You raised the round. The board wants growth. But signups aren't turning into active users.
You shipped fast to get to market. The product works, but the experience around it is rough, and you can feel it in the numbers. People sign up and never come back. They hit the part of the flow where they're supposed to trust you with something personal (their data, their health, an AI recommendation) and they hesitate.
You know design is the problem. What you don't have is a designer who can tell you which part of the flow is leaking, why, and what to do about it, all without a three-month commitment or a senior hire you're not ready to make.
Generic agencies will redesign your screens. They won't understand why a user in a health product needs a different kind of reassurance than a user buying software.
That difference is the whole game.
The 21 Day Activation Diagnostic
A 21-day engagement focused on a single outcome: find the highest-impact fix in your activation flow and prove it works before you invest another dollar in design.
By focusing on one core part of your flow, we can raise your conversion, retention, or activation to industry benchmarks, so you can focus on landing the next raise and growing your user base.
You walk away with a clear, evidence-backed answer to “what should we fix first, and what will it be worth?”
Activation Scorecard
A 0–100 Activation Score with a clear band, a rating breakdown across ~11 UX dimensions, a benchmark against the top performers in your vertical, and the top 5 friction areas costing you conversions.
Each deliverable builds on the one before it, descending from first diagnosis to your 90-day plan.
Annotated Flow Map
A screen-by-screen map of the user journey with every drop-off risk marked. Each one comes with a specific recommendation backed by the data and ranked by severity, from trust-breaking blockers down to quick wins. Clear enough to forward to a cofounder who'll get it in two minutes.
High-Fidelity Prototype
Your redesigned critical path in Figma, clickable. 5–8 screens from entry to the moment a user sees value. This is where we earn our keep: senior design judgment and deep product expertise, grounded in your data and driven by the metric each decision is built to move.
Decision Rationale
For every major design decision, we explain why it matters and which metric it should move. So you're not taking our word for it.
Your Next 90 Days
A one-page roadmap of what we'd do next, mapped to your activation metrics. Useful whether you work with us again or not.
The point isn't prettier screens. It's a flow that earns trust and activates more users.
By the end of three weeks, you'll know exactly which part of your activation flow is costing you the most users, you'll have a working prototype of the fix, and you'll understand the reasoning well enough to defend it to your team and your board.
If you have analytics, we'll ground the diagnosis in your data. If you don't yet, our method still works. We lean on behavioral heuristics, competitive benchmarking, and early to growth stage domain expertise. Either way, you stop guessing about what to fix.
21 days, three phases, one flow done right.
- Phase 1 · DiagnoseWeek 1
A 60 minute discovery call to get product and analytics access and align on the flow. Then we walk your product as a new user, pull behavioral data where it exists, and benchmark you against the top performers in your vertical. You get the activation scorecard and flow map for review.
- Phase 2 · DesignWeek 2
We design one direction for the critical path, not ten options to choose between. Speed and conviction over breadth. Mid-week, a short check-in so we catch any misalignment early. You get the prototype and the rationale.
- Phase 3 · DeliverWeek 3
One round of feedback, incorporated. Then a 45-minute results call: we walk you through the diagnosis, click through the prototype, and hand you the 90-day roadmap.
Clock starts when access does. We can't audit a product we can't get into, so the 21 days begin once you've given us product access, analytics access (if you have it), and a point of contact.
This is built for you if…
- You're a Seed–Series A startup that raised in the last 18 months and feels the pressure to show activation, not just signups.
- You're a technical, clinical, or operator founder (not a designer), and you need someone who can tell you what “great” looks like.
- Your product is live and has real users moving through a real flow.
- Your users make decisions that require trust: sharing health data, following a protocol, acting on an AI recommendation.
- You want proof a partner is worth it before committing to a retainer or a design hire.
This isn't the right fit if…
- You're pre-launch with no users in the flow yet. We diagnose real behavior; come back when there's something to audit.
- You want production-ready code or developer handoff. This is diagnosis and a prototype, not a build.
- You need ten directions to choose from. We make one strong, defensible call and show our work.
- You're looking for the cheapest screens you can get. This is senior level product design and strategy work priced like it.
- You need FDA regulatory submission or SaMD authoring. That's outside what we do (though we're strong on designing for already-cleared products).
Why not just hire an agency or sign a retainer?
You shouldn't commit three months and tens of thousands of dollars to a design partner you've never worked with. The Activation Diagnostic is designed to be the low-risk way to find out if we're right for each other.
| The Activation Diagnostic | A full retainer / agency | |
|---|---|---|
| Commitment | The Activation Diagnostic21 days, one flow | A full retainer / agency3+ months, ongoing |
| Risk | The Activation DiagnosticFixed scope, fixed price | A full retainer / agencyOpen-ended spend |
| Speed to value | The Activation DiagnosticWorking prototype in three weeks | A full retainer / agencyOften 8+ weeks to first deliverable |
| Decision needed | The Activation DiagnosticA founder's call | A full retainer / agencyCofounder / board sign-off |
| What you prove | The Activation DiagnosticWhether the partnership works | A full retainer / agencyYou find out after you've committed |
When the three weeks are done, you'll know exactly how we think and what our work is worth. If a retainer makes sense, the roadmap is already written. If it doesn't, you keep a diagnosis and a prototype you can act on. Either way, you're ahead.
One flow. Three weeks. $2,500.
A flat fee, no tiers, no surprises. That's less than what a week of guessing costs a growth-stage startup. If your activation rate is 15% when it could be 30%, that gap is worth far more than the price of finding the fix. We're not selling hours of design work. We're selling the diagnosis and the proof that could unlock the revenue you're already leaving on the table.
What's included
- One user flow, chosen by us for highest activation impact
- All five deliverables (activation scorecard, flow map, prototype, rationale, 90-day roadmap)
- Kickoff call, mid-engagement check-in, and a 45-minute results call
- One round of revisions on the prototype
What's not included
- Additional flows or pages (a separate engagement or part of a retainer)
- Production-ready code or engineering handoff
- FDA regulatory submission or SaMD authoring
- More than one revision round
We'll confirm the flow and kick off on the call.
Questions, answered.
The 21-day clock starts the moment you give us product and analytics access and a point of contact. Most engagements kick off within a week of the intro call.
Why founders trust us with this
Sari Sari is a product design studio built for early stage companies where trust isn't a nice-to-have. It's the product. We spent years designing high-trust, compliance-heavy flows with experience spanning consumer products at startups and Fortune 500 companies like Meta and Disney.
Find out what your activation flow is really costing you.
Book a 30-minute discovery call. We'll look at your product, tell you honestly whether the Activation Diagnostic is the right fit, and if it's not, point you toward what is. No pitch deck, no pressure.
Meet the team
CEOZach Chaco
Producer, Ex-Meta and Disney
Chief Creative OfficerPatricia Capiral
15+ years of Design Expertise