How Samuel Hulick Built a UX Empire by Teaching Products to Shoot Fireballs
What if the secret to building a successful business wasn't finding more customers—but helping the ones you already have become superheroes?
That's the philosophy Samuel Hulick stumbled onto while working as a developer, frustrated by coding designs that ignored usability. His solution: focus obsessively on the moment when users transform from confused newcomers into power users. He called it "getting people to shoot fireballs."
That insight became UserOnboard, a one-person consulting operation that turned Hulick into the go-to expert on user onboarding. His teardowns—witty, step-by-step critiques of onboarding flows for companies like Slack, Netflix, and Instagram—built a cult following. His self-published book generated over $37,000 in revenue. And his consulting clients include some of Silicon Valley's most successful companies.
But his path wasn't conventional. No venture funding. No large team. Just a clear focus on solving one problem better than anyone else.
From Developer to UX Designer to Thought Leader
Hulick's career started behind the scenes. As a full-stack developer, his job was to receive Photoshop files from designers and "make them clickable." But he kept noticing problems. The designs he coded often ignored fundamental usability issues that would frustrate real users.
That frustration pushed him toward user experience design. He worked at agencies and startups, always gravitating toward one question: what happens after someone signs up?
Most companies obsess over acquisition—getting people through the door. But Hulick realized the more valuable question was different: what happens in the first five minutes? The first day? The first week?
"I noticed that one area could really use a lot more attention," Hulick explained. "The user onboarding process—getting people transitioned from being unaware of what your product can provide to them taking on the fullest capability that your product does provide."
This insight would become his niche, his brand, and eventually his business.
The Fireball Philosophy
Hulick's most famous idea is the "fireball" metaphor, borrowed from Super Mario Brothers.
In the game, Mario starts small and vulnerable. When he gets a flower power-up, he can suddenly shoot fireballs—a dramatically more powerful version of himself. The flower isn't the goal; the fireball-shooting capability is.
Hulick applies this to software: "User onboarding is about getting people to shoot fireballs as quickly as possible, not getting them the flower."
The distinction matters. Most companies focus on getting users to understand features (the flower). But users don't care about features—they care about what they can accomplish with those features (the fireballs).
A project management tool isn't valuable because it has Gantt charts. It's valuable because teams can hit deadlines without chaos. An accounting app isn't valuable because it categorizes transactions. It's valuable because business owners can make confident financial decisions.
"A product is just a proxy for something your user is trying to resolve," Hulick explains. "Understand what that goal is and focus your efforts around helping them reach that outcome."
Building Through Content: The Teardown Strategy
Hulick's business didn't start with clients or products. It started with content.
He began publishing "teardowns"—detailed walkthroughs of how popular apps handle new user onboarding. Each teardown combined screenshots, analysis, and Hulick's trademark wit. He'd walk through apps like Slack, Basecamp, Trello, Twitter, and dozens more, explaining what worked and what didn't.
The format was perfect for sharing. Designers and product managers passed teardowns around their teams. Founders sent them to employees. The content spread organically because it was genuinely useful.
But Hulick approached these critiques differently than most. Rather than harsh judgments, he maintained what he called "empathetic criticism."
"I don't want to come in and just trash other designers' work," he explained. His teardowns focused on the user's experience rather than declaring designs objectively "right" or "wrong." This approach built credibility and goodwill—even from companies whose products he critiqued.
The Risky Book Launch
By 2014, Hulick had built an email list of about 3,000 subscribers through his teardowns. That's when he decided to take a significant risk: writing a book.
The gamble was financial. Hulick was his family's sole earner. He calculated they could survive about three months on savings before maxing out credit cards. That meant three months to write, launch, and generate revenue.
"I worked really, really long hours," Hulick recalled. "Think 12-hour workdays, with around 8 hours of working on the book and around 4 hours of consulting work to keep the money coming in."
The result was "The Elements of User Onboarding," a 130-page ebook covering signup flows, first-run experiences, and lifecycle emails.
Launch day arrived with significant anxiety. Hulick worried about minimal returns. "If I'm going to get $200 out of this, I'm going to be so screwed."
The reality was dramatically different: $7,500 on launch day. $20,000 in the first week. Over $37,000 in total revenue.
The book transformed UserOnboard from a content project into a profitable business. Consulting inquiries increased. Speaking invitations followed. Hulick had established himself as the definitive authority on user onboarding.
Principles That Drive His Work
1. Products Should Be Conversations
One question Hulick asks clients: "If your product was a person, would you enjoy having a conversation with it?"
This reframes design decisions. A confusing interface isn't just bad UX—it's a conversation partner who ignores your questions and talks over you. A helpful onboarding flow is a friend who notices you're struggling and offers guidance at exactly the right moment.
2. Prioritize User Welfare Over Engagement Metrics
Hulick is skeptical of common success metrics. "Why are we measuring things like time spent on site? We should be getting people off the site and living the good life."
This challenges the casino-style design prevalent in many apps—features designed to maximize "engagement" rather than user success. Hulick points to Farmville-style mechanics and infinite scroll as examples of advanced UX aligned against user interests.
For businesses, this philosophy means thinking long-term. Users who achieve their goals become loyal advocates. Users who feel manipulated eventually leave.
3. Maintain Perspective Outside the Bubble
Hulick deliberately lives in Portland rather than Silicon Valley. The distance helps him remember "the human element" beyond startup metrics and funding rounds.
"Living outside of that bubble helps me maintain perspective on what really matters to people," he explains. Most users aren't tech workers. They're not impressed by growth hacks. They just want software that helps them accomplish their goals without frustration.
4. Protect Your Productive Hours
Hulick structures his workday around cognitive energy. Mornings are reserved for deep work—no email, no meetings, no distractions. Administrative tasks wait until his "batteries" are already depleted.
This discipline enables a one-person operation to compete with agencies. When your best thinking hours go toward client work rather than email, the quality shows.
Beyond Software: Citizen Onboard
Hulick's expertise extended beyond commercial products. He collaborated with Code for America to create "Citizen Onboard," applying teardown methodology to government services.
The project analyzed how citizens interact with public services—applying for benefits, paying taxes, registering to vote. Government websites often have terrible usability, and Hulick's framework helped identify specific improvements.
This work demonstrated something important: onboarding principles apply everywhere people interact with systems. The same insights that help Slack acquire users can help governments serve citizens more effectively.
Lessons for Building an Expert Business
Hulick's path offers a blueprint for knowledge workers building solo businesses:
Find Your Specific Angle
"User experience design" is a crowded field. "User onboarding" was a specific enough niche that Hulick could become the definitive expert. The narrower your focus, the easier it is to stand out.
Build Through Generous Content
Hulick's teardowns were genuinely useful—not lead magnets designed to capture emails. The content created value whether readers ever bought anything. This generosity built trust that converted into book sales and consulting clients.
Take Calculated Risks
Writing the book was scary. Three months without guaranteed income is genuinely risky. But Hulick calculated the downside (maxed credit cards) and decided he could survive it. The upside proved transformative.
Maintain Authentic Voice
Hulick deliberately avoided building mystique around himself. "I view my relationship with audiences as a celebration of our similarities as people." This authenticity created connection rather than distance—readers felt like they knew him.
Keep Exploring
Even as the established expert, Hulick emphasizes continuous learning. "You can go out and find a lot of gems in neighboring fields and apply them to the product you're working on. I'd recommend to keep a habit of being curious."
The Numbers Behind Good Onboarding
Hulick's work matters because onboarding has outsized impact on business results. Research shows that 86% of customers stay longer when onboarding is seamless. Companies that reduce churn by just 5% can increase profits by 25-95%. And a staggering 75% of users churn in the first week due to poor onboarding.
For SaaS businesses especially, the implications are clear: acquiring users is expensive, but keeping them depends heavily on those critical first interactions. A focus on time-to-first-value—getting users to "shoot fireballs" quickly—drives both retention and revenue.
Track What Matters
Hulick's approach emphasizes measuring actual outcomes rather than vanity metrics. For businesses, this means tracking whether users achieve their goals—not just whether they clicked through a tutorial.
The same principle applies to financial management. Tracking revenue is easy. Understanding which activities drive profitability requires deeper analysis. Knowing your numbers—really knowing them—enables better decisions about where to focus effort.
Clear financial records serve the same purpose for businesses that good onboarding serves for software: they reduce confusion and enable action. When you understand your cash flow, profitability by client or project, and expense patterns, you can make decisions with confidence rather than anxiety.
Build Your Own Financial Foundation
Whether you're running a one-person consulting operation like Hulick or building a larger company, financial clarity matters. Beancount.io provides plain-text accounting that gives you complete control over your financial data—transparent, version-controlled, and designed for people who want to understand their numbers rather than just record them. Get started for free and see why professionals who care about clarity are switching to plain-text accounting.
