Product Growth through Successful Onboarding: Kate Syuma at Product Drive 2025

We’re excited to have Kate Syuma join us at Product Drive 2025 this October 7-8. As we explore “Product Growth in the Age of AI,” Kate brings exactly what our community needs – real expertise in turning new users into loyal customers.

Here’s why we think you’ll love her session.

Kate Syuma’s track record speaks for itself

Kate spent 6+ years at Miro, starting as their third designer when they had just 55 people.

By the time she left, Miro had grown to 2,000+ employees and achieved unicorn status with a $17.5B valuation. Her role evolved from individual contributor to Head of Growth Design, leading transformational initiatives.

But here’s what makes her story even better: she built the entire growth design function from scratch. Kate didn’t just join an existing team; she created the playbook that helped transform Miro from a startup into one of the world’s most successful collaboration platforms.

During her time there, she accomplished several remarkable things:

• Led the transition from Free Trial to Freemium business model, supporting scale from 1 to 50+ million users
• Created and launched Miroverse, Miro’s community platform that became a “love mark” for customers
• Improved sharing experience that led to 2× virality metrics growth
• Ran 100+ experiments across onboarding, engagement, and monetization
• Led strategic “0 to 1” initiatives for self-serve monetization and activation experience
• Built and managed a design team that grew from 3 to 10+ people

That’s the kind of hands-on experience you can’t get from textbooks.

What she’s doing now

Kate didn’t stop at Miro. She founded Growthmates, where she helps SaaS companies figure out their PLG strategies. Her clients include some names you’d recognize—teams at Grammarly, Intercom, Loom, and ManyChat all trust her with their growth challenges.

Through Growthmates, she’s built a community of over 7,000 subscribers who follow her insights on ethical growth design. She hosts a podcast where she interviews growth leaders from companies like Dropbox, Pinterest, Adobe, Atlassian, Amplitude, and Canva.

Her additional accomplishments include:

• Co-teaching “Self-Serve User Onboarding” course on Maven with industry report from 80+ companies
• Publishing comprehensive growth playbooks based on insights from 30+ industry leaders
• Collaborating with Kyle Poyar on “The Evolution of Miro’s user onboarding” case study
• Supporting 10+ startups as part of the Antler advisory community
• Contributing to UX Collective with “From UX to Growth Design: 5 principles to multiply your value“

The common thread? Kate focuses on growth strategies that actually help users, not tricks that manipulate them.

Her industry recognition

Kate’s expertise hasn’t gone unnoticed:

• She spoke at the Hatch Conference in Berlin, an invite-only event for senior UX and design leaders in Europe
• She’s been featured on the Design Aloud podcast discussing growth design strategies
• Product Coffee podcast had her on to talk about community-led growth and user segmentation
• She advises 35+ companies on their growth strategies
• Listed as a mentor on the GrowthMentor platform for growth design and PLG expertise

But honestly, what impresses us most is how she thinks about onboarding.

Why her approach to onboarding matters

Most teams treat onboarding like a checklist: show users feature A, then feature B, then hope they stick around. Kate’s approach is different. She thinks about onboarding as creating journeys that naturally guide users toward value.

Her upcoming session, “6 Steps to Holistic Onboarding: How to Build Journeys That Activate and Stick”, will break down exactly how she does this. This framework comes from her extensive experience running 100+ onboarding experiments at Miro and her current advisory work across multiple industries.

Kate combines behavioral psychology with practical design principles. The result? Onboarding experiences that reduce time-to-value while increasing long-term engagement. Her methodology works because it focuses on what users actually need, not what companies want to show them.

What you’ll learn from Kate

In her Product Drive session, Kate will share:

• The six-step framework she developed during Miro’s hypergrowth phase
• Specific techniques for identifying the moments that matter most for activation
• How to design onboarding flows that work across different user types
• Real case studies from her current advisory work with 35+ companies

This isn’t going to be one of those talks where you leave with vague inspiration. Kate will give you a practical framework you can start implementing immediately.

Product Drive 2025: Your opportunity to learn from a proven expert

Our theme this year is “Product Growth in the Age of AI,” and Kate’s onboarding expertise couldn’t be more relevant. As AI creates new possibilities for personalization, the fundamentals of guiding users to value become even more critical.

You can build the most sophisticated AI features in the world, but if users don’t understand how to get value from your product, none of it matters. Kate’s session provides the foundation that makes everything else work.

Her talk joins an impressive lineup including sessions on AI monetization strategies, lifecycle marketing, and user engagement platforms.

With only 500 seats per live session, you’ll have direct access to insights into how to drive sustainable growth in the AI era.

Register now to join Kate at Product Drive 2025!