April Recap: PBs, podcasts, and a month of activation
From the top of mountains to the depths of analytic tools
Hi there,
April was one of those months where everything happened at once — in a good way, mostly.
Between a new audit (82 slides, 2.5 weeks from data to delivery, fastest I’ve ever completed one), a 47-minute podcast that was me sharing my love for activation, and smashing my Yorkshire Three Peaks PB, my brain and legs both ended the month a bit fuzzy. But it was the kind of tired that comes from doing work you’re proud of, which is truly the best kind.
Here’s what I created, what I learned, and what I’ve been enjoying.
What I’ve been presenting
Price Power Podcast: 47 minutes on activation
I was meant to talk about activation for... less time than this. But once you get me started, apparently, I don’t stop. We covered onboarding, retention triggers, and why most apps are measuring the wrong activation metrics.
Listen on the podcast page or watch on YouTube.
It was also featured in Growth Gems, a newsletter I love by Sylvain Gauchet. So if you are more of a reader or short on time, check that out instead
2. Business of Apps London: Activation roundtable
I hosted a roundtable on activation and onboarding at Business of Apps London on the 23rd April. So fun to hear everyone’s challenges — and reassuring to know we’re all wrestling with similar things.
What’s been happening with clients
A busy month across the board:
Completed a new growth audit for a new client, with some interesting findings around pricing opportunities. 82 slides, full strategic review, delivered 2.5 weeks from first receiving the data. It’s not about the slide count — it’s about the depth. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little proud of the turnaround.
Continuing on an activation and lifecycle project with an app I audited earlier this year (working alongside Alice Muir). We’re now also working on some web-to-app funnel updates, which is exciting.
For another client, we’ve been working on scaling up their team. We’ve grown 66% in terms of monthly revenue since they increased my hours from 8 to 12 hours, but with new products and markets, it is time to scale up further.
What I’ve been writing
A lot went live this month:
Inside Noom’s 113-screen web-to-app onboarding funnel (RevenueCat), the beast I teased in February is finally out. Every screen, every friction point, every clever move — broken down.
Takeaway: Long onboarding can work if every screen earns its place.
Pre-product-market fit metrics (RevenueCat) What to measure when you’re too early for “real” metrics.
Takeaway: Leading indicators matter more than lagging ones when you’re still finding your footing.
How to design a freemium tier that actually works (RevenueCat)
Takeaway: Your free tier should create desire, not just demonstrate features.
The ecommerce product carousel guide (Convert) A deep dive into carousel design and optimisation.
Takeaway: Carousels aren’t inherently bad — bad carousels are bad.
Stop building features (RevenueCat) Why early-stage apps need a learning roadmap first
Takeaway: Early stage startups should focus on learning goals over features.
Best of LinkedIn this month
A few posts that stood out this month, including two from my new content partnership with Appsflyer:
In the busiest of moments, this means the most:
The product growth strategy course I launched with RevenueCat in March has been getting some lovely responses. This one made my day:
“Just completed your course at startapp.school, and I just wanted to reach out and say THANK YOU. This was so timely for me, as I’m working on an upcoming launch, and I just really appreciate it!”
If you’re early-stage or know someone who is, it’s free: startapp.school
I also received this the other day:
First time ever I’ve been called a GOAT 🐐🥹.
This month’s flip flops
As always, the messy reality:
Tried to connect Claude and Figma to automate some of my LinkedIn carousel creation and remove the manual copy-pasting (I write out the content first and then add it to the templates). Turns out custom fonts do not make that easy. I blew through nearly all of my AI credits and still don’t have it working. Time to rope in the big guns: my developer husband. Hopefully, the new Claude design should help with this.
House renovation saga continues. Attached coving to the ceiling. It came down. Attached it again. It came down again. Got someone professional to do it. It cracked a day later. Our ceiling is simply refusing to cooperate.
My schedule has been chaotic. New US-based clients meant evening meetings, conference days, travel — I think I’ve said “sorry, can we do a different day/time?” about 20 times this month. Not ideal, but hopefully May will be calmer.
What I’ve been enjoying
Yorkshire Three Peaks! The goal was 10h30m. Did it in 9h52m. 40km, 1,860m elevation. Legs were sore for days, and I loved every minute. Well, maybe not every minute, the first hour it was pouring rain and freezing. But most of them.
One of our best friends visited, and we went to see Cursed Child together — just as good the second time. Slightly worried about how little I remembered from the previous time.
Saw Alex Warren live. My husband and I did our first dance to “Ordinary” nearly a year ago, so it was special to see it together. Very cute, yes, I know.
Treated myself to two new books at a secondhand book store: Company of One and How Women Rise. Looking forward to digging into them.
If you missed my newsletters this month
No worries, here’s what I covered:
Looking ahead to May
Attending Experimentation Elite with Women in Experimentation — join us if you’re going
Organising a Women in Experimentation dinner on 5th May with Convert to chat about being (or becoming) a female leader — the challenges, the lessons, all of it (if you are in London and want to join, sign up here)
Speaking of which: We’re organising a new Women in Experimentation Summit! Apply to speak here, we offer speaking coaching and compensations. Experienced and new speakers welcome!
New articles going live next month: How to stop losing subscribers before they start, choosing between freelancer vs agency vs in-house, and a piece on pre-mortems — what they are and how to run one.
Building a reactivation calculator for apps. So that apps can calculate is it worth focusing on reactivation. Really excited for this and grateful to Ethan Garr for helping me build this.
Till next time,
Daphne
P.S. I got nominated for Experimentation Thought Leader of the Year, crazy! If you have one minute to vote for me, it would be much appreciated 🙏