Getting started checklist
After you finish the new user onboarding, Fanz keeps guiding you with a per-brand checklist that lives on the home page (/). It's how you go from "brand created" to "selling tickets, validating at the door, and optimizing the operation".
The checklist is per brand: each brand you create has its own progress, and members of the same brand always see the same list (the scope is stored on the brand row, not on the viewer).
Already finished a brand before? A second brand on your account gets a much shorter list (just the bare minimum to start selling). See Two checklist modes.
Where you see it
The same checklist data shows up in three surfaces:
| Surface | When it appears | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
Home page (/) | Always — until the checklist is fully complete | Big "Welcome" header, Next up hero CTA, and three stage accordions (Launch / Sell / Optimize). Replaces the normal dashboard home. |
| Floating widget | On most pages, except the home page itself, /new-user, the new-event wizard, and invitation flows | Compact tray in the bottom-right with the active stage's items + a link back to the full home view. Auto-expands the moment your progress ticks up so you always see what's next. |
| Just-in-time setup modals | When you try an action that needs setup (Create event, Connect payments) | A focused modal that explains the missing piece and links straight to the right settings tab. |
Consistent everywhere — the home page, the floating widget, and the JIT modals all read from the same computed state. Completing a step in one place updates the others immediately.
Floating widget behavior
- Auto-expands the instant any item flips to done, so the next step is never hidden one tap away.
- Goes into compact mode inside the new-event wizard so it doesn't cover the form.
- Disappears completely once the brand's setup is marked complete on the server (no nagging after you're done).
- Shows only the active stage — so you always have a short, achievable list in front of you, never the full 14-card wall.
Just-in-time (JIT) setup guards
These are the active counterpart to the passive home checklist — modals that pop up at action time when a hard requirement is missing:
| Action | Missing requirement | What you see |
|---|---|---|
| Create event (top nav, mobile FAB, publish dialog) | No payment processor | "Connect a payment processor first" → button takes you to Settings → Payments → Event payments with the right card highlighted. |
| Connect MercadoPago (and future providers) | No fiscal data | "Complete your fiscal data first" → button takes you to Settings → Fiscal data with the section highlighted. |
Both modals have a Not now option in case you want to keep poking around the dashboard first; nothing is actually blocked apart from the action that triggered the modal.
The three stages (progressive disclosure)
Instead of dumping 14 items in front of you, the checklist groups them into three stages with sequential unlocking. You always see one focused stage at a time:
| Stage | Title | Subtitle | When it unlocks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 — Launch | "Launch your first event" | The essentials to start selling tickets. | Always open from day one. |
| 2 — Sell | "Start selling" | Set up your storefront and run your first sale cycle end-to-end. | When all required Stage 1 items are done. |
| 3 — Optimize | "Optimize your operation" | Advanced levers once you're live and growing. | When all Stage 2 items are done. |
Each stage has its own progress bar and percentage. A locked stage shows a padlock icon and the message "Finish [previous stage] to unlock these". A completed stage flips to green with a checkmark and the message "You're selling. Time to optimize your operation." (or equivalent).
"Next up" hero
Above the stage accordions, the home page shows a single big card called Next up — the one item Fanz wants you to tackle right now. It's always the lowest-stage, non-done, unlocked item in your list. Click anywhere on the card to jump straight into it.
This is the "one next best action" rule: you should never have to choose which card to open first.
Auto-unlock celebration
When you finish Stage 1 and Stage 2 unlocks, the new accordion auto-expands with a small animation so you immediately see your new territory. Same for Stage 3. If you'd manually collapsed Stage 2 before that, your collapse is cleared so the unlock celebration isn't hidden.
Two checklist modes
The exact list you see depends on whether this is your first brand on the account or a subsequent one. The mode is decided once when the brand is created and never changes after.
FULL — first brand on the account
Up to 14 items across the three stages, designed as a guided tour of the platform. Items can still be hidden by your onboarding wizard answers (e.g. if you said you don't use seat maps, the seat-map item is removed) and by your brand's module visibility settings.
CORE — second brand or later
A trimmed list with just the items needed to make this new brand commercially operational:
- Connect event payments (always)
- Create your first event (always)
- Complete billing details (only if your tax data wasn't carried over from the previous brand)
Stage 2 and Stage 3 are not shown at all in CORE mode — you've already done that tour for your other brand. Invited team members of a CORE brand see the same short list, so everyone on the brand stays in sync.
If you carried your tax data over when creating the new brand, CORE shrinks to just two items: payment + event.
Stage 1 — Launch
The minimum to publish a paid event. All four items here are required — you can't graduate to Stage 2 until they're all green.
| Item | What it does | Where the action takes you |
|---|---|---|
| Create your brand | Already done. Pre-checked from day one so your progress bar isn't at 0% on first paint — you're here because you have a brand. | (no action — green checkmark) |
| Complete billing details | Your tax ID, fiscal registration, and country. Required to publish events and to issue invoices to buyers. | Settings → Fiscal data (section highlighted). |
| Connect event payments | Hook up Mercado Pago, Stripe, Fiserv, or DLocal so buyers can actually pay you. Done = Brand.canCreateEvents is true. | Settings → Payments → Event payments (card highlighted). |
| Create your first event | Open the event wizard. The card title and CTA flip to "Continue your draft event" the moment you save a draft. | Events → New event (or back to your existing draft). |
Why the event card sometimes locks
The first-time shape of the event card ("Create your first event") is never locked — Fanz wants you to be able to start modeling your event from scratch, because the wizard often reveals what fiscal data and payment processor you'll actually need.
The draft shape ("Continue your draft event") is locked until both fiscal data and a payment processor are set, because without those the publish gate would just bounce you back to settings — better to show one clear lock message than to ping-pong you between the draft and the settings page. The lock message tells you exactly what's missing:
- "Complete your fiscal data and connect a payment processor first." — both missing.
- "Add your fiscal data first." — only fiscal missing.
- "Connect a payment processor first." — only payment missing.
Stage 2 — Start selling
Unlocks once Stage 1 is fully done. The goal here is one full end-to-end sale cycle: storefront live → ticket issued → ticket validated. These items are recommended, not required.
The exact items shown depend on your onboarding wizard answers — items that match what you told us during the wizard are kept in Stage 2; items that only appear because the module is visible are pushed down to Stage 3 so Stage 2 stays focused on 2–3 cards.
| Item | When it appears | Lock condition | Where the action goes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Create your website | Always (white-label module is on by default). | Never locked. | White-label builder. |
| Create your first seat map | If you said Numbered or Both in the seat-layout step, or the Seat maps module is visible. | Never locked. | Venues → Seat maps. |
| Sell your first ticket at the box office | Always. Title + copy adapt: organizers who sell at the door see "Sell your first ticket at the box office"; organizers who don't see "Send yourself a courtesy ticket" (so they can still test the flow). | Locked until you have at least one published event. | Ticket office (with the right event pre-selected and mode=courtesy if applicable). |
| Validate your first ticket | Only after the box-office sale step is done. The card doesn't render at all before that, so you never see a perpetually-locked card. | Never locked once visible. | Validate page. |
Why "send yourself a courtesy" instead of "sell at the box office"? If you told us during the onboarding wizard that your sales channels are online-only and you don't have a physical box office, asking you to "sell at the box office" would be confusing. The courtesy variant keeps the same goal (issue a real ticket so you can experience validation at the door) without pretending you have a counter you don't have.
Stage 3 — Optimize
Unlocks once Stage 2 is fully done. These are power-ups — features that boost your operation once you're already selling. All optional.
| Item | When it appears | Lock condition | Where the action goes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Set up your membership program | If you said Yes to loyalty programs in the wizard, or the Memberships module is visible. | Locked until you have a website (memberships need a public storefront). | Memberships (or White-label first if no site yet). |
| Create your first discount code | If AIGOS flagged you as a discounts user, or the Discounts module is visible. | Locked until you have at least one published event. | Event detail → Discounts tab. |
| Set up referrals on an event | If you said Over 300 people in the audience-size step, or the Referrals module is visible. | Locked until you have at least one published event. | Event detail → Referrals tab. |
| Create your first upsell offer | If you said Yes to cross-event audiences in the wizard, or the Upsell module is visible. | Locked until you have at least 2 published events (you need two to cross-sell between them). | Upsell page. |
| Send your first AI email campaign | If you said Yes to recurring audience in the wizard (or AIGOS hinted at marketing tools). | Locked until you have at least one published event. | Marketing. |
| Configure your bordereaux | If you said Yes to settlement reports in the wizard, or the Bordereaux module is visible. | Never locked. | Settings → Bordereaux. |
Items tied to modules that are hidden for your brand (because you said no in the wizard or because your team hid them in Settings → Brand → Visible sections) don't appear in your checklist at all — they're never going to be relevant to you.
Personalization (AIGOS leads)
If you arrived through a Fanz sales conversation (an AIGOS lead with a personalized link), Fanz uses your derived feature hints to promote Stage 3 items into Stage 2. For example:
- A venue lead who showed memberships interest sees the Memberships card in Sell instead of Optimize.
- A lead with discount-pricing patterns sees Discounts promoted up.
This way the checklist matches what you actually told us during the sales conversation, even if you never opened the in-panel onboarding wizard.
When the checklist is complete
The "complete" state can come from two places:
- All visible items done in the current session — the home page shows a celebration dialog with confetti (one CTA: Go to my events) and PATCHes the brand row server-side.
- Server flag
Brand.gettingStartedOnboardingCompleted = truefrom a previous session.
After completion:
- The home page switches to the normal dashboard (metrics, daily snapshot, upcoming events).
- The floating widget stops appearing on every page.
- A small congratulations screen is briefly shown, with a personal headline ("Congratulations, [name]!") and a single Go to my events button.
The completion state is per brand, so creating a new brand later restarts the checklist for that new brand only.
Common questions about specific items
"Why is my first event card locked?"
It isn't — the first-time shape of the event card is always open. What you're seeing is the draft shape ("Continue your draft event"), which locks when fiscal data or a payment processor are missing. Finish those two Stage-1 items and the lock disappears. The lock message tells you exactly what's missing.
"Why is the box-office card locked?"
You need at least one published event for it to unlock. Publish an event (or a draft) and the lock clears.
"Why is the upsell card locked?"
Upsell cross-sells between events, so you need at least 2 published events. As soon as you publish your second one, the lock clears.
"Why is the memberships card locked?"
Memberships need a public storefront to live on, so the card stays locked until you create your white-label site. Click the action button and it'll route you to the website builder first.
"Why is the referrals / discounts / email-campaign card locked?"
All three attach to events, so they need at least one published event to make sense. Publish your event and the locks clear.
"I see a step I don't think I need."
It's there because your brand has the matching module visible. To remove it, hide the module in Settings → Brand → Visible sections — the checklist updates immediately. You can also just leave it; nothing blocks the rest of the checklist except for the four required Stage-1 items.
"I don't see a step I think I need."
Two possibilities:
- The matching module is hidden for your brand — re-enable it in Settings → Brand → Visible sections.
- You answered No to the matching question during the new-user wizard — also re-enable the module from the same settings screen.
Related pages
| Route | Role |
|---|---|
/ (home) | Hosts the staged checklist when setup is incomplete; switches to the normal dashboard once it's done. |
/new-user | The brand-creation wizard that runs before this checklist. See New user onboarding. |
Settings → Brand | Edit brand name, logo, organization type, fiscal data, and visible sections. |
Settings → Payments | Connect Mercado Pago, Stripe, Fiserv, or DLocal — the source of truth for the Connect event payments step. |
Next steps
- New user onboarding — The wizard that runs before this checklist.
- Dashboard home — What you see once the checklist is complete.
- Create your first event — The Stage-1 event step in detail.
- Connect Mercado Pago / Connect Stripe — The Stage-1 payment step in detail.
The new-user wizard (/new-user) runs once to create your brand — it asks about your venue type, sales channels, audience size, etc., and then creates the brand record. The getting-started checklist runs after that, on the home page, and walks you through everything you need to do once your brand exists: fiscal data, payments, first event, website, first sale, validation, and optional power-ups.
Stages unlock sequentially. Stage 2 ("Start selling") only unlocks after every required Stage 1 ("Launch") item is green. Stage 3 ("Optimize") only unlocks after every Stage 2 item is green. This is intentional — it keeps the checklist focused on 3–5 items at a time instead of overwhelming you with the full 14-item list. The locked stages still tell you what they contain so you can preview what's coming.
You're in CORE mode — this means you already created another brand on this account before, so Fanz skips the full guided tour and only shows the items needed to commercially unblock this new brand: payment, first event, and (only if missing) fiscal data. To go back to the FULL list you'd have to delete every other brand on your account, which is rarely what you want.
They shouldn't. The mode (FULL vs CORE) and the completion state are stored on the brand row itself, so every member of the same brand sees the same list and the same progress. If you're seeing different things, try refreshing the page — the most likely cause is that one of you completed an item and the other hasn't received the SWR revalidation yet. If it persists, check that you're both looking at the same brand from the brand switcher in the top-left.
That's intentional. Every time your progress percentage ticks up (because you completed an item), the widget auto-expands so you immediately see what's next. If you don't want it open, click the chevron to collapse it — it'll stay collapsed until your progress changes again.
It doesn't disappear — it shrinks into compact mode so it doesn't cover the form. You can still see your overall progress and tap it to expand if you need to. It also fully hides on /new-user, the home page (where the full checklist is already on screen), and the invitation flow.
"Next up" is the single big card at the top of the home checklist. It's the lowest-stage, non-done, unlocked item in your list — i.e. the next thing Fanz thinks you should do. It's always actionable (the action button is enabled) so you can click it without checking anything else first. As soon as you complete it, Next up advances to the next pending item.