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
Workedonboardingproduct-activation
What they did
A 'welcome workout' where the coach voiceover explains the exercise and why, and also tells users to pop up the journal, swipe up and input weights, and why it matters. Coaches keep dropping reminders in regular workouts ('check your journal for last week's weight'). Same approach used to drive widget adoption. Push/email come after as outer layers.
What happened
Journal usage grew to 70-75% of users per workout; guest claims in-the-moment coaching is 10x more effective than educational content.
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · The Art of Driving Retention Through Product – Ben Gammon, Ladder“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."”
“But if you're able to communicate that while they're in the motion of doing it, that is 10X more effective.”
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 Ladder
All 47 Ladder tactics- Offer non-converted trial users their first month for $5, then $29.99About half stay into month two at full price; consistent across cohorts
- Ask new visitors 15 fitness questions, then recommend three matching programsA million people have taken it in 18 months; fixed confused cold-traffic users
- Survey 500 users on price and talk to 100 non-payers, then cut $60 to $29.99Clearing price was ~$29 across cohorts; January 2022 became the best month yet
- Run a new coach's TikTok for them, using only videos already on their phone250K followers in 45 days, with million-view videos every week
- End TikToks with on-screen text like 'We start Monday, link in my profile'Founder says viewers follow explicit instructions; no numbers
- Send every TikTok ad click to a web quiz and track answers that mark ideal usersTargeting tightened within a week; payback in low single-digit months
More from this episode
- Ladder: Read your five-star reviews to find the result users want, then target 3 workouts a weekBecame the goal the whole product is built around; no retention numbers given
- Ladder: Let users log reps and weights, then suggest next weights and show their progress70-75% of users now log every workout; guest sees it correlate with retention
- Ladder: Add a home-screen calendar widget that lights up workout days, and show how to install itAbout a third of users have it; guest sees it correlate with retention
- Ladder: Give a check mark per workout and a weekly streak for 3 of themGuest says it reinforces the 3-a-week habit; no numbers
- Ladder: Run a big yearly user survey and use AI to read the answers7,500+ responses in a year; led directly to the nutrition feature
- Ladder: Add nutrition tracking to a workout app after users asked for it in the surveyEarly read: users doing both convert and stay much more; no numbers yet