Assertion certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Free lesson-based streak recovery outperformed paid gem repairs for user retention

Jackson Shuttleworth · Behind the product: Duolingo streaks | Jackson Shuttleworth (Group PM, Retention Team) · Dec 15, 2024 · at 52:10

Jackson Shuttleworth is a Group Product Manager leading Duolingo's retention team. He describes transitioning from monetized streak repairs to free lesson-based recovery mechanics.

0:00 / 0:23exact quote · 23.2s
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“We had a feature in the day, you know, back in the day called streak repair. We give you your streak back. You had to pay gems, but we found that worked way better was a feature called earn back. And this is basically where you would have to do a certain number of lessons. As long as you came back with an, you know a window soon after losing your streak, do a few lessons and we just give you your streak back. And it was such a retention winner.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

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Insight
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Jackson Shuttleworth Dec 15, 2024 ▶ 22:58 Behind the product: Duolingo streaks | Jackson Shuttleworth (Group PM, Retention Team)
Insight
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Jackson Shuttleworth Dec 15, 2024 ▶ 1:01:20 Behind the product: Duolingo streaks | Jackson Shuttleworth (Group PM, Retention Team)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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“One of the most impactful experiments we ran was about, this was actually as I was joining, we had, or just after I joined, we had run this experiment was to move it from a XP based streak to just do one lesson a day and you'd extend your streak. And, you know…”
Jackson Shuttleworth Dec 15, 2024 ▶ 11:29 Behind the product: Duolingo streaks | Jackson Shuttleworth (Group PM, Retention Team)
Insight
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Jackson Shuttleworth Dec 15, 2024 ▶ 19:43 Behind the product: Duolingo streaks | Jackson Shuttleworth (Group PM, Retention Team)
Insight
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Jackson Shuttleworth Dec 15, 2024 ▶ 24:05 Behind the product: Duolingo streaks | Jackson Shuttleworth (Group PM, Retention Team)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn personally reviews every proposed product experiment
“All of our changes at Duolingo go through product review that, you know, are reviewed by Luis. Luis reviews every single change that, you know, we propose or every experiment that we run”
Jackson Shuttleworth Dec 15, 2024 ▶ 28:01 Behind the product: Duolingo streaks | Jackson Shuttleworth (Group PM, Retention Team)
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