May Recap: I snuck off to Ecuador
From swimming with penguins to building my first AI agent.
Hi there,
I have freelancer guilt. And I’ve been hiding it from everyone — including you.
I didn’t mention the Ecuador trip in my last newsletter. Working for myself, I’ve found it hard to fully own taking time off — especially two trips so close together — even though I know they ended up nearer in timing because of life circumstances, not poor planning.
If I took five weeks of leave across March and May in an in-house role, it probably wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows (assuming that’s all my holiday for the year). But working for myself, I felt like I had to keep quiet about it.
I always promise to be real in these recaps, and hiding my holiday isn’t that. So here’s a photo from an unforgettable trip.
YES. I SWAM WITH PENGUINS AND SEA LIONS. It was incredible. Also snorkelled with sharks and did some beautiful hikes. I’m in love with the Galapagos.
I spent two weeks resetting, enjoying nature (I repeat, there were penguins!?), and on a more serious note, reflecting on my company and where I want to go with it.
And around that trip: articles were written, AI tools were built and more. So maybe I don’t need to feel all too guilty after all.
What I’ve been writing
As you can imagine, I’ve been writing very little content except for Instagram captions. Meanwhile, four articles went live this month:
In-house vs Freelance vs Agency for CRO (Convert). Takeaway: There’s no one-size-fits-all. It’s about finding the right resources for your stage and challenge.
Post-purchase screens for subscription apps (RevenueCat). Takeaway: Some apps completely underutilise these screens. Here are 13 examples that show the range of approaches and how to level up yours.
Pre-mortems: a 30-minute exercise to plan for success (RevenueCat). Takeaway: Imagining a launch failing and asking why it would is a powerful way to surface risks before they become problems.
20% of your churned users will come back – but are you ready? (RevenueCat). Takeaway: Don’t assume you should focus on Reactivation; the impact varies hugely from app to app.
I also built a free Reactivation Calculator for that last article (had to get on the vibe coding train, of course), luckily, Ethan Garr helped guide me through it.
What I’ve been presenting
Experimentation Elite — I attended with Women in Experimentation and, in one of the workshops, built my first AI agent with Iqbal Ali. Very cool to go from “I should learn this” to actually doing it.
Women in Experimentation dinner — We hosted a lovely evening with Convert on being (or becoming) a female leader. The challenges, the lessons, and how we support each other. The thing that stuck with me most: how many women in the room had quietly talked themselves out of opportunities before anyone else got the chance to. We’re working on that.
What’s been happening with clients
1. My client did a SubClub interview about their growth!
Here it is: How Removing the Free Trial Grew Monthly Subs 2000% – Nancy Anderson, Natal
Definitely check it out. Here are some of the interesting learnings:
Socials should be focused on building trust and adding value, and at most, a soft sell when relevant
Trust is such an important factor, even if hard to measure
The importance of a deeper one coherent app vs multiple niche apps
Really proud of her and the work we are doing.
2. Built my first email flow through an AI agent in customer.io.
Pros: much faster to set up, generated good ideas and different approaches I might not have thought of.
Cons: the copy got repetitive and shallow, so I rewrote quite a bit and improved my prompt for next time. Still, the speed was great.
3. Also used Replo AI for the first time to build landing pages.
They describe it as “Lovable for Shopify” — funny, because Replo existed long before Lovable did. But it’s a fair shorthand. Much faster than their old block editor, and the output was solid enough that I wasn’t fighting it the whole time.
The theme of this month, other than freelancer guilt? AI is helping me deliver more value, faster — and freeing me up to focus on where I add the most: strategy.
This month’s flip-flops
Freelancer guilt. I’ve already shared this one. It’s a mindset thing I’m working on. Progress, not perfection.
The WiE Summit speaker call exploded. I posted on LinkedIn looking for speakers for the Women in Experimentation Summit (coming in September!) on a busy day... and my DMs went from manageable to 400+. Thankfully, Marcella Sullivan (WiE co-founder) stepped in and handled a lot of the responses. I dread to think what it would have looked like without her.
Excited to go through all the applications soon, though! We got around 100 applicants, which was amazing.
Pretty sure the era of LinkedIn Carousels is over. I love carousels, as you probably know, but a recent update makes them all hard to read (you see in the preview 2 and a bit of slides vs 1).
So my carousel days may be over… since the update, reach seems to have decreased dramatically. Why LinkedIn? Why?
My little plants died / never grew. I tried to plant things this year, again. I spent hours on it. And I even roped my husband into watering them on a strict schedule while I was away.
Maybe it was the heatwave (or me, given my track record), but nearly nothing grew, and what did died. So much for my year of homegrown fruit and veg.
I pitched an experiment that didn’t land. Something felt off as I was working it out, but I couldn’t articulate it until I talked it through with someone. The plan's complexity didn’t match the audience.
It reminded me of a question I wasn’t asking often enough — and one that’s easy to skip when you’re in execution mode:
Is our priority learning or short-term impact?
Different answers lead to very different experiments. Ironic, given I literally wrote a whole article on learning roadmaps. Oh well, I’m a work in progress too.
What I’ve been enjoying
Ecuador! Swimming with penguins and sea lions in the Galápagos was a true bucket list trip. The hikes through the Amazon and around Laguna Quilotoa, a volcanic crater lake, were stunning too.
Finished reading Company of One by Paul Jarvis. A good reminder that growth for growth’s sake isn’t the goal, and that staying intentionally small can be a strategic choice, not a failure. Timely, given how I’ve been thinking about my own business.
Building out my AI workflows. Between the agent-building mini unplanned hackathon at Experimentation Elite and experimenting with tools for client work, I’ve been investing in my “second brain.” The goal: reduce cognitive load and protect my energy for the work that actually needs me.
Recording a podcast about my journey. I did an interview this month about my path into growth, dealing with ADHD, and more. Talked about things I don’t usually say out loud. Will share when it’s live.
If you missed my newsletters this month
Looking ahead to June
Continuing to build my AI skills — both for client delivery and for my own workflows. It’s genuinely changing how I work. I’ve invested in an accelerator course, so I'm excited to dig into that.
Sub Club Live with Alice Muir — now happening July 2nd, so technically not June, but I’ll start preparing. Between the two of us, we’ll cover everything from “Should you even focus on reactivation?” to the tactics that actually work.
No more holidays planned for a while, so you’re stuck with me for the coming weeks. Let’s get to business.
Till next time,
Daphne
Good vibes your way!