No1 Money Maker for $14B Edtech Company

One of my favorite podcasts recently had this interview with the Head of Retention at Duolingo. Some things I found interesting:

• #1 money maker for the $14B edtech company
• first time this PM shared this “motherload of learnings of duolingo streaks"
• streak freezes are key to saving your streak, but must be balanced with making the streak meaningful, they give you 2 freezes when you start a streak, and you gotta earn additional streak freezes
• notifications mentioning the streak work really well
• 9 million people have a year+ long duolingo streak, that’s like a big city
• test things on learners with short streaks (not long streaks, careful with best retaining learners)
• half of experiments are shut down
• streak feels like tangible progress to learners, when it’s hard to notice any other progress
• streak is a way to make it easy for users to track how much they have used the app (self analytics?)
• “start a day to extend your streak, but miss a day an it resets” is the current definition
• CURR: current user retention rate: users who are not new or resurrected coming back the next day
• streak graphic::fire: is a metaphor for keeping a flame lit
• the goal for the 1-day streak users is to make sure they understand how the streak works
• practice reminder notifications: 23.5 hours after you practiced the day before
• streak saver notifications: 10pm, your last chance to extend your streak (this is why you see pictures of people at concerts doing their learning)
• perfect streak: your app icon becomes gold if you don’t use your streak freeze for a few days. They have a support feature to restore perfect streak, if your excuse is good enough
• power of animations and haptics in the UX, the more you enjoy the moment, the more likely you are to care about your streak
• some streak features happen if you have a long enough streaks, for example you get a complimentary subscription trial
• every year they ship a lot of streak improvments, there is always more to be done
• loss aversion is the human psychology hack at the core of streaks
• your app being an enjoyable experience is more important than streak mechanics