What is Time to Aha (TTA)?

Time to Aha (TTA) is the time between when a user signs up and when their experience first reveals the product’s value, often referred to as “the aha moment”. It’s part of the overall “time to value” concept, but is concentrated on that specific “aha” moment, not the complete adoption of the product.

TTA is a relevant metric for SaaS entrepreneurs because it looks into product activation. Results from tracking this SaaS metric indicate which users are more likely to reach the AHA moment, keep using the product, and decide to switch to a paid account once the free trial ends.   

Features of Time to Aha (TTA)

• It can be quantified with the help of product analytics, not only with surveys
• By segmenting user data, you can identify which TTA is and see which onboarding problem is the bottleneck.
• It is connected to user actions 
• It varies depending on product type
• Collecting TTA results can take longer for complex platforms. 

The share of new users who have completed the first relevant action is referred to as the activation rate, and its relation with TTA is close. Thus, reducing TTA increases the activation rate because fewer processes are abandoned before one can experience the reward.

To measure TTA, SaaS businesses need to consider the following details:

• A date that a user has joined a community or a trial program, and the time for that event
• An “aha event”, such as an export, an invite sent, or a first report generated
• Being tracked in a product is a requirement for this to be a “defined aha event“
• The moment for each user at which this has occurred
• User group data for TTA comparison (plan level, acquisition source, company size)

Equipped with that data, the main formula to work it out is the average (or median duration) for an event from account creation, i.e., TTA.

To​‍​‌‍​‍‌ simplify your customer onboarding, focus on getting rid of obstacles and pointing users towards their first achievement as fast as they possibly can.

• Select the most important action related to long-term retention, and let the onboarding be aimed at achieving it quickly
• Setup steps that are not essential may influence the timing of the first significant activity
• Contextual instruction, such as a tooltip or checklist, can be provided during system engagement, rather than a lengthy upfront tutorial
• Try out a few different onboarding orders and find the one that gets users to the aha event the fastest without missing some essential information

The benefits of TTA include: 

An easy test to perform is a few questions before you start investing in tracking the TTA: Is there a first-moment value visible that customers can refer to over and over again? For instance, is the business looking at trial-to-paid conversion as a key metric, or is the activation stage already quite good? And of course, will there be enough signups so that cohort-level analysis brings value to the decision-making process?

Decision considerations:

• Does the product depend on a free trial or freemium model?
• To what degree does onboarding factor into customer disengagement?
• Is there already a product analytics ecosystem in place?
• The TTA observations have been collected; how will the team proceed to apply them beyond data storage?