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A quarter spent ignoring metrics
Why onboarding is hard
Onboarding for banks and other regulated companies is extremely complex. Applicants have to sort out the difference between a registered agent address, a legal address, and a physical address, and enter beneficial ownership details along the way. Mercury had invested heavily in quality across the rest of the product, but the onboarding flow had been left behind, and it was the first thing every customer saw.
The quality quarter
So the growth team set aside metrics and growth targets and spent the quarter fixing quality, from the way people go back from one field to another to how ownership details get added. The share of customers who started onboarding and finished it rose significantly.
The lesson he carried
Mercury's pitch to customers is a better banking experience, a belief that runs deep in the company and comes from several of its founders. The PM who led the push carried the lesson to Anthropic.
Why do banks ask who owns a company?
Banks must verify the identity of their customers under Know Your Customer rules, and shell companies are a known route for hiding money. In the United States, the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a Customer Due Diligence rule in 2018. It requires banks to identify each person who owns 25 percent or more of a legal entity customer, along with one person who controls it.
Why do registered agent and physical addresses differ?
A registered agent is a person or company designated to receive legal papers on a business's behalf, and most US states require every corporation and LLC to name one with a street address in the state. A physical address is where the business actually operates, which for a young company might be a home, a shared office, or nowhere fixed. Many startups hire commercial registered agent services, so the registered address often belongs to the service rather than the company. States publish the registered agent in their public business filings.
Why does fixing small flaws lift completion?
Every moment of confusion in a long form gives people a reason to quit, and the losses add up across many fields. Unclear error messages and forms that make people retype information are common causes named in usability testing. Baymard Institute's long-running checkout research has found that nearly one in five online shoppers abandon a purchase because the checkout process is too long or complicated.
More from Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
