Zulip's product lead here. We hear from a variety of folks that they've had a good experience with onboarding to Zulip, https://zulip.com/case-studies/gut-contact/ being a good example. That said, the mental model for using Zulip is a bit different from other chat apps, and I think it helps a lot to approach onboarding with intention.
Making the experience of getting started with Zulip more smooth has been an ongoing priority for the past couple of years, and we've got more in the works. If there are particular aspects of the app that felt too technical, I'd love to get the feedback.
Hi! I like Zulip a lot and the tech team took to it easily. The main concern is silly but I think my folks will be thrown by a few UX elements. For example, uploading a file drops a bunch of markdown in the message editor.. which to them looks like an error or something weird and technical. I wish for a editing mode that showed preview instead.
I don't think it's a blocker and we can help people understand it. Its just really about how much time I want to spend with them on the phone :)