Panoptica: Cloud Native Security
Reducing friction in a cloud-native security platform
Panoptica was Cisco Outshift’s SaaS solution for securing microservices in cloud-native environments. While powerful, its onboarding process was so complex it required white-glove support.
My challenge was to make it self-serve—reducing friction, increasing activation, and giving users a clearer path to value. Acting as a player-coach, I led the design team while working hands-on to prototype, test, and validate new growth flows.
Scrappy experiments that moved the needle
With engineering focused on a major architectural overhaul, my team used Appcues overlays to quickly validate new onboarding paths without code changes.
We then streamlined only the critical touchpoints across marketing pages, Recon.cloud, IAM, and the product itself—simplifying the funnel end to end.
Finally, we introduced adaptive flows that tailored the experience for hobbyist users versus enterprise buyers, keeping it relevant but lightweight.
Proving self-serve was possible
These quick, scrappy interventions traded polish for speed, but they worked. We demonstrated that users could successfully activate without a solution engineer, and in doing so, laid the groundwork for future growth experiments.
Key takeaway: In complex enterprise ecosystems, success isn’t about perfect cohesion—it’s about finding the moments of value and helping users get there fast.
