To create great retention, you need to build and deepen user habits over time. Habit building is a science. Users have motivations, cognitive and physical friction, rewards, and more that all play a role in habit building.

revenue retention is an output of usage. It's a lagging indicator, and if you are focused there you are looking in the wrong place.

Retention is an output. To improve it, you need to move one of its core inputs: Activation, Engagement, or Resurrection.

If you try to keep everyone, you will lose. Trying to keep everyone will lead to extremely sub-optimal results as we continue to see a behavior shift. Your core focus should be on identifying and retaining the marginal audience.

“Is the marginal audience experiencing real value or only temporal value? To understand this you need to look at the underlying behavior that is driving engagement. If they are engaging only because of current events, but not experiencing the broader value prop, then those users will not retain.”