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
Workedretention
What they did
Opal counts its own kind of streak: the more you focus, the more the streak grows. Shown as a custom animated flame (not an emoji), with Opal gemstones unlocked at streak milestones.
What happened
Named the biggest win of the last year for retention and growth.
- Stage
- scale
“The biggest win is streaks. Believe it or not, we have our own way of counting streaks.”
“That's, I would say, the biggest win in the last year to improve retention and growth.”
Related topics
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More from Opal
All 10 Opal tacticsMore from this episode
- Opal: 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
- Opal: 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
- Opal: 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
- Opal: 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
- Opal: 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
- Opal: 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
- Opal: Buy a New York billboard saying "Scrolling Kills" with no app linkNo effect on downloads or revenue; helped close one school deal
- Opal: Hand out thousands of "Scrolling Kills" stickers that don't mention the app