Growth Newsletter #235

Deleting a Digital Ocean instance is an exercise in patience. 

You have to:

1. Open Digital Ocean’s dashboard,
2. Click a “Destroy” menu item,
3. Then a “Destroy this instance” button,
4. Then manually type in the droplet’s full name,
5. And finally, click a red glowing “Destroy” action.

It takes 30 seconds, at least.

Yet perhaps that’s the correct level of gravity for something that can take your entire business offline forever—the software equivalent of requiring that two people turn two keys to launch a missile.

A bit of friction makes it nearly impossible to destroy a server… or city accidentally.

Friction is not such a bad guy

We’ve been trained to believe that seamless, frictionless experiences are the ultimate goal in product design.

This is true in many cases, particularly for established businesses or categories.

People know what they want and what you offer, so get out of their way.

But it’s not true in all cases—especially new businesses in emerging categories/markets.

Wait, wasn’t it earlier this week that I talked about removing friction through the power of opinionated defaults? Am I now contradicting that today??

Not entirely.

Nothing is all good, and nothing is all bad.

Adding the right kind of friction—positive friction—could be the key to driving engagement, learning from your users, and achieving product-market fit.

Here’s why everything memorable (and valuable) is often hard—and how you can apply this insight to your early-stage startup.

The case for positive friction

Think about Gmail.

When it launched, it was invite-only, creating buzz and a sense of exclusivity. Here's an example of these invite emails from Hash Milan's blog:

Compare that to signing up for most tools today, where the process is so effortless it’s forgettable (ironically partly due to the ease and ubiquitousness of Google login).

The Gmail invite hunt and getting it before your friends made it memorable.

Superhuman took it further.

Its onboarding process involved:

• A survey,
• A 30-minute call with a rep, and
• Deep customization for users

The friction wasn’t a barrier—it was a feature. It helped users feel valued, understand the product, and justify the $30/month price tag for something that’s always been free.

It worked so well that the playbook is frequently run by new startups.

Positive friction can make your product stand out.

It can create anticipation, teach users its value, and build long-term loyalty.

Good friction vs. bad friction

Bad friction is frustrating and pointless—think of the hoops Adobe makes you jump through to cancel a subscription.

Or when you’re signing up for yet another ebook and you’re asked:

When really, all they need is your email address. The rest was likely added to fulfill various requirements for sales and marketing departments.

Positive friction, on the other hand, helps you learn more about your users and makes your product memorable.

Here’s a guide to the types of positive friction and how to implement it, starting from day one.

Pre-Product Positive Friction

1. Early Access Programs

Rather than opening the floodgates, use an early access program to build desire and learn about your customers.

Your job here is to manufacture desire and turn that into action. So invest in design at this stage, and make your landing page look as nice as possible.

Start with a landing page, collect signups, and filter through surveys and calls to identify the most engaged users. This builds FOMO and lets you focus on feedback from your most promising audience.

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2. Strategic Pricing

Skip the free tier—at least for now.

Charge enough to attract serious users who see value in your product.

Pricing acts as a filter—people willing to pay are far better users than the random free trial tire kicker.

Take this up a level, and don’t disclose pricing initially.

Is it annoying? Yes.

But it allows you to dynamically experiment with pricing and see their non-verbal feedback as you disclose pricing.

3. High-Touch Onboarding

Resist automating everything early on.

Manual processes like one-on-one walkthroughs or even handling customer imports by hand help you deeply understand what your users want. You’ll learn which features matter and build lasting relationships.

Example: Airbnb started to see success after they did their own professional photographs of the properties on their platform. Check out these examples from Snappr’s article.

Post-Product Positive Friction

1. Usage-Driven Features

Like gaming’s level-up mechanics, unlock features based on usage. Hacker News requires participation before you can downvote. MidJourney’s web app was rolled out first to its power users (more than 10,000 images generated)

This approach encourages engagement and mastery of your product.

2. Viral Invite Mechanics

Take inspiration from Dropbox’s referral program, where users earned extra storage by inviting friends.

And it’s a perfect viral loop because the more people you collaborate with in Dropbox, the more files you’ll store, the more storage you need, and the more likely you—and each of your collaborators—are to pay and upgrade.

You amplify your reach by tying rewards to engagement and collaboration while reinforcing your product’s value.

3. Intentional Support Friction

Instead of making support effortless, add small steps to ensure high-quality interactions. For example, Arc browser requires users to include a screenshot when reporting bugs.

This reduces frivolous requests and speeds up resolution times, creating better user experiences.

But don’t go this far:

Friction drives traction

The goal isn’t to frustrate—it’s to focus.

Add friction where it helps you learn, where it aligns with your values, and where it turns casual users into loyal advocates. Because sometimes, a little effort makes all the difference.

Thanks again to Enzo Avigo from June.so for this.

Follow Enzo on LinkedIn for his insights, memes, and cheatsheets on product management and PMF.

Check out June.so if you're a B2B SaaS tool wanting better analytics.