> I think the best advice for me was "Add sample data to avoid an empty nest."

I respectfully disagree with that view and I say that as someone who has implemented a product with sample data during the onboarding process.

Users don't care about your data. They care about their data. The easier you make it for the user to input their own data and get some value out of it...even if its something trivial...the faster they'll be able to relate their problem to your products ability to solve it.