Believe it or not, The picture of the lady in the Channel dress is not a photograph. It's a painting by Klimt from 1894. The other one is not the work of some misconfigured AI. It's another Klimt painting from a few years later. If Klimt can't teach you onboarding, nobody can.

You see, In 1894, cameras sucked. So most photographs were taken by painters. Klimt was very lucky because he was nice with a brush.

Klimt was not fond of photography. He had another project in mind. But he took a lot of impressive photos nevertheless because he understood how culture works. He knew that if he wanted to do his own thing, he first had to show that he was a master of the regular thing. He didn't want people to think that he made funny paintings because he couldn't take photos.

The Belvedere Museum in Vienna has a Klimt exhibit. He's Austria's answer to Van Gogh. I don’t care much for meusums. I’m more of a city wondered. But my friend Anastasia insisted that I take a look so I had to try. Walking into the underwhelming exhibit, they first showed me many paintings among which is the Lady in the Channel dress. It stood out with its beauty and technical mastery. But more importantly, it was in line with my expectation of what mastery looked like.

The Belvedere Museum does what Klimt did: It shows you an impressive example of the regular thing before they let you see the thing they want to show you. This is how they earn your attention.

In the next room, I was met with the main event, The Kiss from 1908. I thought it was very ugly. It looks like it was made by somebody's artsy nephew. But Instead of storming out, I lingered a bit. I was sincerely intrigued: How on earth does this come from the same guy who was capable of shooting pictures at 64 megapixels in 1894?

Instead of churning, I leaned in. I enrolled in the Klimt journey because I was promised a chance for more and was shown reason to believe that it was possible. Klimt earned the benefit of the doubt. After a few moments of doubt, things started to make sense.

The reason onboarding fails is not because they didn't have enough steps or too many. It's because they couldn't earn enough enrollment or enough benefit of the doubt. They didn't start with the familiar and the expected. They didn't let things sink in. They went directly to the main event before the audience was warm enough. Personal experience taught many of us not to do that. The audience doesn't like it 😉 😘.

Onboarding should not be a flex, a random showcase. Instead, It should be more like seduction. It should comfort, reassure, and disarm with the familiar while teasing, luring, and hooking with the opportunity.

Klimt was clearly trippin' balls. He probably got his hands on some good stuff from Morocco and it clearly influenced his work to a large extent. His story teaches us an important lesson about onboarding and seduction in general: If you play by the rules well enough, if you are patient enough, the audience lets you do whatever you want and loves you for it 😉 😘.