Hello {{First Name | founders}}!
Welcome to ‘Tactical Tips’ by Jerel and Shuo at DECODE, where we cover one new idea to help you build and grow your startup – every week in <5 minutes!
Today, we’ll be answering the question, “How to maximize engagement for your product?”
And here’s what Sarah Tavel, General Partner at Benchmark, advised.
If you’re trying to boost engagement to grow faster and retain users longer, then today’s newsletter is for you.
🔥 Inside this issue:
✅ 3 tactics for maximizing engagement
✅ 2 traps to avoid
✅ 1 tool to leverage
👇Let’s dive in.
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3 tactics to maximize product engagement
🎯 Drive users to complete your core action
Identify the one core action that:
Forms the foundation of your product
Scales across your users
Clearly shows your product value when completed
Makes users more likely to return after first experience
Leaves a gap in user experience if skipped
Follow the Fogg Behavior Model and guide users towards performing the action through motivation, ability, and triggers.
All other features should support the core action.
🧲 Design for accruing benefits and mounting losses
Accruing benefits:
As users contribute more data, the product improves, enhancing the experience over time. (Eg. personalized recommendations)
Mounting loss:
The longer you use the product, the more dependent you become, making it harder to leave due to the value you've accumulated. (Eg. personal data, identity, reputation, valuable content accumulated)
🔄 Create self-perpetuating virtuous loops
Virtuous loops are flywheels that convert your users’ engagement into fuel to power your company forward.
Identify and maximize virtuous loops:
Network effects (Eg. More users -> more data -> better recommendations -> more users)
Growth loops (Eg. Users create metadata that you can use for SEO or collaborative experiences that pull other people in)
Re-engagement loops (Eg. Push notifications for dormant users can reignite interest.)
Reduce off-ramps (Eg. a successful date in a dating app is an off-ramp)
2 traps to avoid
🚨Chasing growth without core engagement
MAU, signups, and downloads ≠ real traction.
What matters is not the growth of users. It's the growth of users completing the core action.
If users aren’t doing the core action, you’re not building a product that sticks.
🚨Lack of product focus
Don’t compare yourself to fully developed products and lose focus on what matters.
Ensure new users immediately understand the core action to perform and avoid distracting them with too many features.
1 tool to leverage
📖 Best practice on product retention
Track weekly active users by cohort, focusing on core actions.
Visualize retention via cohort graphs using this template.
Aim for a ‘smile’ graph (users become more retained as usage increases) and compare with these benchmarks.
If cohorts aren’t plateauing, focus on improving retention.
Dive deeper
Watch Casey Winters’ (Former CPO at Eventbrite) sharing with Sandy Diao, DECODE board of advisor and former Director of Growth at Descript on effective decision making in product development.
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Stay tuned for more startup wisdom in next week’s edition!
