Warpcast onboarding flow as of August 1, 2024

I've seen an uptick in casts talking about improving onboarding for non-crypto-people. So here's a live onboarding I just did. I'd say it's pretty close to any web2 experience with the exception of upfront payment.

You'll notice:

1. Minimal crypto UX — we use in-app purchases and Passkeys

2. The majority of onboarding interests used to populate the initial algo feed are non-crypto.

3. Since we no longer do initial follows, the initial feed nudges new users to follow more people. (Remember, the number one reason people churn is not enough content in their feed.)

4. Aside: crypto people don't sync contact book but non-crypto people do (because every other social app does this). However, that means the new people don't immediately find people they know the network.

"It's impossible to compete with Warpcast"

1. If you're trying to build for the same use case then yes, it will be extremely difficult. Have been saying this since last year. 

Given the size of the network, there's not enough users for multiple venture-backed businesses. This is why we are so focused on growing the size of the network (which itself requires a supply of content).

2. Try building something that's orthogonal (i.e. not a clone of Warpcast which is largely a clone of Twitter). Or use the social graph permissionlessly (no signers needed) to enhance your onboarding like Drakula, Tavern, Rodeo, Zora, etc.

3. If you still want to build a Warpcast competitor, try starting with a mobile-first onboarding flow -- copy this one. 85% of Warpcast usage is mobile. Yet people keep galaxy braining with a web first strategy and then complain it's too hard to compete.

4. PWA mobile experience will save you time and no App Store, but you will have a much harder time creating habitual DAU.

can you give us a rundown of the tech side of things behind warpcast? let the devs give their take on how long and difficult it would really take to build-their-own-client