Aquisição: When the problem wasn't the interface
Redesign of Lemon's acquisition journey based on research and structural diagnosis — 4x increase in conversion.
When I joined Lemon in 2021, the acquisition process depended on salespeople for almost everything: explaining the service, walking customers through sign-up, and handling questions along the way.
The problem looked operational. The real challenge was structural.
The value proposition was hard to understand, the journey didn't prepare customers for what came next, and the metrics tracked volume without measuring quality.
This case is about four years of trying to fix that — and what we learned when our solutions worked and created new problems in the process.
Human-dependent acquisition
Salespeople drove nearly every step. Without them, the process stalled.
Low conversion, long cycles
Most leads dropped off before completing sign-up, and the sales cycle stretched for weeks.
No real understanding
Customers reached the end without grasping what they'd actually signed up for.
How do you turn acquisition into a scalable digital product — without losing sight of what the client needed to understand to succeed after the contract?
Fixing acquisition wasn't just about improving an interface. It was about unlocking growth without scaling operations proportionally — and recognizing that scaling well means scaling with quality, not just volume.
Scale without growing the team
Without structural changes, the company would have needed 88+ additional salespeople to keep pace with growth.
Turn acquisition into a product
The process went from manual and human-dependent to a fully self-serve digital flow.
Quality over volume
Over time, the goal shifted from converting more to better preparing the people who were converting.
My role
Over four years, I led Lemon's acquisition track — investigating funnel failures, building hypotheses with the team, and running experiments to turn learning into product decisions.
I worked closely with product and engineering to shape the roadmap. Usability testing, mental model research, co-creation sessions with users, and data analysis fed directly into prioritization.
The work evolved across three phases. Each one started where the previous left off — and revealed a problem the previous phase couldn't see.
Phase 1
We mapped friction points, set up proper data instrumentation, and observed how leads actually moved through the flow.
What we found wasn't a screen problem. It was a process built around human intermediaries. Without a salesperson, customers didn't know what to do next.
Outcome: visibility of key bottlenecks, initial improvements at the top of the funnel, and database/experimentation for the following moments.
Phase 2
We redesigned the flow around autonomy: reorganizing steps, simplifying decisions, and removing dependencies on the operations team.
We shipped in stages, learning continuously across each cycle.
Phase 2 results: 4x increase in conversion, 83% of hires in self-service, and sales cycle reduced by over 70%.
Experiment 1
Experiment 2
Experiment 3
Phase 3
Conversion was up. Self-service was working. And that's when a new problem came into focus.
Layer by layer, the research showed the same tension: we removed frictions to sign the contract, but we didn't build understanding about what came next.
Diagnosis: the flow delivered speed, but did not build understanding, aligned expectations, and a client prepared for the post-contract.
The proposal
We proposed a reorientation — not more optimization of the same steps, but a rethink of what the flow was actually communicating. Tell a better story before asking for the signature. Segment customers as they arrive. Set expectations before the contract, not after.
This proposal wasn't implemented before I left. But the diagnosis was complete, the artifacts were built, and the direction was clear.
The acquisition transformation had a direct impact on growth, operational efficiency, and product scale. It also left a lesson beyond the numbers: optimizing without building understanding is only a temporary fix.
4x
increase in conversion
83%
of sign-ups completed in self-service
-70%
reduction in sales cycle length
4x operational capacity
without proportional headcount growth
7x+ customer base growth
sustained at scale
Strategic Takeaways
