Thanks in advance for reading this.

I'm conflicted and want to hear what you guys think. We're a startup that just went into private beta. Until now, we've been manually approving new users and want to switch to a more automated process. We want to make sure that the people approved for our free product are qualified leads for the paid version which is coming soon. Since we spend so much time and energy getting folks to the website, I want to make sure we're doing the best we can to get them to actually sign up and use the product, but like I said, we want them to be qualified.

So, right now we have a 2-step registration process. You just fill in your name and email, then click submit. You're then redirected to a second form asking for more information. The more they fill in, the better we can qualify them. The problem: people don't fill it out.

The second approach would be to ask everything up front. I'm just afraid this will make even more people go away without even filling in anything.

So, what do you think? Make them fill out everything up front, or do a small ask then an additional one?

Thanks!