Activation is how and when the user starts to establish the habit. Need to ensure that those who are aware of the product start to establish the habit to use your product.
Activation is what bridges the gap between marketing (awareness) into product (useful product).
Improvements to activation can truly help improve retention rates, which improves everything else as covered in Retention Is The Core
Activation is the core and highest leverage area.
Aha moment is not the “7 friends in 10 days” Facebook metric.
Activation is not the aha moment
Activation is not setup complete
Activation is going from sign up all the way to establishing a habit. You must have the right experience from sign up until the habit, which may require very different product experiences.
It takes a lot of work to develop a habit. Your product and marketing needs to be set up appropriately to get the user to establish the habit. You must start with your habit moment and then work your way back. Habit first, then aha moment, then setup moment. Working on the aha moment first would just delay a problem if you don’t have a good habit moment.
Examples