Solstice Travel: Users Sign Up and Disappear

Product Management
medium45 min0 submissions
Google
Scenario

Solstice Travel's online travel product acquires users steadily but struggles to keep them.

Retention curve (all users):

DayRetained
D149%
D734%
D3011%
D909%

What else we know:

  • 33% of new users complete the core action at least once in week one
  • Among users who complete the core action three or more times in week one, D30 retention is 33%
  • 13% of users account for roughly 75% of total usage
  • Exit surveys most commonly say "didn't find it useful" and "forgot about it"

Growth is currently offsetting churn with paid acquisition, at a blended CAC that has risen 49% year on year.

Supporting data

segments

power users pct
13
activation rate pct
33
power user share of usage pct
75
d30 retention for 3x core action pct
33

economics

cac increase yoy pct
49

qualitative

top exit reasons
didn't find it useful,forgot about it

retention curve

d1
49
d7
34
d30
11
d90
9
Your task

Diagnose the retention problem and propose a plan. Provide:

  1. Analysis — what the curve and the segment data tell you.
  2. Risks — of the interventions you propose.
  3. Recommendation — what you would build, and how you would measure success.
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How you'll be graded

100 points, 60% to pass.

  • root cause25
  • measurement25
  • cohort analysis25
  • solution design25
Hint
Reveal suggested structure
  1. Read the curve's shape. A steep D1→D7 fall is an onboarding or value-discovery problem. A curve that never flattens is a product-market fit problem. These need opposite responses.
  2. Find the habit moment — the behaviour that separates retained from churned users.
  3. Compare segments — the 3×-core-action cohort is the natural experiment already in the data.
  4. Attack the biggest drop-off first.
  5. Instrument the intervention so the effect is measurable.