Every API product has the same onboarding gap.
You sign up. You get a key. You're dropped on a dashboard.
Now what?
Most developers stare at the dashboard for 30 seconds, close the tab,
and never come back. Not because the product is bad — because nobody
told them what to do next.
We fixed this with a single page.
The page
After login, instead of the dashboard, you land here:
🎉 Your account is ready!
┌──────────────────────────────┐
│ 🔑 Your API Key │
│ mb-xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [📋 Copy] │
└──────────────────────────────┘
Try it now — paste in your terminal
curl [](https://aibridge-api.com/v1/chat/completions)
-H "Authorization: Bearer mb-xxx"
-d '{"model":"deepseek-chat","messages":[...]}'
[📋 Copy]
Or use Python
import openai
client = openai.OpenAI(
api_key="mb-xxx",
base_url="[](https://aibridge-api.com/v1)"
)
[📋 Copy]
[Go to Dashboard →] [Try Playground]
Three things on one screen:
- Your key with a copy button
- A curl command you can paste and run immediately
- Python SDK code for when you're ready to integrate
30 seconds from login to first API response.
Why this matters
The biggest drop-off in any developer tool isn't the signup flow — it's
the gap between "I have an account" and "I just made it do something."
68% of our users had never sent a single API request. They registered,
opened the dashboard, saw a list of models and a usage bar... and left.
They weren't inactive because they didn't like the product. They were
inactive because the product didn't tell them step one.
One page. Copy → paste → run. That's all it took.
The design decision
We debated whether to show this to returning users. The answer: yes,
but different.
If you've never used the API (0 tokens), you get the full guide with
three numbered steps. If you've already made calls, you get a shorter
"Welcome back — here's your key" with a skip-to-dashboard link.
No popup. No modal. No "don't show this again" checkbox. Just a page
that meets you where you are, then gets out of your way.
The tech
One static HTML page. Reads the JWT from sessionStorage. Calls two
endpoints (/user/profile and /user/key) in parallel. Renders the
key and code snippets. Done.
No backend changes. No new API routes. No database migrations.
The entire feature is one file and one line changed in auth.js.
The rest of the product
AIBridge is 15 Chinese AI models (DeepSeek, Qwen, GLM, Kimi K3)
behind one OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Free tier: 500K tokens/month.
No credit card. GitHub OAuth login. Free playground with no signup.
→ aibridge-api.com/playground.html (try all 15 models)
→ aibridge-api.com/register.html (GitHub login, one click)
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