CoralReef

The challenge

Before

CoralReef is a Singapore-headquartered field-service SaaS serving small and mid-market field-service businesses across SEA and ANZ. Their trial-to-paid conversion was stuck in the mid-teens despite strong sign-up volume. Founders suspected the activation experience was the leak but did not have the in-house product analytics maturity to find the specific moments where users were dropping. They wanted help reaching activation discipline, not a marketing-funnel project.

• Trial-to-paid conversion stuck in the mid-teens for three quarters
• Sign-up volume healthy but downstream activation weak
• No instrumented activation funnel — drop-off invisible at step level
• Onboarding email sequence written generically a year earlier and never iterated
• In-app help directing users to a documentation site disconnected from journey
• Sales-assist on trials inconsistent and time-pressured
• Customer success team unable to identify at-risk trials before they expired
• Founders suspecting activation was the leak but unable to find specific moments

The solution

What we built

We ran a six-month Product Growth retainer specifically focused on activation. Month one was instrumentation — we built the activation funnel with engineering, identified the milestone moments that correlated with paid conversion, and stood up an analytics view the team could read. We then iterated the onboarding sequence weekly against the funnel signal — adjusting in-app guidance, restructuring the email sequence, sequencing feature introduction by user role, and tightening the sales-assist trigger. We helped customer success build a structured at-risk-trial signal so they could intervene where it would matter. The product team learned to read the funnel themselves and ship activation iterations weekly. We left them with an activation discipline they did not have when we started.

How the system flows

1. Month One Instrumentation→Funnel Built→Milestone Moments Identified
2. Onboarding Iteration→Weekly Tests→Funnel Signal Read
3. In-app Guidance→Sequenced by User Role→Adjusted Iteratively
4. Email Sequence→Restructured→Channel + Cadence Tuned
5. Sales-Assist Trigger→Tightened to Activation Signal
6. At-Risk Trial Signal→CS Intervention→Path to Activation
7. Capability Transfer→Product Team Reads Funnel→Ships Weekly

• Activation discipline left in product team's hands
• Weekly testing cadence on activation milestones
• Customer-success intervention triggered by structured signal