Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-03-07

The Art of Driving Retention Through Product – Ben Gammon, Ladder

Short Sub Club episode with Ben Gammon, VP of Product at Ladder (strength training app). Covers product-driven retention: working back from five-star reviews to a 3-workouts-a-week north star, the workout journal as a progress flywheel, coach voiceovers that teach features in the moment, the home-screen streak widget (~1/3 of users), large annual surveys over user interviews, and the nutrition launch where hybrid users convert and retain better.

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7 tactics

Ladder · B2C · strength training app

Read your five-star reviews to find the result users want, then target 3 workouts a week

Became the goal the whole product is built around; no retention numbers given

“We went through all the five star results, all the people that were just hands up saying, "This is really striking a chord." And that was the underlying theme.”

Workedproduct-activationretention

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-03-07

Ladder · B2C · strength training app

Let users log reps and weights, then suggest next weights and show their progress

70-75% of users now log every workout; guest sees it correlate with retention

“You input the data, then the next time you come in and like for that specific movement, let's call it an RDO or a bench press. And the recommended weights come back into play because we've now personalized it by putting in that existing weight.”

Workedretentionproduct-activation

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-03-07

Ladder · B2C · strength training app

Have coaches tell users to log their weights mid-workout, not in a help page

Journal use climbed to 70-75% of workouts; guest calls it 10x more effective than FAQs

“we have what's called a welcome workout. And that's where the coaches are able to voice over not only the instruction of like, what are you doing? Why are you doing it? But also layer in those pieces to say like, "Hey, pop up in that journal, swipe up, input those weights, here's why."”

Workedonboardingproduct-activation

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-03-07

Ladder · B2C · strength training app

Add a home-screen calendar widget that lights up workout days, and show how to install it

About a third of users have it; guest sees it correlate with retention

“it can't be the first thing that you show. You haven't earned that trust, but we've tried to position it and try to build it out where, again, it looks cool. You give them the instructions because it's not exactly intuitive for the majority of people.”

Workedretentionnotifications

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-03-07

Ladder · B2C · strength training app

Give a check mark per workout and a weekly streak for 3 of them

Guest says it reinforces the 3-a-week habit; no numbers

“So, you have the check mark is what gives you like for a completed workout, you have to get three of those. And three of those equal a streak for a week.”

Unknownretention

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-03-07

Ladder · B2C · strength training app

Run a big yearly user survey and use AI to read the answers

7,500+ responses in a year; led directly to the nutrition feature

“we do one at the end of the year and we have an insanely productive community. There's 7,500 plus responses this past year. It takes over 45 minutes. Thank God for AI to be able to parse it out and understand what they want.”

Workedfeature-development

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-03-07

Ladder · B2C · strength training app

Add nutrition tracking to a workout app after users asked for it in the survey

Early read: users doing both convert and stay much more; no numbers yet

“So, what is week two, week three, week four retention? And we're starting to get really in the weeds of, okay, if you can go upstream, if you just think about nutrition as a standalone product, how do they log? Do they log consistently in day one, day two?”

Workedfeature-developmentretention

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-03-07

Numbers mentioned

Subject	Metric	Value	Quote
Ladder	count North-star consistency target per user (ratcheted down from 4, 'backed by science')	3 workoutsper user /week goal	“four workouts is kind of where we started, that number, but then we started to ratchet it down to three”
Ladder	share Share of users who use the journal (log reps/weights) for each workout; started lower	70–75% approximate	“we're upwards of now around like 70%, 75% of users use the journal for each workout. It didn't start there though”
Ladder	share Share of users who have the home-screen widget installed	33% approximate	“Approximately, I'd say a third of people have the widget.”
Ladder	count Responses to the annual end-of-year user survey (takes 45+ minutes to complete)	7,500 responses/year approximate	“There's 7,500 plus responses this past year. It takes over 45 minutes.”
Ladder	count Questions in the end-of-2024 annual survey (multiple choice and open-ended)	80–90 questions approximate	“we asked probably 80, 90 questions”
Ladder	conversion rate New-user conversion of hybrid users vs workout-only users, ~100 days after nutrition launch	much higher for hybrid (workout + nutrition) new users estimate	“Those who are using both the workouts and nutrition, they're driving conversion if they're new, right? So, the percentage of those who are converting are much higher”
Ladder	retention Retention of hybrid (workout + nutrition) users vs others; early read at ~100 days	much more retentive for hybrid users estimate	“those who are using both as well are also much more retentive. They're staying on the platform.”
personDavid Barnard (host) as a Ladder user	growth rate Dumbbell bench press increase since starting, shown in Ladder's post-workout progress recap	+62%	“it was like 62% increase in my dumbbell bench press”