Trust is the Ultimate Shortcut to Growth
Learn how to build trust and drive growth for high-consideration purchases through smart defaults and simplified experiences.
In high-consideration purchases like life insurance, real estate, and home technology, trust isn't just a feature—it's the product. When consumers make decisions that impact their life, family, or largest assets, they need confidence in both the product and the company behind it.
These markets have typically operated in a high-touch, people-dependent environments given the need for explicit trust during purchase decisions. We believe that the most effective growth levers to disrupt them are "Power of Defaults" and "Don't Make Me Think" - principles that simplify decision-making while maintaining user confidence.
The "Power of Defaults" isn't just about pre-filling information. It's about identifying the best starting point for users to achieve their desired outcome.
"Don't Make Me Think" focuses on eliminating friction in user journeys and anticipating needs before they arise.
actually went deeper on this one in the linked article above with .Through multiple case studies spanning different industries, we'll explore how product teams have successfully leveraged these principles to build trust into their core user experience.
Case Study 1: Reimagining Life Insurance Enrollment
Background
Nora Hughes, who has driven growth in highly regulated industries, encountered a fascinating challenge in the employee benefits space. When employees joined a company, they received basic life insurance coverage as part of their benefits package. However, the process of upgrading that coverage was unnecessarily complex.
The traditional model was greatly undeserving its target customers and a high friction process. Despite life insurance upgrades generating 5-10 times higher commissions than other insurance products, the user experience was driving away potential customers. To even learn about additional coverage options, employees had to:
Click through four separate pages in their benefits portal
Call a third-party enroller (an independent call center)
Coordinate their request through this separate entity
Navigate back to their benefits portal to complete the process
This disjointed process created several issues:
Low life insurance enrollment rates due to friction ($$ Revenue)
Even when insurance enrollment occurred, poor user experience led to abandoned premium upgrades ($$ Revenue)
The Opportunity
Market analysis suggested that a streamlined digital enrollment process could triple the monthly run rate for the life insurance business. The team saw two key opportunities:
Eliminate the need for third-party call centers
Create a seamless, digital-first experience that built trust through transparency
The Change
The team redesigned the entire journey using both growth levers.
Power of Defaults:
Created an unauthenticated landing page that presented insurance options upfront
Pre-selected recommended coverage levels based on salary and life stage
Automatically included "guaranteed issue" offers that wouldn't require medical testing.
Note: Typically if you were to sign up for life insurance on your own, you have to go through medical testing to qualify you for certain coverage. Because this is through the employer, there is the option to be automatically eligible for insurance without getting additional medical testing and be eligible for offers that you may not otherwise, called “guaranteed issue.”Defaulted to digital completion rather than phone calls
Don't Make Me Think:
Reduced the four-click journey to a single, coherent flow
Simplified complex insurance terms into clear, actionable choices
Provided clear value propositions for each coverage level
Integrated directly with insurance providers for instant completion
The Impact
Nora’s team doubled the annual recurring revenue for the life insurance vertical and drove 30% of total ARR growth that year.
In addition, they also:
Achieved >90% preference for digital enrollment over call centers
Reduced operational costs by eliminating third-party call center revenue sharing
Significantly improved user satisfaction scores
While this may seem like a straight forward change for internet companies in less regulated environments, remember that Nora and her team had to combat pre-conceived notions about digital enrollment and multiple rounds of legal approval.
Case Study 2: Trulia's Rental Resume
Background
In competitive rental markets, renters often need to apply to multiple properties and stand out from other applicants. Traditionally, this meant repeatedly filling out applications and hoping to catch the landlord's attention. Trulia recognized this pain point in their rental marketplace.
The Opportunity
Trulia saw an opportunity to streamline the rental application process while helping renters present themselves more professionally to landlords. The goal was to increase both the efficiency of applications and the likelihood of success for renters.
The ultimate goal was to increase the % of landlord response rates upon a property reachout by a prospective renter.
The Change
Trulia introduced the Rental Resume feature using both growth levers.

Power of Defaults:
Automatically created a professional rental profile from user information
Pre-filled future applications using the stored resume data
Auto-attached the rental resume to every property inquiry
Defaulted to including like self-reported income and employment
Don't Make Me Think:
One-time creation process for a reusable rental resume
Automatic formatting and presentation of rental history
The Rental Resume transformed a typically stressful, repetitive process into a one-time setup that made every subsequent application both easier and more professional.
It was built into the core experience and made part of the post-lead form journey for a renter where they would be able to answer simple questions with one-click and then have it save to their profile and attach to their current reachout.
The Impact
The Rental Resume was able to increase response rates for Trulia renters in the following ways:
Users who created and shared a Rental Resume were 10% more likely to hear back from landlords
Renters who completed at least five of the nine fields saw an additional 10% increase in landlord response rates compared to those who filled out fewer fields
When combined with a customized message, the Rental Resume increased chances of landlord response by 30%
In addition, the product showed extremely high adoption given its simple UX and integration in the core Trulia rental search flow:
Achieved 80% completion rate across all resume questions, showing strong user adoption
Reached scale with tens of millions of renters using the feature within a few months
These metrics demonstrated that reducing friction through defaults while maintaining high-quality information created measurable trust between renters and landlords.
Case Study 3: Brilliant's Live Photo Album on the Wall
Background
Brilliant Smart Home creates smart home control systems that require deep integration with various third-party devices like lights (ex. Lifx, Lutron, Hue), locks (Kwikset, Yale, Schlage), security systems (Resideo), cameras (Nest, Ring), and music players (Sonos). The unique part about Brilliant was that the devices were installed in the place of a light switch and offered a natural way for households to interact with the central control directly from the wall, not just their mobile phone.
When the flagship product, the Brilliant Smart Home Control, was released — it became very clear that the secret to unlocking unit sales wasn't building third party integrations or utilizing smart sensors - it was building trust across the household in a system that controls your entire home.
The Opportunity
The team recognized that while technical features were important, building trust in day-to-day interactions was crucial for adoption and retention.
Early sales and customer feedback indicated that the default screen - what users see first after installing their device was the biggest “aha” moment for a household, and the upload of personal photos was the biggest sign for additional purchases in the household.
Cementing the personal photo upload as part of the core FTUX (first time user experience) for a Brilliant Smart Home user became a key hypothesis to grow unit sales for Brilliant.

The Change
Brilliant applied power of defaults to transform a potentially utilitarian control panel into a familiar, trusted part of the home - something users would interact with even when not controlling smart devices.
Made the smart photo album the default screen state, which in turn got every household wanting to replace it with their own personal photos.
Pre-configured optimal display settings for different times of day
The Impact
Brilliant ended up having 80% of its households upload personal photos, and the Brilliant team noticed a very interesting trend. Most households (60%) started out with only one device, and ended up adding another Control one or two months in.
There was a post-purchase survey done for these users that showed that the most common reason was to have a digital photo album in their commons rooms and hallways without detracting from their existing decor.
This played a huge role in the first year of launch for the company with tens of thousands of units sold, and influenced its marketing and sales strategy significantly.
🔥 Insider Growth Group’s Step-by-Step Guide to Building Trust in your Product
Power of Defaults Builds Trust: In high-consideration decisions, smart defaults should focus on achieving the user's desired outcome, not just saving time. This might mean pre-selecting the safest option, not the most profitable one.
Reduce Cognitive Load: The "Don't Make Me Think" principle is especially crucial in trust-sensitive markets. Every extra decision point is an opportunity for doubt to creep in.
Make it Natural: Design experiences that mirror how people naturally make decisions. This often means breaking complex choices into smaller, more manageable steps.
Context Matters More Than History: Current needs and immediate context should drive defaults and experience design more than historical data.
Think Long-Term: While traditional growth tactics might drive short-term conversion, building trust through thoughtful defaults and seamless experiences creates sustainable growth.
When building products that require significant trust, the fastest path to growth often isn't about speed—it's about removing uncertainty and friction while maintaining confidence in every interaction. The power of defaults and reducing cognitive load aren't just UX principles—they're trust-building tools that drive sustainable growth.
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