[Nek_12]

You're right. 10-20 DAU from 35k installs is catastrophic.

Of those 10-20 DAU, probably 8-10 are the power users who use it 7/7 days (Level 100+ users, CV <0.5). So yes, sticky users exist but they're <0.1% of installs.

I'm not 'focusing on monetization' - I gave up on retention months ago. Tried:

- 4 onboarding rebuilds - AI coaching - Gamification (quests, XP) - WearOS app - Daily notifications - Early wins in first session

D1 retention stayed at 4.2% through all of it. Nothing moved the needle.

So I shifted to: 'Can I monetize the 10-20 who stuck?' Answer: No. They won't pay because free tier is complete.

You're saying I should fix retention first. Fair. But after months of trying and 0.0% improvement, at what point do you accept the category is broken or the product doesn't work for 99% of people?

The 'hocus pocus' analysis was trying to understand if the 1% who stick have patterns I can replicate. They do (regular schedule + high cognitive load). But I can't find more of them or get them to pay.

[saaaaaam]

I wasn’t trying to be mean when I said hocus pocus - what I meant is that the analysis isn’t really valuable because you’re focusing on such a tiny cohort that you could probably make it show anything.

If you truly believe that regular schedule and high cognitive load are the “sticky” that makes it work then you need to market to people using those points.

What’s your marketing strategy currently?

On the “when should I give up” point… who are your competitors?

[Nek_12]

Fair point on the tiny cohort. You're right - 9 users isn't enough to validate an archetype.

Marketing strategy: None, really. 99% organic from Play/App Store discovery. Spent $1,300 on ads over 3 years, negligible results. No content marketing (tried, spent ~20k$ on an instagram account, gained 50 followers), no SEO, no outreach (apart from irregular reddit shills). Just ship features and hope App Store algorithms pick it up.

Had one viral spike in Poland (June 2025, ~1,600 users) but don't know the source - maybe a YouTuber review, maybe App Store featuring. GA4 misattributed it to paid ads which didn't exist.

Competitors: - Free: Habitica (gamified), Todoist, Google Tasks - Freemium: Productive, Habitify, Strides (3-5 free habits, pay for more) - Paid upfront: Streaks ($5 one-time) - Coaching: Fabulous ($70/year), Noom ($60/month) - Niche: Focus Bear (ADHD), Routinery ($4/mo, routines focused)

The irony: I think I accidentally built something that works for a specific archetype (regular schedules + decision fatigue), but I've been marketing it as a general habit tracker to everyone. Which explains the 4.2% D1 retention - 95% are wrong-fit users.

But I can't niche down based on 9 users who won't even respond to my emails.

[saaaaaam]

Again, forgive me if this seems mean but are you writing your responses using AI? There can be many reasons for this, including English not being your first language, dyslexia, neurodiversity and many other things.

That aside (as it isn’t necessarily important) I think you need to find three things that represent the “sweet spot” for your app and try marketing around those.

Sadly I don’t think it’s possible to scale what is effectively a commodity app with plenty of competition without having a strong purpose, and without actively marketing.

I’m not sure todoist is your competitor. I use todoist. I use it because it allows me to create tasks and assign them to people and then it gets out of the way. I pay for the team plan (pro plan?) where I can assign to half a dozen folk.

Fabulous is very interesting - I got sucked in on a deal. Quickly realised it is VERY woo woo and aimed at a certain female focused audience. As a very non woo woo non-female I found the ‘coaching’ very not for me.

[Tarsul]

(after rereading I don't have any new points but I will let my comment stay for posterity) If so many people leave your free app, consider why they leave instead of focusing on 20 people who stay (how much money could you even make with 20 people? Not enough.). Only then you can focus on monetization. Anyway, best of luck and grats for getting so many downloads (albeit not enough sticky ones).