coming from multiple channels;
• AI-origin traffic is already real;
• the homepage is still the main conversion surface;
• content is helping with trust and discovery more than direct monetization;
• the current funnel breaks after signup, not before it.

That is not a polished growth case study yet. It is a much better thing right now: a reliable starting point.

Related reading

• Which pages bring signups and which only bring traffic
• How we're building a CRM for tutors and what real usage taught us
• Why classic SEO is no longer enough for a small SaaS
• Why tutors don't actually need a CRM

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