February Recap: What I built (and broke) this February
Workshops, writing, conversion struggles, and why Loki stayed dry
Hi there,
February is always a short month, but it feels even shorter in the UK with the sun setting before 5 pm, and apparently, it’s been raining pretty much every day.
But it’s been good, I got to visit friends in the Netherlands and Belfast over two weekends (both were also rainy) and got quite a bit of home renovation done (I’ve given up on the staining of the doors and moved on to tearing down wallpaper).
On the work side, I’ve had a lovely new client that is an impact-focused, female-founded wellness app startup. Because I’m away for three weeks from the end of next week (honeymoon!) I’ve partnered up with the lovely Alice Muir to work on the project.
Ok, before I give everything away that happened this month, let’s go through it a bit more structured.
Here’s what I created, what I learned, and what I’ve been enjoying. As always, lots of free resources.
What I’ve been writing
Publishing wise less came out:
Meta Andromeda: The algorithm you can’t ignore (Convert). A deep dive into the latest update and how this impacts not only your ad strategy, but also your a/b testing. Takeaway: Test as a funnel from ad to landingpage vs just landingpages.
But I’ve been writing a lot! Nothing will go live whilst I’m away the first three weeks of March, but after that, you can expect articles covering:
Pre product-market fit metrics
Building a strong freemium strategy
The learning roadmap: A framework for early-stage apps
Determining the right trial length
Inside Noom’s web-to-app funnel: a full breakdown of the 113 screens
All are written and ready to be read!
What I’ve been presenting
LinkedIn and Personal Branding Course
Last week, I spent three hours recording Lucia van den Brink and my Personal Branding and LinkedIn course. This is a passion project of ours through the community we run, Women in Experimentation, and focuses on helping more women build their personal brand and become more visible. The waitlist is here, it’ll come out in Q2 and be a live cohort.
You can choose which screenshot is the most awkward:
I think 2nd from the bottom right 😅. Lucia and I also had a day recording some pieces in Amsterdam at the start of the month:
I also gave an online workshop for a one-off project, which was really fun and great to hear the kind feedback after I handed in the full report and walkthrough:
Daphne, This is exceptional.
I was NOT expecting this level of granularity and thoughtfulness.
I already know - just from the walkthrough - where we are falling short, and the next steps.
I even screenshotted it and sent it to hubby, these kind of messages make my day.
What’s been happening with clients
So I’ve already given away a lot, a new exciting project where we are auditing their current app growth and strategy, and a one-off project with a workshop. For the rest of my ongoing clients, we:
Got some really good insights from running user tests and have been redesigning our landingpages based on them.
Have been working further on the new product launch, which goes live at the end of March
Have been working on forecasting and scenario analyses to develop more robust growth targets for 2026 for a client and to prioritise the roadmap accordingly.
This month’s flip-flops
As always, the messy reality:
Clumsy me fell into a stream and got stung by nettles. I have been better about protecting my Fridays this month and went for a long two-hour walk earlier this month. Turned out all of Epping Forest was flooded, and in my attempt to jump a stream to get home, I slipped into it. Luckily, Loki didn’t mind the wet.
I have one client (not the one we did the user testing for) where, despite making many improvements based on research (they are too small to A/B test) and testing different style pages, we are struggling to get the conversion rate up. It’s a very sensitive topic (fertility issues), making it even harder to balance educating/supporting with selling. We’ll be doing some user testing soon to speak with the target audience more and better understand where the challenges lie.
Completely underestimated the time it takes to strip wallpaper. Me: This will take a few hours. Reality: Spent 16+ hours stripping and still need to do the part above the stairs. Thankfully, our kind neighbour lent us a long ladder, but it definitely isn’t ready before we leave.
Mentally being off for 3 weeks is weighing heavily. I haven’t been off that long in 2-3 years, and for some reason, it feels harder this time. I think because there is so much I’m excited about and trying to ‘prepare’ for that, it’s making it hard to switch off and enjoy the idea of it. I’m sure once we are in Australia on our honeymoon, all will be well!
What I’ve been enjoying
Being back in Rotterdam for one of my best friends’ birthdays, Agnes. I’m so grateful I have the ability to work remotely and join her for her birthday party at the weekend but also to work from her place for the day itself. She’s such an incredible individual leading in Politics in the Netherlands and so kind and thoughtful too. It showed! Over 100 people were there at her 35th.
Getting to work with Ruben, Lucia and Desiree. Ruben de Boer kindly lent his apartment for us as a recording studio for our course, and we had a nice day coworking, also with Desiree. It was Ruben’s first day freelancing, so we went out for some great Thai food to celebrate.
Sauna and ice baths with Rosie. Had a nice little trip to the community sauna, which is always fun! We also had a fun day coworking and painting pottery afterwards.
Wicked the musical. I took a friend there for her birthday, Charlotte (check out her excellent new newsletter on Customer Care, Scrappy CX). The musical was great.
Belfast. I went to visit a friend who is there for three months filming a series (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Game of Thrones spinoff) and didn’t know much about the city, but it was so fun. Really cool street art, buildings and nature surrounding.
Ok, I’m going to get unusually soppy… one minute only, I promise. But this month, I feel really lucky to be surrounded by so many inspiring women.
Some are in the same field as me, but many are killing it in their own areas: politics, finances, film, customer care, being a new (or soon-to-be) mother, and more.
When recording the LinkedIn and Personal Branding course, I talked about how when I started in growth, I missed female role models, but now it feels like I’m surrounded by them. I got to spend a lot of time with friends this month, also knowing I’d be away soon for three weeks, and it’s been amazing and energising.
If you missed my newsletters this month
No worries, here’s what I covered:
A little gift
If you are a B2C app and would like to attend Business of Apps London (Thu 23 Apr 2026 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM BST), I have a few free guest passes (usual price).
I’ll be hosting a roundtable on onboarding and activation.
Given I’m out of office soon, please let me know asap if you want a ticket and email me your:
First name
Last name
Company name
Job title
Email
And I’ll put that through for you :).
Looking ahead to March / April
Till 21st March in Australia — Honeymoon time! Sydney (seeing a friend), Port Macquarie (see family) and then off for the honeymoon: Perth, Margaret River and Ningaloo to swim with whale sharks. Tips are welcome!
New partner brand. They’ve got some great app research I’m diving into, and I’m excited to share their content from April to June.
New product growth course. It’s free and focused on app startups; it should come out in March. More on that soon.
My newsletters are all scheduled for the coming weeks, so whilst I can’t reply to questions, you will still get your usual Thursday dose.
Till next time,
Daphne
Looking forward to the pre product market fit metrics 👀