Is it always bad when users don’t come back?
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We talk a lot about retention, but I think there are products where people not coming back is actually a good sign.
If I use something to prepare for an interview or sort out a one-time problem, I probably don’t want to keep using it. I just want it to work so I can move on.
Obviously that doesn’t work for every product, especially subscription-based ones.
But it makes me wonder how much we rely on retention simply because it’s easy to measure.
Has anyone here built something where users leaving actually meant you’d done your job well?
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I live right in the middle of this. A lot of people come to my app for one song: a birthday, an anniversary, an apology. The song works, they send it, and there's honestly no reason to open the app again tomorrow. Daily retention would call that a failure, but the job got done. What I changed was the clock I measure against. People don't need me daily, they need me at the next occasion, so there's a tab of upcoming birthdays and holidays and a reminder a few days before. Coming back in three weeks for the next birthday is the healthy pattern for this kind of product, so that's the number I watch instead of day 7.
I think it depends on why users leave in the first place if it’s a one-time problem fixing it may be enough but if they don’t see ongoing value then better onboarding and regular feedback can help identify what’s missing
I think it depends on what you're selling. As a buyer, I've bought over 260 lifetime deals on AppSumo, and for tools I much prefer paying once and being done with it.
For courses or memberships, where the value keeps coming, monthly makes sense. When I sell those, I look at what makes people stay for a year or two.
So for a one-time problem, people not coming back might just mean it did its job.