The Art of Driving Retention Through Product – Ben Gammon, Ladder

David Barnard:

Welcome to the Sub Club Podcast, a show dedicated to the best practices for building and growing app businesses. We sit down with the entrepreneurs, investors, and builders behind the most successful apps in the world to learn from their successes and failures. Sub Club is brought to you by RevenueCat. Thousands of the world's best apps trust RevenueCat to power in-app purchases, manage customers, and grow revenue across iOS, Android, and the web. You can learn more at revenuecat.com. Let's get into the show. Hello, I'm your host, David Barnard. Today's conversation is shorter than usual and will be featured in RevenueCat's state of subscription apps report. Each episode in this series will explore one crucial topic and share actionable insights from top subscription app operators.

With me today, Ben Gammon, VP of product at Ladder. On the podcast, I talk with Ben about product-driven retention as the foundation for lifecycle marketing, working backward from results to nail activation, and why talking to individual users can lead you astray. Hey, Ben, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today.

Ben Gammon:

Yeah, I'm super excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

David Barnard:

We've talked a ton on the podcast about the kind of blocking and tackling of retention, lifecycle marketing, all those kind of things. But what I feel like we maybe haven't talked enough about, and what I'm super excited to have you on the podcast is product ads retention and finding those product levers that actually drive retention. And that being kind of the foundation of everything else you build on top versus thinking that some lifecycle marketing hack, the perfect push notification is what's going to get you over the hump. And so, yeah, let's dig into that. Let's start at a high level. What is your kind of philosophy around retention?

Ben Gammon:

The first thing is retention is king. It gives you permission to do everything else upstream. And I think the easiest part to start is what is retention? And retention is if someone pays you, do they pay you again?

David Barnard:

Yeah. Kind of important.

Ben Gammon:

It's very important, but it's not easy, right? The challenge is in the beginning it's very volatile. Then as you mature as a product and company, it sort of becomes like a rubber band ball where it's like all those rubber bands are influences and factors into retention. So, it's really hard to understand what is going into it because it becomes very stubborn. And so, what I think really you have to do to boil down is you have to figure out what matters. And I think with that, you have to be able to speak the language to the user, but also internally. And what we did sit down and say, what factors into retention? It's getting results. We went through all the five star results, all the people that were just hands up saying, "This is really striking a chord." And that was the underlying theme.

So, you start working backwards from, okay, getting results, what does that mean? Well, in the fitness world, it's the consistency. And so, you start to boil that down. And four workouts is kind of where we started, that number, but then we started to ratchet it down to three. And that was backed by science. And ultimately our job then is to say, okay, how do we get three workouts to be consistent? And our ethos became, and still is today, don't make me think. Get that person in there, they press play, they do the workout. And if we can do that three times a week, that is really what ladders up to retention.

David Barnard:

Yeah, that's such a great way to think about it. And I think in some ways, it's maybe more obvious for a fitness app that the results that you want to get are physical results is like getting bigger, getting stronger, getting fitter. And those are even maybe more objective to measure and see. But for a lot of apps, it still is about getting results. If you download Photoroom to enhance the photos quality of your eBay listings, it's like you're there to get results. And so, I love that thinking. It's like, why are your users downloading your app? And like you said, it's a great place to mine those insights or those five-star reviews. Why are people excited about your app? Well, what are they telling other people?

And then you work backward from there versus, again, thinking some retention tactic is what's going to drive the loop. It's like, no, what's going to drive the loop is getting results. So, I know at Ladder, y'all have had a lot of very clear kind of product unlocks that started driving that loop that were like clear retention levers. So, tell me about some of those.

Ben Gammon:

Yeah. I think the first one that comes to mind is the journal. And you kind of hit it where the first question typically in onboarding is, what is your primary goal? And for fitness, it's a lot of times, I want to get stronger, I want to lose weight, I want to tone body, I want to look good, feel good. So, that's kind of getting the results, but how do you measure it? And the journal is, by definition, if you're not familiar with Ladder, basically we have a workout layer and your ability to track your reps and weights, even distance for cardio and things like that, it is your ability to put in data. And I think it's one of those beautiful things that as a consumer, the user, they're able to put in that data, but it's a reward because downstream it serves as a flywheel for us, the business.

You input the data, then the next time you come in and like for that specific movement, let's call it an RDO or a bench press. And the recommended weights come back into play because we've now personalized it by putting in that existing weight. And then over time, you see the progress. And what's really key for strength training is that you're starting to lift more, at least incrementally. And it can be gradual. But as you see that, you see the progress, you hit PRs, and it's all those factors that really, again, go back to what is the core piece of this. And that's getting results. And that's, I think, the mental and the physical getting stronger part that Ladder can deliver on.

David Barnard:

I love the way y'all integrated it into the product as well. So, I mean, as most podcast listeners would know, I'm a huge Ladder fan at this point. Hit my 6-week streak of three workouts a week starting the year. So, that was one of my goals was to light up the little Ladder chart. I wish we can talk about that more in a bit. And so, with the journal, after each workout, you do this little thing of like, "Hey, since you started, you've progressed this much." And just the other day, it was like 62% increase in my dumbbell bench press, which a lot of that's form my muscle connection and stuff like that. But it was super encouraging to see that. And to get back to those, what do people want results?

Well, at the end of each workout, I'm seeing the results and it's just such a powerful little flywheel there.

Ben Gammon:

So, that's exactly right. It's really much like a snowball feature where the people are putting the data in and that's step one. But then you start to build out the outer layers. And that's the reinforcement loops is saying like, "Hey, you're hitting that progress at that level where you have that PR and it's not just that one movement, it's all these other movements." And so, it keeps going in that loop where you start to expand not only there within the workout, but it goes outside of it where you have the journal history and you're able to see that into your profile. And that's building state. And that is where you start to become entrenched into a product because, it sounds negative, but it becomes powerful because you become proud of what you've done.

And it's funny, I was listening to a podcast over the past couple of weeks and they were talking about where AI is going to influence data. And they mentioned there's going to be some products that are going to be sticky because they have hostages. And I don't like to think it about it in that way because it feels a little bit negative. But as you build state, it becomes sticky. And there's a reason why that loop exists for a lot of companies and it's powerful.

David Barnard:

Yeah. I mean, I could see as y'all layer on AI to better inform what your next weight should be and things like that. It's like you have so much history from me now over a year of workouts that you can then layer on. And I don't want to lose that progress either. It's like, I've got check marks and streaks and progress data and all that kind of stuff that you kind of lose if you move. So, yeah, the hostage term maybe is not the best, but it really does kind of effectively work like that. The next thing I wanted to dive into was widgets and streaks and check marks. So, huge fan of the widget. It's right there on my home screen. It's where I launch workouts from it and I can see the little yellow boxes light up. So, it's a calendar and it lights up the day when you've completed a workout.

I mean, pretty typical kind of like a streak mechanism, but it's so powerful sitting on my home screen. So, tell me about those and the impact it had on retention.

Ben Gammon:

Yeah. I think one of the key parts of building on a product is you have to figure out the game that exists within the product. And it has to be very, very simple. And again, if you go back to the getting results and the consistency, it was all built around that north star of like three workouts. And so, these are what we call reinforcers, right? So, you have the check mark is what gives you like for a completed workout, you have to get three of those. And three of those equal a streak for a week. And then the widget is what takes that outside the app to, again, reinforce that. So, as you're scrolling your phone subconsciously or consciously, you're seeing that and has a huge effect to say like, "Oh, I need to remember to go do my third workout." Or there's that sense of pride.

And I think one of the things that's underrated about the widget too is other people see that, right? It might not happen often, but there's times where you're seeing as other people are swiping their phone, they see that widget and they're like, "What is that?" And that can drive conversation and referrals in a way as well.

David Barnard:

So, do you have any sense for how many people install the widget and how that has impacted retention?

Ben Gammon:

Approximately, I'd say a third of people have the widget. It's one of those things that benchmarks are tough. I think every product has different ways of doing stuff. So, whether a third is good or bad, it seems positive, right? We've definitely tried to increase that over time. And I think it matters when you pop that, it can't be the first thing that you show. You haven't earned that trust, but we've tried to position it and try to build it out where, again, it looks cool. You give them the instructions because it's not exactly intuitive for the majority of people. I think the people listening to this podcast, they all know how to do it, but the average person, it's difficult. But once you get it there, again, it's very, very powerful feature to serve as that billboard.

David Barnard:

Yeah. And not every app is going to have a way to create a meaningful widget where people would want to have it on their home screen. But boy, if you can crack that, it really can be so powerful. And a third of your users having a billboard on their home screen is pretty cool. And yeah, it's like, I don't know what a benchmark would be. I should ask more guests this over time and people I talk to in the industry. But yeah, if you can unlock that kind of billboard on the home screen with a widget, it's powerful. Do you actually track, and then I meant to ask this with the latter journal as well, do you have any stats?

Were you able to track people who have the widget on their home screen, complete their streak at a higher rate, and then with the journal, did you find specific stats of like when you introduced that, you did see a big bump in longer term retention?

Ben Gammon:

Yeah, you're able to see correlation. If you go back to the journal, we're upwards of now around like 70%, 75% of users use the journal for each workout. It didn't start there though, right? I mean, these are the things, again, you build it, you build the core layer, and then you have to build out these amplifiers. And that's where we went upstream. And we have what's called a welcome workout. And that's where the coaches are able to voice over not only the instruction of like, what are you doing? Why are you doing it? But also layer in those pieces to say like, "Hey, pop up in that journal, swipe up, input those weights, here's why."

And it's the same thing with the widget, able to really start to build out, make sure that people are using it, and then make sure that it has good feedback, and then you build out those peripherals to really drive engagement.

David Barnard:

Yeah, that's such a great point. And Ladder is an interesting case. And again, I don't think every app is going to be able to replicate some of these specific things that Ladder does to drive these retention loops and drive this kind of product-based retention. But in Ladder, the way it works is you have a real human coach that is coaching you through the workout with these videos. And I mean, it's just part of what makes the product so fantastic. But what's so cool, and I hear it all the time when I'm working out, is how the coaches are just subtly dropping things in, like, "Make sure you log this in the journal." I'm on team forged with Coach Corey, and he'll say, "You should have a wait for this exercise from last week in the journal. Check your journal."

And so, again, not every app is going to be able to have this real human reinforcing these things in those ways, but the foundation is the same, is that when you find those retention levers, find ways within the product to drive usage of those features, which then drives the retention. And this does get a little bit to the blocking and tackling, that may be a push notification, that may be an email helping people go deeper into a feature, but you need to build the loop first and then you build the tactical things around it to kind of reinforce those loops.

Ben Gammon:

Yeah, 100%. And I'd also say that the one thing that I've found is, yes, you can build those outer pieces, the notifications and stuff, and they are very effective, but you have to really layer these things in the moment as they're doing stuff. So, again, that's where if you go back to just the example with voiceovers, you can write up FAQs and educational content about why the journal is important and all that stuff. But if you're able to communicate that while they're in the motion of doing it, that is 10X more effective. And that is one of those really powerful things that's the human element that Ladder brings that is able to really, again, drive a lot of the engagement that correlates to the retention for Ladder.

David Barnard:

Well, the last thing I wanted to touch on was user feedback. And I know that's something that Ladder takes very seriously. So, how do you think about feedback and integrating that into the broader product roadmap and decision making?

Ben Gammon:

Yeah. I mean, the first thing is feedback's a gift. And I know a lot of people say that, but it really is, it makes our jobs a lot easier. We get to just really listen to people, what do they actually want? And the hard part is actually staying disciplined and following through with that. There's effectively three ways that I've bucketed how we think about feedback. There's one, there's like the acute pain, and that usually comes through our Slack. There's feedback mechanisms throughout the app that they can just write out like, "Hey, I experienced this issue." It's typically built around that. The second is we do a lot of surveys. There's ad hoc, but there's recurring surveys too. And as an example, we do one at the end of the year and we have an insanely productive community.

There's 7,500 plus responses this past year. It takes over 45 minutes. Thank God for AI to be able to parse it out and understand what they want. And then the third is dog fooding and it's really important. It's not a requirement if you work at Ladder. But I think in order to really test drive the product, but have that end-to-end mental model of what's happening, it really helps. And also building it out and delivering that empathy for the user because you're experiencing it too.

David Barnard:

Do you do individual user interviews and how much weight do you put on those? This

Ben Gammon:

Is a spicy take. I think they can be helpful, but I think the problem is, especially in consumer, you have so many people that are very diverse, they're all throughout the world. And if you talk to five or 10 people, they might weigh in on a part that gives you a little bit of insight, but the problem is you can't over-index to that because they still only represent N of five or N of 10. So, these surveys are really effective because we do them so often. There's a huge population set. And I think that's a really, to be honest, just a much better way to kind of work backwards from that large amount of people, as long as you can construct those surveys and ask the questions in the right manner that are not too biased or leading them towards an answer.

David Barnard:

Yeah, that's so powerful. And I mean, again, y'all have such an engaged community. It's probably going to be hard for the average app to get that many responses, especially to that extensive of a survey. But again, finding ways to get that larger breadth of feedback versus kind of over-relying on any individual feedback. And it's so hard, you get one bad review in the app store that harps on one missing product feature and you're like, "Oh, I got to build that and it's going to unlock everything." But then a lot of times it's like, no, it's like that user cared about that, but don't over-focus on that one piece of bad feedback versus what everybody else is telling you. And one of the cool things y'all built this year was nutrition.

So, you have the kind of core strength training app and then you layered on a nutrition piece where if you're going to get results, even increasing strength, like you got to have your diet and food dialed in. But from what I understand, that was like direct, like users were screaming for... I mean, not literally of course, but in the feedback, it just felt like that was such a strong thing. How did that come about?

Ben Gammon:

Yeah. I mean, that comes directly from that annual survey. So, I guess that was end of 2024, we asked probably 80, 90 questions. And again, they're multiple choice, there's open-ended, but what came through very clearly, signal from noise is they wanted nutrition and they wanted something that again, maps to results because if you're doing the workout, you have a dialed in nutrition, it's just again, a multiplier to get there faster and hopefully be sustainable. So, that came through and that's something that we looked at and from first principles trying to understand, okay, what are the most effective methods? What exactly are they using today and can we do this?

And that was a long project, longer than the usual ones, but it's a big bet that we started beginning of last year and launched a few months ago, which has been very exciting for us.

David Barnard:

Yeah. How are things going with that? I mean, it's a funny thing too, and I talked about this in one of the other minisodes for the state of subscription apps report is that sometimes users are saying like, "We really want this, we really want this, we really want this," and then they don't actually use it. So, how have things been going with nutrition?

Ben Gammon:

Yeah, it's been going very well. I mean, that's where, to your point, there are times where people say stuff that doesn't map to reality, right? And this is one, it's basically crossed a hundred days since we launched. And so, when you're starting to map things to retention, it's pretty tough. So, you have to really compress it. So, what is week two, week three, week four retention? And we're starting to get really in the weeds of, okay, if you can go upstream, if you just think about nutrition as a standalone product, how do they log? Do they log consistently in day one, day two? Those are like those indicators. And I think thus far we've had a lot of really good signal that not only has it been effective for people who are tracking macros.

But if you think about how it works throughout the entire Ladder ecosystem or the platform, we call them hybrid users. Those who are using both the workouts and nutrition, they're driving conversion if they're new, right? So, the percentage of those who are converting are much higher, they're using both. And then those who are using both as well are also much more retentive. They're staying on the platform. So, those two are true early on, 100 days in, but it's super exciting for us as a business after such a long journey and big bet.

David Barnard:

Yeah. When you invest so much into something, it's great to see it paying off. And something we talk about a ton on the podcast is finding and unlocking that kind of secondary product market fit. And again, of course, strength training and nutrition, like they go so hand in hand and it's hard for a lot of apps to find that secondary product market fit, but when you do, it's that whole new lever of retention. And so, it can be such a powerful thing. As we wrap up, was there anything else that you wanted to share or any jobs you wanted to shout out?

Ben Gammon:

I'll just say, I think I have the best job in the world. I get to work along people that are fantastic, really good at what they do. We get to solve hard problems and be positive for others in their lives, which is very meaningful. So, we're looking to hire anyone who's a crack or a builder by nature, product design specifically would be great. And then also any engineers. So, iOS, backend, front end, reach out on LinkedIn. And if that's not your world, then would love for you to try out Ladder and tell us what you think.

David Barnard:

Awesome. And Ladder's such a fun team. And I visited your office several times because it's right up the road from me in Austin and really cool team, really cool people, fun headquarters. Y'all are hiring remote though too, right? So, not every job has to be in the Austin office.

Ben Gammon:

That's correct. We have HQ in Austin, but we're hiring remote and yeah, we just have a lot of momentum and a lot of good people and it's fun. So, yeah, you've seen it firsthand and we're looking for more, which is, it's rare too, by the way. We do not hire often. So, again, if you fit that profile, please reach out. We'd love to talk to you.

David Barnard:

Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining me, Ben. This was great.

Ben Gammon:

Yeah, thank you so much, David. Cheers.

David Barnard:

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