Welltory · B2C · heart-rate-variability wellness app
Check each big feature idea against the mission, main persona, trigger and user job
Guest says the team has used it successfully; scoring features with points didn't work
Workedfeature-developmentteam-process
What they did
For new core features (not monetization tweaks): 1) does it fit the mission (improve well-being with science, personalized); 2) which segment is it for, keeping the main persona in mind ('the Dude' from The Big Lebowski, with AI-generated images of him at the office, on the couch); 3) what trigger brings them to it; 4) what immediate and high-level job it does; 5) which of seven retention drivers it uses: magic, novelty, relief, personalization, gamification, bragging rights, social; 6) is it a must (competitors have it, fulfills an ad promise, absence causes switching or extreme frustration); 7) is it a delighter (completes a known job delightfully or creates a wow moment). Tried giving 10 points per box and building the top scorer; dropped it. Use as prompts, not a scorecard, including for competitor analysis.
What happened
Guest says the team has used the framework successfully to develop new core features; the points-scoring version didn't work.
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · Why Duolingo’s Engagement Strategy Won’t Work For Every App — Asya Paloni, Welltory“over the years, I've kind of developed an innovation framework that our team uses to really think through new features.”
“But our biggest segment, we personify him as the Dude from The Big Lebowski. I call this segment the Dude Abides. We actually have AI-generated images of the Dude in all sorts of like poses”
“One of the dumbest things I tried to have people do is for each of these like completed triggers or segments covered, or stuff like that, give like 10 points.”
Related topics
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New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
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All 22 Welltory tactics- Ask users to sync their Apple Watch data on the very first screenOver 90% connect their data; intro screens before it did worse
- End onboarding with 'Stress is building right now' instead of promising more energyBeat an ending that promised more energy with a progress chart
- Ask to turn on notifications right away, before showing much valueWorked best in that spot, against best-practice advice; no numbers
- Keep basic and possibly life-saving health tracking free; charge for deeper analysisOver 60% of conversions happen after day one, over the next couple of months
- Ask 'How do you usually feel?' with both 'drained' and 'stressed' answers50-70% of women pick low energy; men pick stressed or fine
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More from this episode
- Welltory: Make your wellness app something people open when bored, instead of TikTokBecame the company's final big pivot to reach the mass market; no numbers
- Welltory: Show new text and visuals, based on the user's own data, every time they openGave the initial retention boost; built by hand before gen AI, which was very painful
- Welltory: Show heart data as a color-changing liquid that updates with no user effortBecame the core feature; guest says people really love it; no numbers
- Welltory: Tell users how their habits affect things they care about, like next-day work output
- Welltory: Replace raw stats with a home screen that explains what each step and heartbeat meansJust launched; guest says users seem to really love it
- Welltory: Build smarter, personalized Apple Watch-style move rings and daily goalsDidn't drive retention: missed goals made users feel shamed; worked only for a small group
- Welltory: Give users a personal daily plan to follow and check offDropped: health tasks happen outside the app, so users fall off and feel shamed
- Welltory: Make users' results pretty and easy to post, so they can show offGuest's example: a friend posts his results and keeps coming back; no numbers
- Build one standout interactive widget before adding the basics every rival hasDrove a lot of installs and retention; some bad reviews for missing basics