Assertion certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

Polarsteps Lost 90% of Its Active Users Within Days of COVID

Koen Droste · He lost 90% of his users overnight—then grew his consumer app to $10M ARR. | Koen Droste, Founder... · PMF Show · May 1, 2025 · at 41:07

Koen Droste, co-founder of travel app Polarsteps, explains the immediate impact of the March 2020 COVID-19 pandemic on user activity.

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“So when COVID hit in March, 2020, we lost like 90% of our active users within a couple of days.”

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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Opinion
Net Promoter Score Is Undervalued for Driving Viral and Organic Growth
“And I know there's a lot of criticism out there about MPS and its value, but I think actually that MPS is very undervalued for what it means if you want your company to grow through virality or organic growth, however you want to call it.”
Koen Droste May 1, 2025 ▶ 15:27 He lost 90% of his users overnight—then grew his consumer app to $10M ARR. | Koen Droste, Founder... · PMF Show
Disclosure
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Koen Droste May 1, 2025 ▶ 17:41 He lost 90% of his users overnight—then grew his consumer app to $10M ARR. | Koen Droste, Founder... · PMF Show
Insight
Polarsteps Rejected Scrappy MVPs in Favor of Heavy Pre-Launch Polish
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Koen Droste May 1, 2025 ▶ 10:48 He lost 90% of his users overnight—then grew his consumer app to $10M ARR. | Koen Droste, Founder... · PMF Show
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“And I've spoken to other entrepreneurs who also really believed in this model of MBS, but they could not get it going because at some point their investors, you know, started asking, where's the revenue? But if that actually happens, it's already too late beca…”
Koen Droste May 1, 2025 ▶ 18:06 He lost 90% of his users overnight—then grew his consumer app to $10M ARR. | Koen Droste, Founder... · PMF Show
Insight
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“We also had a designer on that team, which, you know, some people wonder like, okay, why would you have a designer show early on? But it makes a lot of sense. I think if you're developing an app that you can really invest, not only in the design of your app it…”
Koen Droste May 1, 2025 ▶ 7:28 He lost 90% of his users overnight—then grew his consumer app to $10M ARR. | Koen Droste, Founder... · PMF Show
Disclosure
Polarsteps Avoided Building for Android Until iOS Validated Product Value
“So one decision that we took early on is we're not going to build an Android app because for In the early days, you know, what we built, there was no, it was not like a chat where you should be able to talk with each other or whatever. So we didn't need that. …”
Koen Droste May 1, 2025 ▶ 20:56 He lost 90% of his users overnight—then grew his consumer app to $10M ARR. | Koen Droste, Founder... · PMF Show
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