DOWN · B2C · casual dating app
Add three onboarding questions that show what makes the app different
Day-3 retention +18%, matches +18%, paid conversion +26% with no paywall change
Workedonboardingproduct-activation
What they did
Went against the 'shorter onboarding' wisdom: grew a 12-step onboarding (one question per step) to 15 steps. Added a threesome question: 'Are you open to threesomes? Yes/no'; if yes, 'Do you have a partner already?', then 'What is your threesome fantasy?'. The answers go on the profile. Goal: 'good friction' that signals DOWN is open-minded and different from Bumble/Hinge, sets the expectation you can meet that kind of person, and makes users invest effort (IKEA effect). Contrast with bad friction such as search-radius or 'bars or clubs' questions that can wait. Run as an experiment on a 13-year-old app; paywall untouched.
What happened
Day 3 retention +18%, matches and conversations +~18%, paid conversion +26%; users who answered no did not retain worse
- Stage
- Scale (mature app (13 years))
“we took it from a 12-step, uh pretty simple, each step was like one one question”
“And here's what we added: we added a threesome feature.”
“when we ran this, we moved our Day 3 retention by 18%, and it had a really nice effect that it also increased our matches and conversations by about 18%.”
“We did not change the paywall at all, and it increased it by 26%.”
“Even for those who say no, though, we didn't see a decrease in retention or anything.”
Related topics
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from this episode
- DOWN: Give the app a shocking name people can't help repeatingPeople lit up and wanted to try it; widely covered in the news (no numbers)
- DOWN: Test app icons in a color no competitor uses, with playful charactersCurrent winner after hundreds of icon tests; no lift numbers given
- DOWN: Test screenshot colors separately from the icon and use blunt, emotional captionsDeep red screenshots currently win, despite a purple icon
- DOWN: Tell new users most people like them add at least three photos
- DOWN: Treat the App Store page as the main storefront and optimize it constantly80-90% of organic downloads from store search; 300K+ downloads a month
- DOWN: Photo-verify every user and skip stock or AI photos in store imagesNo result reported
- Give new viewers a free gift to send the streamer, so they feel part of the showRetention doubled and free-to-paid conversion up 50% in the experiment
- Clubhouse: Launch invite-only with celebrity users and just two invites per personWent viral during COVID, then collapsed