That’s exactly what Lohith Nagaraj, VP of Product at Narayana Education, is building:
An AI-driven decision engine that helps match students to the right course, at the right time—based on data, not gut.

We spoke to him as part of our Experiment Engine series, and here are a few ideas that left us thinking:

1. AI is only as good as your hypothesis

Lohith isn’t just throwing data at a model and hoping for magic. Every experiment starts with a clear hypothesis:

“Is a student’s academic performance a better predictor than their stated interest? What about parent goals?”

The team runs controlled tests by varying these inputs to see which combinations actually lead to better course fits—and, ultimately, outcomes.

📌 Takeaway: AI doesn’t replace human judgment—it scales it. But only if you ask the right questions first.

2. Parents are part of the journey (whether you like it or not)

In B2C edtech, your end user isn’t your only stakeholder. Parents make decisions. So Narayana experiments with different communication styles, tones, and even nudge timings—based on whether the app is being used by the student or the parent.

“A reminder that works for a 17-year-old doesn’t work for a 45-year-old. We had to test that the hard way.”

📌 Takeaway: Know your personas—and their power dynamics. Your “user” may not be your decision-maker.

3. Experiments can’t just chase engagement—they have to improve outcomes

At Narayana, engagement metrics like clicks and time spent are important—but they’re not the end goal. The real question is:

Did the student end up in a better-fit course? Did they stick with it? Did performance improve?

That means experiments run longer, require cleaner data, and tie back to actual learning outcomes.

📌 Takeaway: In high-stakes products, “conversion” means nothing unless it leads to success.

4. Even nudges need a test plan

Lohith’s team doesn’t launch nudges blindly. They test which moments matter, which tone works best, and how often is too often. The goal isn’t to “get clicks”—it’s to create confidence in decision-making.

“Sometimes not nudging is more powerful than sending five reminders.”

📌 Takeaway: Build a test culture not just for big features—but for the micro-decisions too.

5. You don’t need 100 experiments. You need 10 great ones.

What’s refreshing about Narayana’s approach is their focus. Instead of running dozens of random A/B tests, they focus on a few high-leverage experiments tied to real business outcomes.

“It’s better to deeply understand 3 hypotheses than to run 30 shallow tests.”

📌 Takeaway: Quality > quantity. Not every button color matters. Some decisions are worth obsessing over.

Final Thought:

At Plotline, we talk a lot about intelligent nudges, personalized journeys, and behavioral feedback loops. What Narayana is building is all of that—and more. It’s experimentation with purpose.

Because in education, you’re not optimizing for a click.
You’re optimizing for someone’s future.

✉️ Want to get more stories like this in your inbox?
Subscribe to The Experiment Engine – where we decode how top product teams test, learn, and ship smarter.

And static product reviews are getting a much-needed glowup.

This shift mirrors China’s mobile-first, immersive shopping model, where apps are designed to allow users to see and interact with rich media content to make informed buying decisions. India is now following this path, focusing on visual proof and real-time engagement to help users feel more confident in their choices.

The Need for Integrating Visual Proof

In India, buying decisions are heavily influenced by what users see and how they feel about what others are doing. Online shopping (currently at 7% of the consumption) while growing rapidly, is still something many users are learning to get comfortable with.

Risk-averse consumers often want to triple-check everything before making a purchase, whether it’s food or clothes. It's not just about reading a review or checking a product description anymore—users need to see the product in action as if they were physically present with it.

Unlike the static reviews common in European markets, Indian apps are embracing real-time engagement and social validation.

Whether through shoppable videos, influencer-driven content, or social recommendations, these apps provide the visual proof that builds confidence in purchase decisions, turning engagement into real conversions.

This shift is creating immersive, social, and trust-driven experiences that drive both user loyalty and revenue.

Apps like Myntra, and Ajio are great examples of integrating shoppable videos, Instagram-like stories, and influencer feeds.

Users can watch, interact, and see the product in motion before they hit “buy.”

This visual engagement boosts confidence and ensures users feel more connected to the brand and their purchase choices.

No more wondering, "I hope this looks as good in person."

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Food delivery apps like Swiggy are also embracing this format, letting users watch real, unfiltered videos of food arriving from restaurants.

Instead of just reading reviews or checking photos, users are seeing visual proof of freshness, quality, and presentation, which helps with trust and builds excitement around their food choices.

P.S. Swiggy’s “Group Order” and Zomato’s “Friends' Recommendations” features are pushing social engagement past just stories & feeds.

Enabling users to collaborate in real-time and share meal choices, these turn ordering into a socially driven, interactive experience- making the entire food delivery journey feel more integrated into users' lives.

Thanks for reading! One Step Ahead is a publication by Plotline to give you a BTS breakdown of the product & growth strategies that are propelling consumer apps today.

And while you’re here, remember, there are only 3 rules to life:

1. Be kind to everyone you meet

2. Don’t take yourself too seriously

3. Drink lots of water

See you in some time!

And now apps like Zepto and Zupee, by partnering with beloved franchises like Oreo and KBC, are showcasing that quizzes aren’t just progress tests or fun mediums for driving interactions but can generate real revenue for apps and foster lasting affinity for brands.

Take Oreo’s Pokémon-themed quiz on Zepto 🍪

This isn’t your average trivia challenge; it’s an intentional fusion of nostalgia and commerce, tied directly to purchases.

• Nostalgia Meets Commerce: Pokémon resonates strongly with millennials and Gen Z - Oreo’s prime audience.

• Sequential Format: A multi-level quiz keeps users coming back to “beat the game.”

• Purchase-Linked Rewards: Real conversions happen when users buy Oreo to access exclusive rewards.

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And then there’s the KBC contest on Zupee 🎥

It’s turning Friday nights into a digital event where millions get to live the excitement of being in the hot seat on one of India’s most iconic quiz shows.

• Cultural Icon: KBC has a massive following, and tying it to an in-app experience is an instant draw.

• Event-Like Format: A fixed time slot creates anticipation and encourages repeat participation.

• High-Stakes Reward: The potential to win ₹1 Lakh adds excitement and urgency.

The common thread? 🧵

These examples of Oreo on Zepto and KBC on Zupee are a seamless blend of user engagement and brand strategy.

A simple quiz format, powered by a beloved franchise is an “event” that creates deeper and profitable interaction, not another gamification tactic - where users collect a prize and move on.

By weaving in familiar cultural touchstones (Pokémon, Amitabh Bachchan), these apps tap into existing fanbases, transforming a simple quiz into a moment of genuine engagement, and, yes, potential revenue for brands.

And that event can be a game-changer for everyone involved - Brands get exposure to an engaged audience, users get a shot at winning something meaningful, and the app itself builds loyalty that can outlast any short-term promotion.

Thanks for reading! One Step Ahead is a publication by Plotline to give you a BTS breakdown of the product & growth strategies that are propelling consumer apps today.

And while you’re here, remember, there are only 3 rules to life:

1. Be kind to everyone you meet

2. Don’t take yourself too seriously

3. Drink lots of water

See you in some time!

It’s easy to add to the digital noise with more notifications, more emails and hope that something sticks. But what if the secret to stickiness was doing less?

Take Thursday, for example.

No, not the day of the week—this is the dating app that isn’t interested in bombarding users with notifications.

Instead, it hands you one dedicated window each day—your very own “golden hour” for dating. When that time slot opens, you’re not just aimlessly swiping 👈/👉; you’re stepping into a focused moment designed for genuine connections.

Missed your chance today? No worries—another week brings another opportunity but not without the FOMO from the previous week.

Now, let’s swing over to BeReal.

Once a day, at a random moment, this social app sends out a single push notification that gives you just 2 minutes to capture an unfiltered snapshot of your life.

Aimed squarely at an audience fed up 😤 with the perfectionist, algorithm-driven loops of platforms like Instagram and TikTok, BeReal intentionally sets the bar low—no fancy edits, no overthinking—just a quick, authentic share.

Their App Store description even cheekily warns potential users, “If you want to become an influencer, you can stay on TikTok and Instagram.”

That one daily nudge is designed to encourage users to act swiftly and share genuine moments without the pressure of perfection.

Thursday instils scarcity and BeReal instils urgency via how their product operates, keep the emotional bar low, make it easy for users to engage and, over time, form a habit users won’t want to break.

💡 Instead of relying on constant, passive engagements that create noise but rarely convert, think about how you can create intentional, high-impact moments.

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That’s it for this Spotlight. Thanks for joining us!

And while you’re here, remember, there are only 3 rules to life:

1. Be kind to everyone you meet

2. Don’t take yourself too seriously

3. Drink lots of water

See you back soon!

Millions of parents across America are now saying “yes” because Greenlight made it easy, safe, and fun. In 2014, Tim Sheehan and his co-founders asked a simple but profound question: why isn’t anyone helping kids learn how to manage money?

Banks’ Blind Spot: The Case for Targeting Kids

For decades, banks ignored younger customers, focusing on adults who generated immediate revenue through loans and credit cards. With customer acquisition costs in finance being notoriously high—often exceeding $300 per customer—targeting kids was seen as unprofitable. Kids didn’t earn, didn’t need complex tools to manage money, and didn’t need credit.

Yet, this assumption overlooked a critical opportunity: kids and teens represented a unique long-term market. Banking relationships often last an average of 17 years, making the early acquisition of younger customers a powerful strategy for securing lifelong loyalty. However, without products tailored to younger users, families were left managing cash allowances, a solution that failed to keep up with the shift toward online banking and digital payments.

Greenlight’s founders recognized the gap for what it was: an opportunity to modernize how families handled money while addressing a deeper issue—the lack of financial literacy in most households.

• 83% of parents believed teaching kids about money was their responsibility, but only 16% had regular conversations about finances.

• Meanwhile, 73% of teens wanted to learn about personal finance but lacked access to tools designed for them.

Greenlight’s solution was simple but powerful: a debit card for kids, managed by parents. But it wasn’t just a card—it was a full financial ecosystem designed to make “money talk” hands-on and fun.

Overcoming Early Hurdles

Parents were naturally hesitant to give kids access to financial tools. To address these concerns, Greenlight focused on features that gave parents full control while making the platform fun and engaging for the kids.

• Parental Oversight: Parents could approve or block transactions in real-time, set store-specific spending limits, and automate allowances.

• Kid-Friendly Autonomy: Kids received their own debit card, teaching them responsibility and encouraging financial decision-making within boundaries.

• Gamified Learning: Features like savings goals, chore-based earnings, and real-time tracking made financial literacy engaging for kids.

  

In 2017, Greenlight raised $7.5 million in seed funding, led by TTV Capital. This funding allowed the company to scale, refine its platform, and capitalize on the growing demand for financial education tools. Greenlight didn’t just meet the demand—it created it.

Right place, right time

With the rise of digital payments and a noticeable decline in cash usage, especially during and post the pandemic, there’s been a growing interest in kids’ cards. Between 2020 and 2021, Google searches for “kids debit card” surged 227%, driven by the rise of digital payments and a growing interest in financial literacy.

Greenlight positioned itself at the forefront of this trend, branding itself not just as a tool, but as a family-oriented platform that helped parents bond with their kids over money.

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The model: Subscription, Not Spending 🔔

Most fintech companies rely on interchange fees—a percentage of every transaction—as their primary revenue source. But Greenlight took a different approach by adopting a subscription-based model. Families pay a recurring monthly fee for access to Greenlight’s features, which unlocked key advantages:

• Aligned Incentives: Unlike interchange-driven models, Greenlight didn’t need to encourage kids to spend to generate revenue. Instead, its subscription model allowed the company to focus on teaching good financial habits, aligning its goals with those of parents.

• Predictable Revenue: Recurring subscriptions provided a steady revenue stream, enabling Greenlight to reinvest in features like savings, investing, and parental controls.

• Building Trust: The subscription model positioned Greenlight as a financial education partner rather than a fintech product benefiting from spending, making it easier to win parents’ trust.

By eliminating reliance on transaction volume, Greenlight was free to double down on its core mission of financial literacy.

On the other side of the world, the India-based app FamPay relied on interchange fees—earning from transactions. Low teen spending volumes amongst teens, especially in geographies like India meant not enough transactions happened to sustain the business. Worse, UPI is free, so there was no reason for teens to use a prepaid card. Without strong monetization, FamPay and its competitors couldn’t scale profitably.

Educational Marketing: Driving Acquisition & Activation 📲

Greenlight had to tackle a core challenge faced by fintech startups: trust. Digital financial services, especially for kids, were still a new and unfamiliar concept for many parents. To overcome this, it focused on an educational marketing strategy that targeted parents through content, and social proof, positioning itself as a thought leader in financial literacy.

Features like savings trackers, goal-setting, and investing explained financial concepts in simple, digestible ways for kids, creating stickiness in the app.

The $7 Million Super Bowl Ad

In 2022, Greenlight made waves by investing $7 million in a 30-second Super Bowl ad starring Modern Family actor Ty Burrell. The ad humorously portrayed Burrell making reckless financial decisions, emphasizing the need for financial literacy.

This move wasn’t just about visibility—it was about credibility. With 113 million viewers tuning in, the campaign introduced Greenlight to millions of families, making it a household name in the kid-focused fintech space.

Competitors like Step, which partnered with TikTok star Charli D’Amelio, also leveraged celebrity endorsements, but Greenlight differentiated itself by focusing on parents as decision-makers through humour and reliability.

Beyond the Card: Growing Through Saving, Investing, and Gamification 💰

Greenlight didn’t stop at giving kids a debit card—it built an ecosystem to create engagement loops, double down on retention and worth—of-mouth, and extend lifetime value (LTV).

Savings & Investing as a Growth Engine

Launched in 2021, the feature allowed kids to:

• Invest in Stocks and ETFs: Greenlight made complex financial concepts simple, approachable, and exciting by helping kids invest in brands they loved (think Disney, Netflix, or Tesla) with parental approval. Families stayed longer to see their investments progress.

  👍 P.S. Stories of kids investing their first $10 in Tesla or reaching savings milestones were a hit on parenting forums and social media. :)

• Stock Investing for Teens: Teens invested in fractional shares of companies like Apple or Tesla, learning wealth-building while collaborating with parents.

• Learn Through Action: The platform included simple explanations of key investing concepts like risk, diversification, and returns, empowering kids to understand the why behind their investment choices.

• Parent-Child Collaboration: Parents retained control over investments, approving trades and guiding their kids’ financial decisions.

Engagement Through Gamification

Greenlight understood that to make financial literacy stick, it had to be fun. Once families joined, the tool kept them engaged through interactive features that turned money management into a game:

• Savings Goals: Kids could set personal goals (e.g., saving for a bike), while parents “boosted” milestones.

• Chore Management: Parents assigned chores and automated allowances, turning money management into a family activity.

Referrals for a Dual-Loop for Growth 🔂

At the heart of Greenlight’s growth was its ability to engage two distinct but interconnected user groups: parents and kids. This dual-engagement strategy created a cost-efficient customer referral loop:

• Kids as Advocates: Kids loved having their “own” debit cards, which gave them a sense of independence and responsibility. This naturally led to peer-to-peer virality, with kids sharing their Greenlight experience with friends and classmates.

• Parents as Advocates: Parents, proud of teaching their children money management and incentivized through rewards, shared Greenlight with friends, relatives, and other families—both in person and on social media. Parenting communities, which thrive on sharing advice, became a natural channel for referrals.

Referred families tended to be more loyal, reducing churn and ensuring high engagement.

Retention Through Lifecycle Engagement 👨‍👩‍👧

One of Greenlight’s smartest moves was creating a product that evolved with families. Instead of being a one-off app for kids, Greenlight became a financial ecosystem that addressed different needs as children grew:

• Younger Kids: Features like savings goals, chore-based allowances, and budgeting tools hooked younger children and their parents.

• Teens: As kids grew older, Greenlight introduced them to investing, stock trading, and more advanced financial concepts, ensuring the product remained relevant.

• Parents: With the Family Cash Card and household-wide tools, Greenlight positioned itself as a platform for the entire family, not just the kids.

By aligning features with different stages of a family’s financial journey, Greenlight extended its stickiness and reduced churn. Families didn’t outgrow the platform—instead, they deepened their engagement over time.

Partnerships with Financial Institutions 🤝

Greenlight’s ability to solve a common-sense problem—teaching kids about digital banking—didn’t just appeal to families. It also created opportunities for financial institutions to engage younger audiences. Starting in 2023, Greenlight began striking partnerships with banks and credit unions, giving them a turnkey way to offer financial literacy tools to families.

This strategy provided mutual benefits:

• For Banks: Greenlight helped banks acquire younger customers and build loyalty with families—a demographic that traditional financial institutions struggled to reach.

• For Greenlight: Embedded partnerships allowed Greenlight to generate more revenue streams without relying solely on the direct-to-consumer acquisition, significantly broadening its reach.

Its partnership with the U.S. Bank marked a turning point. U.S. Bank became the first to embed Greenlight’s tools—like kids’ debit accounts and parental controls—directly into its mobile banking app. This embedded model allowed Greenlight to scale its impact while providing banks with a turnkey solution for engaging younger customers.

Today, Greenlight is working with about 50 financial institutions, including major players like JPMorgan Chase, United Community Bank, and PSECU.

Why Teen Banking Thrives in the U.S. but Faces Challenges in Developing Economies like India 💭

On paper, teen banking apps seem like a universal win. Yet, while apps like Greenlight, and Step scaled rapidly in the U.S., similar apps struggle to sustain themselves in India. The difference comes down to cultural attitudes, financial infrastructure, and business viability.

Banking for Minors: A Different Reality in India

Both the U.S. and India allow minors to have bank accounts with parental oversight. But while American teens actively manage joint accounts and custodial savings, Indian minor accounts are mostly parent-controlled savings vehicles rather than everyday spending tools.

Even though 75% of Indian families discuss finances together, financial independence comes much later. In India, money is still a family-managed resource, not an individual one. Instead of giving kids independent spending power, parents handle purchases directly - tuition, shopping, and entertainment. Teen spending behaviour in India simply isn’t high enough, making the idea of a standalone teen banking product less compelling.

UPI Killed the Need for Teen Debit Cards in India

The biggest structural difference between these markets is how people pay.

• U.S., UK: A card-based economy, where teens need debit cards to shop online or pay in stores. Greenlight’s core offering- a debit card with parental controls and financial literacy tools—fit naturally.

• India: The rise of UPI made teen debit cards irrelevant. Parents don’t need a separate financial product for their kids—they just transfer money via UPI. Instant, free, and universally accepted, UPI replaced both cash and card-based transactions, leaving FamPay, Junio and more struggling for relevance.

Greenlight didn’t just build a product—it fit into existing behaviours while its Indian counterparts tried to change them. UPI and family-managed bank accounts continue to dominate how Indian teens handle money.

The Bigger Picture 🛣️

Greenlight’s story isn’t just about its sleek app or colourful debit cards. It’s about how the company has mastered trust, retention, and scalable growth in the competitive fintech space, all while establishing itself as a lifelong financial partner for families.

As this fintech ecosystem becomes more competitive, with players like Step and Revolut Junior expanding their offerings, Greenlight is not standing still. The company is deepening its engagement and lifecycle relevance with features that align with the evolving needs of families.

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From helping kids learn the basics of saving and budgeting to guiding teens into investing, Greenlight is now expanding its ecosystem to meet the needs of older teens and young adults with:

• Credit-Building Tools: Providing secured credit cards or credit-building features to help teens establish responsible credit habits under parental guidance.

• College Savings Solutions: Introducing tools that simplify planning and saving for higher education, addressing a key concern for families with teens.

• Advanced Financial Planning: Expanding into budgeting and wealth-building tools tailored for young adults as they step into financial independence.

By building a comprehensive financial ecosystem (just as Apple cultivated an ecosystem that seamlessly connects devices and services), Greenlight ensures that families remain engaged and supported throughout their entire financial lifecycle. It positions itself not just as a product but as a trusted partner that grows alongside its users.

Thanks for reading! 😄

One Step Ahead is a publication by Plotline. With this series, we plan to give you a behind-the-scenes breakdown of the product and growth strategies that have propelled consumer apps to where they are today.

Welcome to the first episode of Experiment Engine!

At Plotline, we believe experimentation is at the heart of app growth. In this series, we’re bringing you in-depth conversations with product leaders at fast-growing B2C apps to uncover their most impactful experiments. From crafting hypotheses to measuring results, these stories reveal what it takes to build app journeys that scale.

For our inaugural episode, we sat down with Shrenik Surana, former Principal Product Manager at Swiggy, to discuss the onboarding redesign that boosted activation rates and drove the adoption of newer verticals as Swiggy transformed from a food-delivery app to a hyperlocal convenience platform.

Some takeaways from the conversation:

🔍 Context is everything

One of Swiggy's critical findings was that users dropped off when onboarding steps lacked clarity. For example, the app asked for location permissions early in the journey without explaining why.

“When we asked users for location permissions right at the start, they’d wonder, ‘Why do you need this already? Is this tied to my home address?’ That kind of uncertainty led to drop-offs,” Shrenik explained.

The solution? Swiggy introduced visual cues and animations to explain that location access was only for a broader area, not specific addresses. By setting expectations and addressing concerns upfront, Swiggy saw a significant increase in users granting location access.

💡 Insight: Always explain "why" for high-friction actions like permissions. Contextualizing these requests builds user trust and reduces drop-offs.

📉 Purposeful friction can drive higher engagement

Swiggy moved signup earlier in the user journey, requiring users to sign up before exploring the app. While this might seem counterintuitive, user interviews revealed that most users were comfortable signing up early, especially using their mobile numbers.

This change addressed two key challenges:

1. It simplified later steps by decoupling signup from the cart or checkout process.

2. It allowed Swiggy to present its broader value proposition upfront, framing the app as more than just food delivery.

To accommodate exploratory users who preferred not to share details immediately, Swiggy added a “Skip” button. This option directed users to the location permission screen and then to the home page, enabling seamless exploration.

The result was improved signup success rates and reduced drop-offs from onboarding to the home page.

💡 Insight: Friction isn’t always a negative—strategic placement of signups or similar steps can enhance user focus and retention downstream.

🎨 Iterate small, scale big

Swiggy’s onboarding redesign wasn’t a one-off overhaul. Instead, the team ran 10+ micro-experiments, testing hypotheses like multi-step vs. single-step signup flows and adding WhatsApp OTPs. Each test provided incremental improvements, and only validated ideas were scaled to 100% of users.

For example, enabling OTPs via WhatsApp was a seemingly small addition had a massive impact at scale.

Shrenik emphasized the importance of small, hypothesis-backed experiments. “When you’re working at scale, even a tiny experiment can make a huge difference. For example, enabling WhatsApp OTPs. It sounds niche, but for users in areas with poor mobile networks, having a Wi-Fi-based option increased verification success rates significantly.”

💡 Insight: Test and validate hypotheses incrementally to build scalable, data-backed solutions.

Got insights or questions about onboarding experiments? We’d love to hear about it on LinkedIn!

Determined to experience these challenges firsthand, Tushar and his roommate, Mathew Cherian, decided to live on ₹100 a day—the average daily income in India—for three weeks, later reducing it to ₹32, the official poverty line.

With limited funds, Tushar tracked every meal’s calories and nutritional content on an Excel sheet. But tracking Indian meals was far from simple- there was no reliable database for local dishes. This lack of information sparked an idea that would change everything.

Over time, they built an Excel sheet with their experiment data that quickly gained traction among friends and family with how precise the data was.

At the time, India had 60 million diabetics and over 150 million hypertensive people, and most of the problems stemmed from a lack of awareness of what people were eating and how much energy they burned daily. Realizing the untapped potential, Tushar and Mathew wanted to build a public tool to help people manage their diets, a move that would later become HealthifyMe’s foundation.

“As we built that website, people started loving it and wanted more. Our goal was to first create a nutrition tracker for India. Maybe if we could help people track their calorie count, we could help people improve.”

— Tushar Vashisht, Founder, HealthifyMe.

By 2012, the duo had built a basic website, locked in $0.2M in angel funding and set the stage for something much bigger.

A Tale of 2 Pivots

In the early years, HealthifyMe was focused on building a B2B health-tech platform for hospitals and medical institutions. The idea was to enable doctors to recommend personalized meal tracking for patients.

However, selling to hospitals meant long sales cycles, slow decision-making, and limited tech adoption. Indian doctors at the time were sceptical about calorie tracking, and the company could only secure partnerships with 8 hospitals.

Moving from a B2B to B2C Business

By late 2013, they faced a harsh truth: the B2B model was unsustainable.

The team decided to take the tracker to consumers directly (B2C) by building a mobile app that would allow users to track their food and fitness independently.

The response was overwhelming—within months, they crossed 50,000 downloads.

They further scaled the app by introducing the #Swasthbharat campaign, greenlighted by India’s then health minister, offering products and services of partner brands worth ₹1,000 to users who committed to health goals, boosting acquisition to 500,000 users.

Alongside B2C, HealthifyMe developed a B2B2C platform, enabling corporations to offer its services as part of workplace wellness programs. While the corporate model still generates less than 20% of revenue, it provides access to a broader user base and built long-term brand equity.

Building a Sustainable Business Model

Despite having a loyal user base, there was no revenue model in place yet, and the company ran out of funds. Employees were unpaid for 3 months, yet the team stayed committed, sure they had struck gold.

Looking at the broader health apps space, MyFitnessPal was a massive outcome for its founders when Under Armour bought it for $475M. But the app was later sold to a PE firm at a loss of $345M, showing how tough the space was even for a leader.

With funds dwindling and survival at stake, Tushar and his team had no choice but to shift from a “product-first” mindset to a “business-first” approach.

After dozens of revenue experiments, the team hit upon a winning formula: freemium subscriptions with expert coaching services.

• Free Tier: Basic food and exercise tracking.

• Paid Subscriptions: Personalized plans from certified nutritionists and fitness coaches.

Onboarding Certified Coaches on the lookout to grow their clientelle

Nutritionists, fitness trainers, and wellness coaches were initially hesitant to join HealthifyMe due to the nascent state of digital health coaching in India. However, HealthifyMe’s unique approach, transparent policies, and career growth opportunities attracted top coaching talent.

1. Access to a Growing Client Base: Coaches saw the potential for a steady stream of clients through HealthifyMe’s rapidly growing user base. Unlike freelance consulting, HealthifyMe guaranteed client engagement through its app.

2. Flexible Work Environment: The platform offered remote working, flexible schedules, and client management tools, making it easier for certified professionals to balance work and personal life.

The model clicked.

By 2016, they raised $6M in Series A funding from investors after achieving ₹20 lakh in monthly revenue. However, even with paying users, gross margins stalled at 26%, leaving profitability elusive.

“Who would fund a 26 per cent gross margin business, which is not very scalable, lacks a technology-led model, and was still service-oriented.”

— Tushar Vashisht, Founder, HealthifyMe, explaining why it was still hard to get wider backing and bigger commitment.

AI, AI, AI

Inspired by Iron Man’s JARVIS, the team dedicated a huge chunk of the fresh funding towards developing Ria, an AI-powered health assistant that launched in 2017- long before ChatGPT’s rise.

Trained on HealthifyMe’s 150 million tracked meals (20 billion+ macro/micronutrients) and 10 million message exchanges (1 billion+ word) between coaches and clients, Ria provided instant, accurate answers to user queries. It helped users set goals, track calories, and adjust diets in real-time.

This data-driven, personalized guidance was the company’s silver bullet. And it was available in 10+ languages. Ria-powered coaching became HealthifyMe’s defining product, creating an AI-driven moat competitors couldn’t replicate.

Impact of Ria:

• 80% Coach Bandwidth Freed Up: Ria took over routine tasks like FAQs, daily check-ins, and standard meal recommendations, allowing human coaches to focus on complex cases.

• 50% Subscription Allocation: By 2019, nearly half of HealthifyMe’s subscribers were choosing a “Ria-only” subscription, significantly reducing operating costs and boosting gross margins to over 70%.

HealthifyMe had graduated from a services to a product-first, services-second company, all while Ria improved the app’s net promoter score (NPS) from around 50 to above 70 in a year.

In 2023, HealthifyMe launched another AI-powered tool Snap, an AI-powered food recognition tool trained specifically on Indian dishes. Snap could accurately identify meals from puris to dosas through photos, logging not just calories but macros instantly. The tool also gives suggestions on how to make the meal more balanced, further enhancing the app’s appeal and functionality in it’s main geography- India.

Creating an Integrated Ecosystem

The team understood that to scale meaningfully, it couldn’t just be a nutrition tracker. The company expanded into a full health-tech ecosystem covering fitness, mental health, and chronic disease management.

Product Diversification

• HealthifyPro

  • Introduced hardware like CGMs (Continuous Glucose Monitors) and Smart Scales, offering real-time metabolic insights to expand Total Addressable Market (TAM), and boost revenue.

  • Added blood-test-based metabolic panels, enabling comprehensive health reports from over 80 diagnostic tests.

• Smart Plans & Meal Tracking: Tailored diet plans powered by user data and Ria’s intelligent coaching system. The personalized experience led to 15x engagement rates compared to industry standards.

• Mental Health Programs: Recognizing the mind-body connection, HealthifyMe expanded beyond fitness and nutrition by launching mental wellness services integrated directly into the app. This strategic move allowed the company to tap into a fast-growing wellness market often underserved by traditional fitness apps.

• Healthify Studio: During the COVID-19 pandemic, a live online workout platform was launched to replicate in-person fitness sessions (Cult.fit’s recorded sessions were launched during the same time). With interactive live classes and personalized fitness plans, Healthify Studio became one of the company’s most successful growth levers.

Pandemic-driven fitness consciousness led to subscription spikes and increased retention, helping HealthifyMe cross 35 million users globally.

As a part of the plan to create an ecosystem for consumers looking for healthy living, the company is also experimenting with healthy food, which includes staples, snacks, and supplements.

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Endorsements & Partnerships

HealthifyMe’s growth wasn’t just product-driven—it was partner-powered.

• Celebrity Campaigns: Brand ambassadors like Farah Akhtar, and Sara Ali Khan help boost visibility through outdoor, print and tv ads, and improve user acquisition.

• “Fitpicks” with Swiggy: Users can choose to order healthy meals from curated restaurants within Swiggy.

• Milkbasket: Grocery orders through Milkbasket made healthy eating more convenient.

• Fitternity: Provided access to 12,000+ gyms and fitness studios encouraged active lifestyles.

  

Looking Ahead: Healthifying a Billion People

After dominating the Indian Health-tech market and establishing a strong foothold in the South East Asia and, HealthifyMe is now setting its sights on high-value global markets. With a significant portion of its revenue still coming from India, the company identified an untapped opportunity in regions with higher disposable incomes and premium health-conscious consumers.

Backed by the latest $45M funding round in 2023, HealthifyMe is advancing its industry-leading AI capabilities while expanding into the US and Europe—the world’s most lucrative health and fitness markets. The team has already completed successful alpha tests in the US and is gearing up for a major launch in the coming months.

The company’s strength lies in its ability to adapt- customizing its services for different languages, food cultures, and fitness habits. This cultural sensitivity will enable HealthifyMe to become a truly global player in the health-tech space.

“After delivering outcomes at scale in India with our unique blend of AI and human coaching, we’re thrilled to bring this approach to the US, the world’s largest health and fitness market.”

— Tushar Vashisht, Founder, HealthifyMe.

The goal remains to “healthify a billion people”. And to be profitable doing it - HealthifyMe is on track to become EBITDA-positive by the end of FY25.

Thanks for reading! 😄

One Step Ahead is a publication by Plotline. With this series, we plan to give you a behind-the-scenes breakdown of the product and growth strategies that have propelled consumer apps to where they are today.

Enter Getaround, a company that didn’t just disrupt the rental industry- it reimagined how we think about cars altogether. But this wasn’t just about filling a market gap.

Solving for trust, navigating insurance complexities, and creating the tech infrastructure to make car-sharing effortless were all part of rewriting the rules of car-sharing.

Let’s dive into how Getaround became a trailblazer in shared mobility.

🧩 From Gap to Growth

With most cars sitting idle 95% of the time—30 billion hours wasted daily—Getaround saw an opportunity to turn these idle vehicles into income generators.

Instead of building and managing an expensive fleet, Getaround introduced a peer-to-peer model, enabling private car owners to rent out their vehicles. The result? A scalable, hyperlocal, and cost-effective service that addresses the shortcomings of traditional rentals.

• For car owners: Extra income from idle vehicles

• For renters: Access to cars for anything from quick errands to luxury trials

Users can filter their searches by vehicle type, size, transmission type, and special features (e.g., pet-friendly or equipped with bike racks) to find the perfect match for their needs.

Sustainability at the Core

From the start, Getaround positioned itself as more than a tech company—its “access over ownership” philosophy became a driving force for change in urban mobility. This approach aligns with broader efforts to reduce carbon footprints and ease urban congestion. Here’s how:

• Maximizing vehicle utilization: By optimizing the use of existing cars, Getaround reduces the need for new ones, cutting down on manufacturing emissions (Studies show that shared mobility can reduce CO2 emissions by up to 40%).

• Reducing urban congestion: Shared cars mean fewer vehicles clogging city streets.

• Green mobility: Getaround is expanding its electric vehicle (EV) fleet, positioning itself as a leader in sustainable transportation.

Zeroing in on Urban Markets

It strategically focused on urban markets, where the demand for cars is high, but the challenges of ownership—such as purchasing, maintenance, and insurance—make it a hassle.

By offering a flexible, on-demand alternative, Getaround became an attractive option for city dwellers seeking to access vehicles for quick errands, weekend getaways, or even luxury experiences without the long-term financial commitment and the environmental footprint of unnecessary car ownership.

This model not only made car-sharing more affordable, but it also allowed users to save an average of $1,800 per year compared to owning a car.

👥 Winning Early Adopters

Getaround’s breakthrough moment came in 2011 at TechCrunch Disrupt, where it won the Startup Battlefield competition. This early visibility didn’t just attract press—it sparked interest from early adopters who appreciated:

• Lower costs compared to traditional car rentals

• Access to unique vehicles (Rent a Tesla for an hour, anyone?)

• A sense of contributing to a more sustainable economy

This grassroots appeal quickly caught the eye of investors, helping Getaround raise a $10M Series A by 2012 and expand into new cities like Portland, Chicago, and Austin. The funds also fueled their referral program- when a referred friend lists their first car, the referrer earns a $200 bonus. Additionally, the referrer receives 25% of the referred host's earnings for the first 60 days after listing a vehicle.

This program sparked viral growth, accelerating the platform’s scale and attracting even more users who saw the value in a more efficient, flexible, and eco-friendly alternative to car ownership.

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📜 Building a Regulatory Moat

Traditional insurance models weren’t designed for peer-to-peer car sharing, and disrupting this industry required overcoming significant regulatory hurdles. To address the liability concerns, Getaround's co-founder, Jessica Scorpio, led an initiative to pass legislation clarifying insurance requirements for car-sharing services.

This effort resulted in California's AB 1871 law, which defined how insurance should be structured for peer-to-peer car-sharing platforms. It mandated that car-sharing companies maintain specific levels of coverage during rentals, creating a safer environment for both car owners and renters.

This legislation also gave Getaround the credibility to secure partnerships with major insurers like Berkshire Hathaway, further legitimizing the platform and ensuring coverage for both parties.

More recently, Getaround has continued to innovate by integrating technology into its insurance model. Collaborations with companies like Axle now allow renters to use their car insurance while renting vehicles through Getaround, offering greater flexibility and potentially reducing costs by up to 15%.

👩‍💻 Tech That Builds Trust

Earlier car-sharing platforms faltered because they didn’t address the core frictions: trust and convenience.

A. Getaround Connect tackled this by allowing renters to unlock cars directly via their phones—eliminating the awkwardness of key exchanges or delays.

B. In partnership with TransUnion, Getaround developed TrustScore AI, which uses AI to analyze user behaviour, assess risk, and enhance pricing accuracy. By matching renters with trustworthy owners, it has reduced claims costs by up to 50%, making the business model more sustainable.

Getaround also integrates several additional features to build trust:

• Verified profiles to ensure reliability for the renters as well as the owners.

• Real-time damage checks before and after trips to provide transparency and protect both parties.

• Automated dispute resolution tools to streamline conflict resolution, reducing the need for lengthy interactions.

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🤝 Partnerships to Scale

Strategic collaborations have played a crucial role in Getaround's rapid expansion and increased credibility- helped solidify Getaround's position in both the gig economy and the broader car-sharing market, making their platform more accessible and appealing to users.

A. Uber: Democratizing the Gig Economy

First launched in SF in May 2017, Getaround’s rideshare-ready rentals provide Uber drivers with an affordable, convenient option to access “ride-share” ready cars on-demand that can be used for driving with Uber at just $5/hour.

Seamlessly integrating car-sharing with the ride-hailing ecosystem, Getaround not only provided a cost-effective solution but also addressed the growing demand for flexible mobility options.

We’ve seen rapid and consistent car-sharing adoption in each of these cities — that, in conjunction with Uber’s successes in those markets, and we knew these would be great expansion markets as we continue iterating and planning for future growth. - Greg Shay, Director of business development, Getaround

B. Toyota: A Technological Leap

Initiated in 2016, Getaround’s partnership with Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, began with its participation in Getaround’s $45 million Series C funding round. The collaboration aimed to combine their technological strengths to deliver a seamless and innovative car-sharing experience, benefiting both renters and car owners.

• It combined Getaround’s connected car technology with Toyota's Mobility Service Platform and Bluetooth-enabled Smart Key Box, allowing renters to locate, access, and drive vehicles without a physical key.

• New Toyota leaseholders could offset their monthly payments through rental income on Getaround, making ownership financially viable and encouraging participation in the car-sharing ecosystem.

Beyond technology, the partnership was rooted in a shared vision to promote sustainable urban living by tackling vehicle underutilization, traffic congestion, and CO2 emissions through expanded car-sharing in dense urban areas.

This collaboration also reflects a broader industry shift: as car ownership declines among younger generations, automakers are pivoting to mobility services to engage with consumers.

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🛣️ The Road Ahead

In 2019, Getaround acquired Drivy, Europe’s leading car-sharing platform, significantly expanding its global footprint. By 2023, acquisitions like HyreCar’s assets enhanced its position in the gig economy, enabling operations in over 1,000 cities across eight countries, including the U.S., France, Spain, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Norway, and the UK.

That same year, Getaround went public, trading under GETR on the NYSE—solidifying its position as an industry leader and showcasing the scalability of the peer-to-peer model.

With the rise of electric vehicles (EVs) and a growing global focus on sustainable transportation, Getaround is well-positioned to capitalize on the shift toward greener mobility. The company’s expanding fleet of EVs, along with its efforts to integrate more smart technology into its platform, positions Getaround for success in the future of car-sharing within an eco-conscious world.

The future of mobility is not only connected—it’s shared.

Thanks for reading! 😄

One Step Ahead is a publication by Plotline. With this series, we plan to give you a behind-the-scenes breakdown of the product and growth strategies that have propelled consumer apps to where they are today.

Founded in 2015 by 3 brothers, accepted into YC in 2016, and sold for $1B+ in 2021- their growth has been nothing short of meteoric. Let’s dig in.

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🎯 The Genesis

The Mokhtarzada brothers had been starting “companies” together ever since they were kids. Lemonade stands, lawn mowing services, snow shoveling.

And then came Truebill.

I looked at my credit card statement one day and saw a charge of $40 for in-flight wi-fi. I thought, “That's odd. I didn't fly this month.” I started digging in and realized I had paid $40 a month for 14 months before I caught it. My brother had the same experience with home security. So we set out to solve a pain point. - Yahya Mokhtarzada, CRO

Truebill started with a fundamental recognition - managing money is hard, and most people need help doing it effectively.

Especially when it comes to recurring but unwanted subscriptions.

To start using the app, a user connects their bank account. Then, Truebill analyses transactions and categorises them. A user can swipe through potential subscriptions to cancel upcoming bill charges as well as cancel auto spending month over month. The application additionally pulls out spending trends and helps users create a budget.

💡 Differentiating in the crowded fintech space

At the time, Crunchbase had over 1000 startups listed under the personal finance space, but very few were focused particularly on subscription savings.

The biggest competitor was Mint (acquired by Intuit in 2009), a budgeting app. While not specifically built for subscription management, it could categorize your expenses, and you could find unwanted expenses yourself.

However, several Mint users would complain about faulty categorization. For a budgeting app that helps you understand your spending breakdown, this is pretty damning.

Rocket Money differentiated itself through several key product decisions:

PMF was extremely strong. One user reported saving:

• $660 annually on DirectTV

• $120 annually on SiriusXM

• $840 annually on car insurance

They gradually added features like Automated budgeting, Smart savings, Credit monitoring, Bill negotiation, and Net worth tracking.

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🧪 Offline Marketing Mix

From the outset, the team recognized that traditional marketing channels could complement their digital acquisition efforts, but only if executed strategically. They didn't just throw money at billboards and TV - they brought the same data-driven rigour that defined their product development.

The team prioritized optimizing and scaling core channels before exploring new ones, strongly believing that there is always untapped potential for scale in existing channels.

1️⃣ The Scientific Method of Channel Testing

Rather than following industry "best practices," they started fresh with each channel, focusing on ease of scalability, measurement ease, and minimum required spends for quality learning.

You can’t just throw a bunch of money at a channel and hope for the best. You need to test, measure, and learn. - Ty Conner, Senior Director of Growth Marketing Offline at Rocket Money

Their philosophy was simple but powerful - even a marketing test that lost money or had a 0% ROAS was successful if it provided clear, actionable data and learnings.

2️⃣ The Out-of-Home Innovation

Instead of splashing their logo on Times Square, they zeroed in on "high dwell-time" locations - places where people had time to think about their finances:

• Subway station platforms over fleeting highway billboards

• Coffee shop partnerships in financial districts

But the real innovation was in measurement. They developed a system of 20+ geographic holdout tests and surveys that could isolate the impact of OOH advertising with precision.

What started as cautious experimentation evolved into a sophisticated multi-channel strategy. Each channel reinforced the others:

• Streaming and linear TV ads built brand awareness

• OOH placements served as consistent reminders

• Digital retargeting closed the loop

This methodical approach to marketing helped them stand out in an increasingly crowded fintech landscape to the top of the app store charts and contributed to their eventual acquisition by Rocket Companies.

💰 Monetization with a User-First Philosophy

Rocket Money’s monetization strategy breaks away from traditional revenue-maximizing tactics, opting instead for a user-first philosophy that prioritizes trust, empowerment, and tangible value, helping them acquire and retain users.

1️⃣ Pay-As-You-Wish Premium: Freedom to Choose

The premium model is unconventional—users decide how much they want to pay (between $6 and $12) for advanced features. This approach is rooted in behavioural economics and psychology.

• Empowers choice: Users feel in control, reducing resistance to upgrades.

• Builds trust: Reciprocity encourages users to pay fairly when they see value.

• Pricing insights: User data helps optimize pricing while retaining goodwill

2️⃣ Bill Negotiation Service: Pay Only for Value

Rocket Money’s success-based model ensures users only pay a percentage of the savings it negotiates on their behalf.

• Risk-free value: Users pay nothing upfront, making it an easy decision to try the service.

• Immediate benefits: Savings on recurring expenses like internet or phone bills showcase the app's tangible impact.

• Stronger engagement: Real financial wins encourage users to stay engaged with the app for continued savings.

By giving users control and ensuring they pay only for real benefits, the platform aligns its revenue model with the needs and success of its users, creating a win-win dynamic that fosters loyalty and growth.

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🚀 Acquisition by Rocket Companies: Enter Rocket Money

In late 2021, Rocket Companies announced the acquisition of Truebill for $1.275B.

What was the strategic rationale behind the acquisition?

1. Diversification of revenue

   1. Adds consistent monthly recurring revenue to complement Rocket’s transaction-based mortgage business

   2. Helps reduce Rocket's dependence on cyclical mortgage revenue

2. Armed to compete in the Fintech SuperApp wars

   1. Part of Rocket's vision to create a centralized destination for consumers' entire financial lives

   2. Aids transformation from a digital lender to a comprehensive fintech platform

As part of the transition, Truebill rebranded to Rocket Money. This was in line with how the company had evolved over the last few years. From managing subscription bills to becoming a full-stack financial management platform.

🔮 Future Outlook

Rocket Money continues to innovate with:

• Integration of AI tools for enhanced customer experience

• Focus on homeownership-related financial services

• Strategic evaluation of M&A opportunities to accelerate growth

Under the leadership of CEO Varun Krishna (former executive at Intuit and PayPal), the company maintains its focus on becoming the comprehensive platform for all money management needs

Today, Rocket Money has helped over 5 million members save more than 1 billion dollars through smart money management features.

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Thanks for reading! 😄

One Step Ahead is a publication by Plotline. With this series, we plan to give you a behind-the-scenes breakdown of the product and growth strategies that have propelled consumer apps to where they are today.

At the time of their $58M Series B in 2021, Titan was close to managing $1B in assets across their members, and was valued at a staggering ~$450M.💰

A behemoth in asset management today, Titan started off with extremely humble beginnings.

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Entering the market with “Flagship” ⛳️

Titan rode two undercurrents to enter the market:

1. A nearly wholesale shift away from “defined benefit” plans like pensions towards diversified, personalized investment strategies

2. Rise of next-gen financially-savvy consumers, who are drawn to mobile-first, open-access investment platforms

Before Titan, access to direct portfolio managers would require a $1M minimum in assets.

And so the team launched “Flagship”, an actively managed equity strategy of large cap US stocks, built and managed by Titan’s in-house investment team. The goal with this strategy was to beat the market benchmark over a long-term time horizon.

“While technology has penetrated several sectors of consumer finance, a trusted investment management platform for coming generations has yet to emerge,” - Joe Percoco, founder and co-CEO of Titan.

Differentiating in a crowded space with managed investments and zero fees 💰

Titan didn’t stop with equities. They planned on democratizing access to a whole slew of asset classes not typically available to retail investors.

Products like hedge funds and venture capital have high minimums and high fees that make them inaccessible to most investors. Additionally, most retail investors lack the know-how to choose the right investments.

Titan innovated on two fronts to solve a real need felt by a large proportion of investors:

1. It makes a number of alternative asset classes like real estate, private credit, venture capital, etc available to retail investors at an affordable price.

2. It bridges the knowledge gap with its research team working behind the scenes to help deliver market insights through in-app videos, deep dives, and other tools.

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Strategy and tactics behind a Titan-ic valuation of $450M 📈

Titan has grown to over 50k high LTV users on the back of great product innovations, quality content and free tools for top-of-funnel acquisition.

Smart Cash: Moves your money automatically

Titan has grown on a near-zero marketing budget due to its continuous innovation on delivering products that solve real pain points.

“Smart Cash” was born from Clayton’s personal pain of fighting inflation. It helps an investors cash earn the most it can instead of sitting in a savings account earning next to nothing.

It scans rates across cash equivalents, factors in the user’s individual tax details and calculates the anticipated highest yield not only before, but after, taxes. When a better option is found, Smart Cash automatically moves the user’s money.

Bringing truth to a fragmented content landscape

In Titan’s early days, they found that media (news outlets, financial media, Bloomberg, CBC) was underused in the active investments segment. If a user managed to find content on a topic, different resources pointed in different directions and there was no clear source of truth.

Noticing this whitespace, Titan jumped into the content landscape to bring together fragmented topics, with a goal of educating the user and building trust in the brand.

They routinely put out in-app videos 📺, email newsletters, explanatory articles, and image carousels. This content was heavily forwarded by their users to other prospective users.

Hackathon idea “Ask Titan Anything” takes off

Great ideas can come from anywhere. Especially hackathons.

Titan’s “Ask Me Anything” gives real-time Q&A and research commentary about positions in the market and investment decisions. Investors submit questions to the team’s analysts, and the Q&A is publicly distributed. A user can ask questions like:

• “What's driving the rise in coal-related stocks?”

• “Atlassian (TEAM) was at record highs a little over 2 years ago but is down 40% since then. It seems like a promising stock, what is your outlook?”

• “Any thoughts on Google after its most recent earnings?”

Titan stands out by allowing direct access to investment analysts, providing insights on specific stocks, and openly sharing research on topics like semiconductor disruptions, crypto fluctuations, growth stock valuations, and big tech earnings.

Free tools for top-of-funnel acquisition

The team has built tools like “free wealth and investment calculators” to attract top-of-funnel users. These tools attract users who have the intent to solve problems that Titan can help with.

By educating users 📚 about possible returns on their investments using an actively managed portfolio, these tools build motivation in users which nudges them to explore Titan’s offerings and possible returns.

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Next up, become the complete wealth membership experience ➡️

While Titan started by providing investment opportunities to retail investors, they were only solving a small piece of the bigger puzzle. Outside of Titan, a user’s wealth was fragmented across multiple apps 🙁 with no guidance or unified philosophy on how to grow it well.

With their latest launch, Titan now offers a diversified set of active and passive investments across asset classes, on-demand advice from an experienced wealth team, and a brand new ecosystem of what they call “Access”.

“Access” is a personal concierge that gets the user into coveted hotspots in dining, nightlife, fitness, and more.

Sold-out concert? Not a problem. Titan can get you in. These are experiences people rave about.

Early-to-mid career professionals are set to inherit trillions of dollars 💰 in assets in the coming decade, and Titan is set up perfectly as the go-to investment management platform to capture on this shift.

Thanks for reading! 😄

One Step Ahead is a publication by Plotline. With this series, we plan to give you a behind-the-scenes breakdown of the product and growth strategies that have propelled consumer apps to where they are today.

We’re back in 2023 with some cool growth experiments 🔬 for you to try. If you’ve run other experiments to great success (or failure, as long as you’re learning about your customers you’re doing experimentation well), let us know in the comments!

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Most companies have a “set-it-and-forget-it” 😩 pricing strategy. But pricing can be a significant lever to drive growth.

Here are some ways to experiment with your pricing page or plans to increase 📈purchases, signups, downloads, revenue, etc.

Social proof your pricing page with recent purchase or signup data 👨‍💻

Add recent buying or signup data on your pricing page. Check if signups/demo bookings/purchases increase after adding this social proof.

At every stage of the user journey, you’re trying to add motivation 👌 for the user to go on to the next step, which could be add to cart, signup, etc. By providing social proof on your pricing page, you’re adding motivation to counteract any friction caused by your pricing plan.

This tactic works well for e-commerce, D2C brands, mobile apps, or SaaS businesses with high volume signups.

Here's how Basecamp, a project management software does it.

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Use anchoring ⚓️ for your pricing plans

Show the most expensive subscription plan first (the anchor) so that other plans look inexpensive in comparison 😁.

Anchoring is the psychological bias to overemphasize the first piece of information (or price) presented to us. This strongly influences how we perceive additional information.

Perhaps the best example would be how Apple 🍎 showcases its prices, with the Pro version (the most expensive) being the first one you see on the left.

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Use the decoy effect 🏴‍☠️

When choosing between two alternatives, the addition of a third, less attractive option (the decoy) can influence our perception 🧠 of the first two choices.

Companies include "decoy" options to highlight the value of their target (usually highest margin) options. Generally, companies have little intent to actually sell the decoy.

A decoy looks similar but is slightly less appealing than the target.

Here’s how theatre popcorn 🍿 uses this effect. The large size is the target option with the highest margin. Without the medium option, you are making a decision based on how much you want to eat. Now add the medium-size decoy.

With only a 50 cent increase between the Medium and Large, the perceived value versus the price for the large is huge, making it hard to pass up.

The Economist used one of the most obvious decoys ever, and it still worked 🤔. Here is their pricing:

The Economist wanted to drive purchases of the highly profitable 3rd option, Print & Web subscription. But at $125, at over 2X the price of the base Web subscription, it wasn't lucrative 🤷‍♂️ to most customers. The company added the Print Only option as a decoy, at the same price as the Print & Web.

This decoy looks so obvious that it shouldn’t have worked. But it did. 🤯

Customers were no longer comparing the $59 Web only plan with the $125 Print and Web plan. Rather, they were now comparing the Print only plan at $125 against the Print and Web subscription plan at $125.

The magazine supposedly increased its sales by 43% 📈 after this pricing strategy.

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That’s it for this one! Thanks for joining us! And while you’re here, remember, there are only 3 rules to life:

1. Be kind to everyone you meet

2. Don’t take yourself too seriously

3. Drink lots of water

See you next week!

We released Part 1 to this a couple of months ago, and we’re now back with two more ways to validate demand for your product without actually building it.

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Build a viral tool that mirrors the intent of your product 🧑‍💻

Calm is a $2B meditation app. Their origins can be traced back to a simple website, which urged you to sit back and do nothing 🧘 for 2 minutes. This went viral on Twitter in early 2011.

But it doesn’t stop at making a website and driving traffic 🚗 in hopes of conversion. Here’s why it worked for Calm:

1. The website represents the crux of what would later become Calm. It encourages you to relax and be present - which is key to meditation and mindfulness

2. Only if you manage to sit through the 2 minutes without touching your mouse, keyboard, etc can you drop your email, filtering out low-intent traffic. Alex captured ~100k high-intent emails for Calm before building a product 🙌

3. A number of these emails on the website became early adopters for Calm. The closer the viral product is to your core product, the better your conversions.

Validating demand with a blog/newsletter 📕

The concept behind Product Hunt was simple: to build a community for product people to share, discover, and discuss new products.

But it would take quite a bit of effort 👷 to build the actual product. Ryan needed to validate that people actually wanted what he was building.

How could he bring his idea to market sooner to test his hypothesis?

Ryan logged into Linkydink (a tool to create a group and invite people to share links with other contributors and subscribers. Each day, the collection of posts is emailed to the group) and invited a few of his startup friends to contribute 🤝. He wrote a quick blog post and tweeted announcing this initial version of Product Hunt.

Within 20 minutes, he had an MVP 🤯. Here’s how it worked:

1. Contributors submit a link to their product discovery using Makeshift’s linkydink tool.

2. Once per day, the collection of products and links are emailed to subscribers with the attribution of who made the submission.

“I created this collaborative list called Product Hunt and invited maybe a couple dozen people I knew to join,” says Hoover. “They worked at startups, or were just people I knew. I didn’t market it heavily, but people seemed to like it right away. Soon, I had a couple hundred subscribers and people started coming up to me to talk about how much they enjoyed getting the email every day.”

In just two weeks, 170+ people 👩‍👦 subscribed to product discoveries from 30 hand-picked contributors, consisting of startup founders, VCs, and prominent bloggers.

This traction was encouraging, especially considering the minimalism of the “Linkydink MVP” and the lack of marketing.

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Thanks for joining us! And while you’re here, remember, there are only 3 rules to life:

1. Be kind to everyone you meet

2. Don’t take yourself too seriously

3. Drink lots of water

See you next week!

In his essay, Sachin Rekhi, founder and CEO at Notejoy, details the hierarchy of user friction. There are 2 layers above the base layer 🔺, which largely go unsolved.

Today, we’ll deep dive into what each type of friction is and look at specific examples from products that have significantly reduced these 3 types of friction.

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Interaction Friction

The friction experienced by a user when interacting with your product’s interface. This relates to UI aspects that hinder your users 🧗‍♀️ from accomplishing their goal. Imagine Google autocomplete whenever you make a search. Google reduces the work you have to do by predicting your search.

Other common examples include reducing steps in a form field to the bare minimum needed and having a prominent call-to-action 📞 so users are clear on the next step they should take.

The recent wave of buy-now-pay-later companies have significantly reduced interaction friction associated with payments by making checkout a 1-click process.

Cognitive Friction

Cognitive friction is directly proportional to the mental effort 🧠 being used to complete a task.

Consider the task of notetaking. Before apps like Evernote, Notion and the like, there was significant cognitive load in regards to making notes. You were worried 😩 about always having your notepad handy, there was an underlying concern about losing or damaging your notes, and you couldn’t make significant changes to previous notes.

Digital notetaking 📝 removes this entire bucket of cognitive friction by making your notes always accessible, stored on the cloud so there’s no concern about damage, and ofcourse, easily editable so you can update notes as you gain more knowledge.

Another great example of reducing cognitive friction is a baby monitor 👩‍🍼. It is a device which allows you to hear or monitor your baby, when you are not around him/her. A baby monitor can offer audio or video data of your infant. These devices can also track breathing, temperature, and heart rate of the infant to provide you a more thorough picture of your baby’s health.

This significantly reduces the cognitive load a parent 👩‍👦 would feel when away from their child, worried about how their baby is doing. Now, they get direct line of contact to keep track of their baby.

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Emotional Friction

Perhaps the deepest level of friction, emotional friction 🥶 refers to emotions your users feel that prevent them from accomplishing their goals. These are often the most difficult to understand and hence also the most difficult to address.

When we discussed the rise of BeReal, we noted that one of the reasons BeReal has exploded in popularity is because of the extremely low emotional bar to share a photo.

While you can have over 1,000 followers on Instagram, you’d probably only have 20 friends on BeReal, and you’d be happy with that. While some people might be hesitant to share themselves sleep-deprived 🥱 with thousands of vague acquaintances on Instagram, it’s much easier to share with your closest friends on BeReal.

Another example is the async video 🎥 communication platform, Loom. Loom’s goal is to make communicating at work simpler, reducing meetings where possible. But a lot of its users face camera shyness.

Rather than focus on what I had to share, I got distracted by the process of videotaping the message. How do I make eye contact? Is this awkward? Why don’t I like the way my face looks? 😩 Sometimes, I would end up recording Looms multiple times to get the right take. I didn't know how to not be awkward on camera. - Paulius Dragunas, Senior Engineering Manager at Loom

Loom combats this emotional friction by designing the app to focus not on the person recording the video (you are a small bubble on the corner of the screen), but rather maintaining focus on the task at hand.

And that’s it! Next time you design a flow, or revamp your product experience, keep in mind that you need to solve for more than just interaction friction 😁.

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That’s it for this Spotlight. Thanks for joining us!

And while you’re here, remember, there are only 3 rules to life:

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If you're looking to improve your own onboarding experience, and are looking for some inspiration, you've come to the right place.

The food delivery app: DoorDash

One of the biggest stages of friction, when you download a new mobile app, is the initial sign-up phase.

The process of signing up and the associated friction can’t be skipped, but can you transfer this friction to a later stage - to a point where you’ve already delivered some value to the user?

DoorDash’s onboarding shifts the friction associated with signing up closer to the end of the user journey, to get more new users to place their first order as quickly as possible.

DoorDash’s initial signup page has the regular email and Google signup options, but it also includes an option for continuing as a guest.

This is brilliant because DoorDash can let users explore its value - browse restaurants in their location and even add items to their cart - without signing up. Only when you need to place your order are you asked to fill in your address and other details.

If possible, you can also experiment with your onboarding flow to check if significant points of friction (such as signing up) can be backloaded to the later stage of the user journey, to a point after your users have seen value.

The mental fitness app: Calm

Calm is a meditation and relaxation app. If you ever use Calm, you’ll notice it starts delivering value immediately - right when the app is loading!

Calm’s onboarding has a few steps, including questions about my goals for joining (meditation, managing stress, sleeping better, etc). Due to this slightly longer onboarding, they have included some social proofing midway to motivate users to finish onboarding.

Very soon, I’m introduced to the home screen. An aesthetically pleasing design.

The background matches well with what the app promises to do: help us relax and dissolve all stress and anxiety.

But if you’ll notice, the first Daily Calm session is locked away, and only accessible to Premium users. It would be worth testing to show recommendations that users can actually spend time on, without having to commit to a Premium plan. The principle always being to deliver value before you ask for a commitment.

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That’s it for this Spotlight. Thanks for joining us!

And while you’re here, remember, there are only 3 rules to life:

1. Be kind to everyone you meet

2. Don’t take yourself too seriously

3. Drink lots of water

See you next week!

DropBox 📤 was perhaps the most well-known at the time, known for its ease of use and broad consumer appeal. Given this consumer focus, DropBox didn’t invest as heavily in enterprise features and standards demanded by IT departments in large companies.

Meanwhile, Microsoft SharePoint 📋 was the widely used file-sharing application in the enterprise. But despite the name recognition of Microsoft, SharePoint simply wasn’t as streamlined or intuitive as either Box or DropBox.

It was this gap in the enterprise segment that Box wanted to capitalise on. How could they win in this scenario? 🤔

It utilised a technique called Creating the Competition, as described by Geoffrey Moore in his book, Crossing the Chasm. You position your company using two competitors as beacons 💡so the market can easily locate your company’s unique value proposition.

Box used Sharepoint as a market alternative and DropBox as its product alternative.

The market alternative is a vendor your customer has been using for years, it solves the same use cases and takes up the same budget that you will go after. The product alternative is a competitor who has a similar tech offering as you do, but you can stand out from them by calling out a specific target market focus.

By calling out SharePoint as its market alternative, Box makes it clear that it solves the same problem, and the budget directed to SharePoint can now be allocated to Box because of its superior value proposition 🙌.

DropBox served as the product alternative, showcasing that Box too solved for radical ease of use in file-sharing, but Box could come out as superior for the needs of the IT departments by focusing on its heavy enterprise standards.

Box positioned itself as the best of both worlds: The ease of use of DropBox meets the enterprise security and controls of SharePoint.

Box still has to deliver on its promises, but it does not have to struggle to explain its value proposition to the enterprises.

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That’s it for this Spotlight. Thanks for joining us!

And while you’re here, remember, there are only 3 rules to life:

1. Be kind to everyone you meet

2. Don’t take yourself too seriously

3. Drink lots of water

See you next week!

Every startup has only four scalable customer acquisition channels available to them, namely - paid ads, SEO, virality and sales. These are the only channels with a high ceiling that also allow for compounding results 📈.

Other channels have low ceilings, easily saturate and don’t yield compounding results. Email marketing depends on your email list (which also can get saturated quickly if you keep blasting emails), going viral on social media is hard to replicate, PR only leads to spikes in traffic and doesn’t compound, etc.

Now, consider the fact that not all four will actually work for you. The channel that you can use to grow is uniquely dependent on your product and your monetization model.

This is the reason most startups fail 📉 at getting good distribution.

“Most businesses get zero distribution channels to work: poor sales rather than bad product is the most common cause of failure. If you can get just one distribution channel to work, you have a great business. If you try for several but don’t nail one, you’re finished.” - Peter Thiel, Zero to One.

Let’s consider different channels and see why they might work for your startup:

1. Virality 🦠: Needs very low time-to-value, free to very low ticket-sizes and the product’s value prop should be applicable to a high % of the user’s network

2. User-generated content 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦: Product usage should allow users to generate content, which they should be motivated enough to share themselves, or the product itself should distribute it via SEO

3. Paid marketing 📣: Needs low time-to-value, low to medium ticket-size and upfront payments to fund next cycle of paid marketing

4. Sales 🤝: Best works for high ticket-size B2B SaaS companies with long negotiation cycles before closure

All fast-growing companies have achieved major scale through one of these 4 scalable channels which was uniquely suited to their circumstances:

1. Whatsapp scaled via organic invites (virality) - free product coupled with an inherent need for a user to invite their friends to chat 💬 with them

2. Dropbox 📤 scaled through a well-executed referral program (virality) - free product, users come to get storage and are incentivised with more storage if they invite their friends

3. Quora scaled with user generated content distributed via SEO - users come to Quora, write answers 🙋‍♀️ to questions from other users, and Quora distributes these answers through SEO, which enables more users on google to find them

4. Booking.com scaled with performance marketing 📣 - High search volume for keywords like “hotels in Paris”, multiplied hundreds of times for all the different cities and locations, enabled them to take advantage of Google Adwords. Tools like Supabot help companies create beautiful ads in minutes, without hiring expensive agencies. Ad creation is only going to get easier.

5. Veeva grew almost exclusively via sales - they sell $1M+ ARR 🤑 contracts to life sciences companies which need very long negotiation cycles, and this high ticket-size easily supports an enterprise sales team

Which distribution channel will you use to grow? Let us know in the comments.

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Why are some products like Evernote so hard to leave, while others like Tinder are uninstalled all the time? 🤔

Sarah Tavel’s Hierarchy of Engagement explains the mechanics behind creating sticky consumer products.

You must satisfy two criteria to build a sticky consumer product:

1. The product experience should get better as the user engages more with it (accruing benefits)

2. Continuous engagement should also make it harder for the user to leave (mounting losses)

The first condition is quite prevalent now. In a nutshell, it’s about using data to personalise and improve the user’s experience 📲.

Consider LinkedIn. You use it to build a following or connect with relevant people in your network. The more requests you send out, the more personalised content you see, status updates you get, etc. Your experience gets better the more you use it (accruing benefits).

What’s more interesting is the 2nd point, on mounting losses. We can again look at LinkedIn. To move away from LinkedIn would mean losing your network, which, if you’re serious about your professional network, you’ve probably built by investing lots of time and effort.

Many products fail at building mounting losses. For example, food delivery 🍔 apps like DoorDash in the US or Zomato/Swiggy in India have little to no barriers to leaving. With every order you make, the app inherently doesn’t make it harder for you to leave their platform. However, their recent efforts towards building subscription models are a way these apps are looking to lock in users for longer.

Products like Notion and Evernote succeed on both fronts. The more I store in Notion, the more value I am likely to get when I want to reference past material (accruing benefits). On the other hand, Notion now operates as a second brain 🧠 for a number of people, and they can’t imagine life without it. They’d lose all that information if they had to leave (mounting losses).

To build an engaged user base that retains on your product for longer, not only do you need to build accruing benefits, but you also need to create mounting losses. 😄

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This one stat blows our mind. 34% of startups fail due to never finding product-market fit. 🤯

Well, in hindsight, given how difficult it is to achieve PMF, is it so surprising?

If you could somehow test your hypothesis quickly, without spending months on development, that would be pretty neat.

Today, we look at two companies that used out-of-the-box solutions to validate their market and product.

A company which validated demand with strong excitement 🤩

Dropbox validated its product with a simple explainer video. Back in 2007, founder Drew Houston was working on building a prototype, but he knew it wasn’t ready for a public launch yet. He still wanted to gauge whether the file sync problem would be felt by others as well.

So he recorded a video of his prototype, demonstrating its main features and use cases. He released his Dropbox explainer video MVP to Hacker News. At the bottom of the video was a form to join the waiting list for the private beta.

The Dropbox explainer video MVP showed how you could instantaneously make a change on one computer and see it reflected live online. They grew their beta waiting list from 5,000 to 75,000 overnight 🤯.

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A company which validated demand with strong willingness to pay

Buffer - a product that helps you post to Twitter more consistently - validated demand for their idea with a simple 2-page MVP test as below.

They saw people clicking through and giving their emails, so they knew that people would probably want what they were building. But they also wanted to know whether people would shell money out of their pocket for this product.

So how did they check willingness to pay? This was as simple as adding another page in between with free and paid plan options, even though these plans were not operational yet (there was no product yet either 🥶).

When they saw people still submitting emails and that too after clicking on the paid plans 💰, that was enough conviction for them to start building the product.

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That’s it for this Spotlight. Thanks for joining us!

And while you’re here, remember, there are only 3 rules to life:

1. Be kind to everyone you meet

2. Don’t take yourself too seriously

3. Drink lots of water

See you next week!

Think SEO is outdated? Maybe if you’re doing it like everybody else.

Product Hunt, a website that curates the best new products, has established itself as the go-to place for:

1. Tech enthusiasts eagerly looking to discover new products

2. The makers of these products to gain traction and validation from the market

On the way, it’s managed to build one of the most authoritative websites having a domain rating of 90 with over 100M backlinks. How exactly did it manage to do this?

It’s common knowledge today how Typeform managed to build over 100M backlinks. You embed a Typeform on your website, and that form has a code snippet which links directly to Typeform’s website, effectively working as a backlink.

What many don’t know is that Product Hunt used broadly this same tactic, albeit in a novel way more suited to their product. 🤓

The secret to their success? Badges. Yup. These little things.

Product Hunt gives out badges for many categories - Product of the Day, Product of the Week, etc.

These badges serve three purposes:

1. For the badge receiver, it’s social proof that their product was found to be one of the best by the tech community

2. Increase Product Hunt’s visibility to everyone landing on the page

3. Perhaps most importantly, serve as direct backlinks to Product Hunt’s website, increasing their domain authority

Over time, Product Hunt accumulated millions of backlinks across thousands of domains that now proudly show off these badges 🥇.

To double down on this strategy, they now let websites even add a “featured on Product Hunt” badge, further increasing their visibility and website authority.

Anyone with a post on Product Hunt can add this badge to their website, even if they haven’t been featured on the homepage.

Quick takeaway: The best tech companies are able to use already established channels like SEO in new ways that align with their product to leapfrog past their competitors. 🚀

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That’s it for this Spotlight. Thanks for joining us!

And while you’re here, remember, there are only 3 rules to life:

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3. Drink lots of water

See you next week!

Their big hit came when they covered All The Single Ladies by Beyonce. It gained millions of views, got them media interviews, and continued success led them to tour frequently. But as many in the music industry know, viewership and following doesn't always translate to stable income 😞.

Their income started dwindling when streaming services like Spotify came along. Jack’s frustration with the economics of the music business drove him to think about a way for artists to make art sustainably without having to rely on advertisements, record studios, labels and the like supporting them.

Meanwhile, Jack’s eventual partner-in-crime 🕵️‍♀️, Sam Yam, had spent his post-college years working in startups, notably working beside YC’s Sam Altman at Loopt - a location-based social networking mobile application.

When Jack reached out to Sam in March 2013, with an idea to help artists monetise their art, the duo got cracking and 3 months later, launched Patreon. Today, Patreon is valued at ~$4 Billion and supports 200,000+ musicians, artists, and content creators.

So, what is Patreon exactly?

The platform is a modern take on the age-old concept of patronage. Historically, artists such as musicians and painters relied on wealthy donors' patronage to finance their work.

Patreon takes that concept and enables a larger audience to finance creators they follow at affordable monthly rates.

Creators can establish membership tiers - the number of tiers and the subscription rate at each tier is left up to the creator. Casual fans can pay a low rate – even $1 per month – while dedicated followers can subscribe upwards of even $20 per month. Higher tiers grant access to exclusive content not available at the lower levels.

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For creators, Patreon helps manage their projects. Simple page design tools let the creator add artwork to a public-facing page to attract patrons. It provides tracking tools for delivering rewards for each membership level, chat and email tools for communicating with patrons, etc. Creators can also set up surveys for patrons to assess their satisfaction and track income to the project.

Patreon’s product strategy 🧬

In its early years, Patreon acted as a social marketplace connecting creators and patrons. Creator profiles featured content and asked patrons to become paying members.

However, Patreon faced challenges in trying to take advantage of the platform’s cross-side network effects. Early versions recommended new creators to patrons based on creators they already supported. This was considered highly damaging by creators on the platform — as Patreon was introducing its fans to potential competitors.

The team came to the realization that competing on discoverability would not be how Patreon would win. Platforms like YouTube 📺 do a much better job when it came to creators getting discovered.

Patreon accordingly shifted its product strategy to essentially become a CRM for its creators, no longer acting as a marketplace connecting fans and creators but as a SaaS platform with a suite of tools 🛠 for creators.

They take care of everything from minimizing declines on a credit card, to automated email flows to patrons, to CMS systems where you can gate particular types of content for specific tiers of patrons — $10 patrons, $50 patrons, etc. — to understanding the analytics of your patron base.

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Patreon’s viral growth model 🔁

How did Patreon manage to become the behemoth it is today?

Creators follow other creators. This was the basis of Patreon’s Growth loop. Here’s how it works:

A creator announces their Patreon page via social, YouTube, etc, and a portion of their audience who are also creators find out about Patreon, going on to sign up themselves.

Patreon also sees extremely high retention once a creator’s income crosses ~$500 per month because:

1. This amount represents a significant and stable income source for creators who previously had to rely on unstable ad revenue

2. It is extremely hard to move hundreds of credit cards from one spot to another with consumers. Without access to payment data, switching costs are high for creators once they have built their paying fan base on Patreon

Aligning pricing with product strategy 🤑

It charges creators between a 5-12% platform fee on what the creator earns through Patreon.

This aligns Patreon’s incentives directly with their customers (the creators). The more revenue creators generate from fans, the more financially independent they become, and the more Patreon receives as commission.

This also means that Patreon doesn’t need to prioritise solving for the long-tail of creators who are just starting out without fan bases - they would contribute to minimal revenue. As we saw earlier, these creators need fans to discover their work, which doesn't align with Patreon’s current product strategy.

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Acquisitions-a-plenty 🤝

Patreon has made strategic acquisitions with two goals in mind:

1. Doubling down on its offerings to creators; and

2. Moving upmarket to capture bigger and more established creators

Acquiring Kit - Enabling creators to send merchandise

Designing and shipping merch 📦 packages for patrons has been a common pain for creators for the longest time. For example, an illustrator will design a cool new t-shirt 👕 and automatically send it as a perk for patrons in their top benefit tier.

Acquiring Kit, a startup building a merchandise logistics backend so creators don’t have to fiddle with spreadsheets and stuff envelopes themselves, went a long way in addressing these concerns.

Patreon now allows creators to design merch products. They take care of everything from production to global shipping and customer support, freeing up time for those creators to instead spend on content creation.

Acquiring Memberful - Moving upmarket to the most successful creators

Memberful is a service for independent creators who prefer to have complete control 👩‍💻 over their membership program. It is the white-label, do-it-yourself alternative to the core Patreon platform.

Most notably, Memberful creators retain full control of their brand and maintain a direct connection with their audience. This is extremely important for larger, very-well known creators who don’t want to dilute their brand by sending fans to a page hosted on Patreon’s domain.

For Patreon, the acquisition helps them move up-market, recruiting creators having more established audiences on other platforms.

A masterclass in creating a moat - Membership across the web

With platforms like YouTube experimenting with ways for fans to directly pay creators, Patreon needs to ensure they go above and beyond.

They understood that creators need to interact with their fans across the web 🕸, such as on WordPress sites, Discord communities, etc. The patron business model requires an ability to track which fans are paying patrons and match patrons to benefit tiers - no matter the platform on which the patron interacts with the creator.

For example, the WordPress plugin enables gating content on your website and making it available to Patrons on specific membership tiers.

The API links a creator’s patron data to a whole roster of third-party platforms. Creators can also add a “Sign in with Patreon” login function to their own websites for patrons to access walled content or forums.

These integrations and the level of guidance Patreon provides to its creators are core differentiators in defending against YouTube and Facebook, as it enables creators to give patrons a special experience no matter where they interact with them online.

Next in line ➡️

After tripling its valuation to $4 billion 🤯 last year, Patreon’s goal in 2022 is to make the best membership platform for its creators, with tools for sharing exclusive content and connecting with their community.

Patreon is already working on a number of exciting things this year, including a host-video-on-Patreon itself (so exclusive video content can live on-platform), an improved posting experience with more formatting options, different ways of organizing content on a Patreon page, better analytics, a cleaner app design, simpler playback experiences for multimedia and more.

There are also talks of an IPO sometime in the near future. That will be quite something to watch out for 👀.