Opal · screen time and focus app
Add focus streaks with an animated flame and gemstone rewards at milestones
Biggest win of the year for retention and growth; no numbers
What they did
What happened
- Stage
- scale
In their words
Why Opal Stopped Chasing Revenue – Kenneth Schlenker, Opal
David BarnardWe are coming up on time. But there's three questions I've been asking every guest who'd come on. Let's get to that. The first one is, what's your biggest win of the last year? The experiment that performed way better than expected, something you implemented, what's your biggest win?
Kenneth SchlenkerThe biggest win is streaks. Believe it or not, we have our own way of counting streaks. But essentially, the more you focus with Opal, the more you get a streak.
Kenneth SchlenkerWe've also put a lot of effort, speaking of brand and making this beautiful. The streak is represented by this small frame, which is not like an emoji flame, but actually an animated flame. You can get beautiful Opal gemstones once you reach different streak milestones. That's, I would say, the biggest win in the last year to improve retention and growth.
David BarnardYeah, that's so cool. Streaks don't work for a lot of apps. So many apps try streaks. But it's great to hear. It makes sense that it's landing for Opal. What was your biggest fail of the past year?
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More from this episode
- Drop the hard paywall and give the core app away for freePaying share of users fell 20% to 9%, but organic growth, 1M+ DAUs and revenue rose
- Test how many app blocks free users get; settle where free users still love it3 free blocks gave free users a great experience while power users still pay
- Sell the app to schools as a phone policy after students asked for itGrew from one school to many US high schools; front-page LA Times coverage
- License a stranger's viral video about phone overuse and run it as your adSeen by dozens of millions; still running 1-2 years later
- Hire a user who posted about you to run her own educational channel for you0 to ~700K followers and millions of views in a few months
- Let users tap to crack open a gemstone when they hit a focus milestoneThe app's most loved moment; users remember it and talk about it
- Buy a New York billboard saying "Scrolling Kills" with no app linkNo effect on downloads or revenue; helped close one school deal
- Hand out thousands of "Scrolling Kills" stickers that don't mention the app
Tags: streaks, gamification, rewards