From 70+ Days to Minutes
Designing a scalable, automated merchant onboarding system for Bolt Products. Transforming a months-long manual process into a streamlined self-service experience.
Overview
Rethinking how merchants get started with Bolt
Bolt's merchant onboarding process was a critical bottleneck. New merchants faced a frustrating experience of repetitive forms, manual handoffs, and lengthy communication loops that delayed their time-to-live by months. I led the redesign of this experience to increase merchant self-service, reduce internal touchpoints, and dramatically accelerate the path from sign-up to live.
Role
Lead Product DesignerPartners
Background
Bolt historically was a single-product company and so onboarding was handled internally, which meant a lot of manual processes. With new products coming into existence fast and frequently, this process had become outdated and a bottleneck to merchants getting online.
Goal
- Increase merchant self-service experiences, reduce internal touch points and manual work to get merchants live faster.
- Cut down time to go live to act on potential revenue lying in open opportunities.
Challenges
- Hunting down the need for specific data points from multiple cross-disciplinary teams to determine what actual data we needed from merchants.
- Change is hard, so getting Implementation Managers to start using the new form took a bit longer than it should have.
Key Results
Measurable impact across the board
70+ days
to minutes
Onboarding time
40+ to 11
Inputs condensed
$1.4B
Open revenue opportunities
Fewer
Implementation manager touchpoints
The Problem
Basic onboarding was taking over 2 months
Bolt's existing onboarding process was riddled with friction. Merchants were stuck in a cycle of back-and-forth communications, manual task handling, and redundant data entry that stretched what should have been a simple setup into a multi-month ordeal.
Communication Loops
Endless back-and-forth between merchants and internal teams
Manual Task Handling
Implementation managers manually processing each step
Lengthy Forms
40+ input fields creating an overwhelming setup experience
Repetitive Data Entry
Merchants re-entering information already provided
Redundant Payment Data
Collecting payment info that could be deferred or automated
Poor Accessibility
Onboarding flows not meeting accessibility standards
Goals & Metrics
Goals & Metrics
Creating a streamlined onboarding flow across Bolts product offerings and enabling faster time to live would give the sales team greater flexibility with how they engage prospects. By lowering the duration and effort required to stand up a sandbox the sales team could potentially close deals faster by proving a simple/streamlined onboarding process, and allowing merchants to experience Bolt on their own website with little effort.
Ultimately, the redesigned flow aimed to reduce Merchant and Bolt communication cycles from five interactions down to one while automating tasks previously handled manually by the Professional services team.
Increased Onboarding Efficiency | As measured by PS metrics | |
Reduced Time to Launch | As measured by PS metrics | |
Increase SI Deals | More SIs using Bolt | |
Increased Deal Velocity(Stretch) | More M2 managed checkout deals signed |
Current state onboarding flow: a complex, multi-step process with numerous manual touchpoints and handoffs between teams.
Discovery & Process Mapping
Auditing every input to find what truly matters
My PM and I collaborated closely with cross-functional teams to audit the 40+ inputs collected during onboarding. Together, we identified which fields were truly required, who the intended user was for each input, and how the data was used internally. This helped us determine which information was essential for initial account creation and which could be deferred to later stages within the merchant dashboard.
We created a detailed spreadsheet to map every input and included:
- What the information was used for internally (i.e. payment setup, sandbox experience, etc.)
- Whether it was necessary to set up a merchant account (i.e. get them access to the merchant dashboard)
- Which user role was expected to provide it (engineer, owner, etc.)
All of this data was then translated into the desired end-to-end flow, clarifying what surface the user was on at each step, what inputs were required, and how the experience should adapt if steps were completed out of sequence.
Design Explorations
Iterating toward clarity and simplicity
Because this work was driven primarily by data analysis and product strategy, the UI was intentionally kept as simple as possible. I leveraged existing components from our design system and explored a few iterations of the onboarding screens, progressing from simple, wireframe-like concepts to a more polished, branded Bolt experience.
Design Goals
Create a simple, scalable UI that could support future products and features
Enable merchants to set up a Bolt account with as little friction as possible
Communicate progress and completion to reduce uncertainty and abandonment
Align with new branding while feeling lightweight, straightforward, and modern
Live Prototype
Try the onboarding flow
Walk through an interactive prototype of the redesigned merchant onboarding experience.
Long Term Product Vision
Long Term Product Vision
Beyond the initial launch, we identified key areas for continued improvement to the merchant onboarding experience.
Automation
Automating data population and reducing manual entry, turning the account creation step from a tedious multi-day process to something completed in moments. Information is pre-filled where possible and validated in real time.
Additions to Merchant Dashboard
Once authenticated, merchants land on a personalized dashboard that communicates progress, next steps, and available Bolt products. The welcome experience reinforces that setup is fast and guided.
Expanding to New Standalone Bolt Products
A clear product selection interface lets merchants choose which Bolt products to install. Each option is presented with concise descriptions and visual cues, making the decision simple and informed.
Outcomes
From months of friction to minutes of momentum
The redesigned onboarding system transformed how merchants experience Bolt, turning a painful multi-month process into a self-service flow that takes minutes.
Minutes Instead of Months
The redesigned onboarding form launched successfully, enabling merchants to create accounts and begin setup significantly faster than before (a few minutes instead of a few months).
$1.4B Opportunity Identified
Based on the impact analysis, completing automation for merchants using Adobe Commerce represented a potential $1.4B in open opportunities, with the new experience positioned to remove months from the merchant go-live time.
Reduced Manual Effort
Early internal feedback from Implementation managers and professional services suggested a drastic reduction in manual effort as there were fewer steps required and less direct intervention.
Increased Deal Velocity
By shortening time-to-live and simplifying sandbox setup, the new onboarding experience positioned the sales team to increase deal velocity and allow prospects to evaluate Bolt more quickly on their own sites.
Want to see more of my work?
Learn more about my background and experience
Professional HistoryNext Project
Doubling conversion with abandoned cart redesign
View Case Study