Levain onboarding
Background
Levain is the back-office and enterprise division of Cake Group’s DeFi earning platform, Bake, designed to help treasurers, hedge funds, and enterprise users securely manage digital assets on a single platform. It is also used internally by Bake to safeguard user funds, while its SDK and APIs enable external partners to build on top of the platform. To drive adoption, we opened Levain to external enterprise users, requiring a robust onboarding flow optimized for conversion.
How it started
TOKEN2049 Event
We planned to pitch Levain at TOKEN2049, Singapore’s flagship Web3 event, and get engineers building on it. Attendees would sign up via a link shared during networking, so the flow had to work without any hand-holding.
Trial mode
We built a free trial mode with a set number of credits, letting builders and engineers try Levain on their own projects through a self-serve onboarding flow.
SEO
To generate organic leads, we needed SEO exposure, which made a website and a demo version crucial.
The challenge
This project came with its own set of challenges. Below are the key obstacles given the timeline of this project.
1
Branding and design system required
As a back-office tool, Levain had no branding, no external identity, and no design system. We had to build all three from scratch.
2
Complex product offering
Web3 moves fast and is still unfamiliar to most corporations. Our sales team struggled to pitch Levain past the jargon, so onboarding had to be simple.
Project goal
50
Sign-ups
Get 50 engineers or projects to sign up to Levain and use its trial version during TOKEN2049.
150
Invites
Get 150 projects or engineers to sign up through invite links distributed by the sales team on digital channels such as LinkedIn.
Design system and platform revamp
Solution for
1
Made with
Tradeoffs
Design and solutions
Solution for
2
To reduce complexity, we split onboarding into multiple steps and kept Web3 jargon to a minimum. The first step was simple: collect contact details, so if users dropped off during onboarding, we could reach out and offer help.
Asking for contact details before users had tried the product wasn’t ideal, but it gave our sales team a chance to win back drop-offs, a compromise we were willing to make.
By default, users are required to activate 2FA from the beginning.
We allow users to onboard as individuals rather than organizations. This typically suits solopreneurs and smaller businesses, whereas enterprises, banks, and hedge funds usually onboard as organizations.
Users land on this screen after completing sign-up. They can then start a new project, create wallets, or invite team members.
Drop-off handling
At TOKEN2049, sign-ups came in but completion was low. We tagged where each user dropped off and sent a follow-up email 48 hours later to bring them back.
Generic email sent after 48 hours
Email sent after 1 week - with sales support
Outcome and Impact
61 engineers and/or projects signed up for Levain during TOKEN2049. More than 53 started building within a week.
94 signed up through an exclusive invite link that included free credits to start building beyond the free trial.
Our SEO discoverability started warming up and began to generate organic leads in the following months
What's Next & Takeaways
Launched ahead of TOKEN2049, the onboarding flow attracted Web3 builders and engineers to Levain. With traffic driven primarily by sales outreach, the flow achieved a 95% completion rate from high-intent users.
Email was critical for re-engagement and lead nurturing, leading me to design more supporting email templates for the onboarding journey.
The Platform
A selection of screens from the Levain platform beyond onboarding, showcasing payments, analytics, and dashboard experiences.
*Levain's wallet overview screen
*Blockchain selection and WalletConnect
*Tracking and approving transactions in Levain