Personalization is making my onboarding worse - I will not promote

I’m building a small learning product that creates a personalized experience for whatever someone wants to understand. The obvious way to improve it is to ask more up front. Interests, goals, existing knowledge, preferred depth. Easy. Just ask. Except every extra question delays the first useful moment. A tiny learning tool starts feeling like a form you have to complete before it earns the right to teach you anything. I’m leaning toward a much smaller start. Few questions about what the person wants to understand today/week, then let their choices do the rest. What they open, skip, finish, or ask for next could tell me more than a neat onboarding profile. Right now I’m choosing the smaller onboarding and accepting that the first recommendation may be a little off. I’d rather earn the next question than front-load five of them. Still, “personalized” is a promise, and the first session is where the product knows the least. If you’ve built personalization into a new product, what did you genuinely need before first use?