Week 9 — LifePilot: 26 downloads, referral system, onboarding emails, and an interactive home screen widget
Another week of shipping. Here's what happened.
Numbers this week
Downloads: 26 (+420% vs last month) | Revenue: €0 | Search Ads: €41.88 spent, 11 installs, CPA €3.81 | CR: 23.4%
The Search Ads campaign is holding steady. CPA improved slightly to €3.81 and the conversion rate jumped to 23.4% — meaning nearly 1 in 4 people who tap the ad installs the app. Volume is still the bottleneck. Today I added 4 new keywords (ai goal tracker, daily habit planner, life planner app, goal achievement app) and raised the bid on goal planner to €2.50, which has been the top performer at 45% CR.
What I built this week
Interactive iOS widget
The home screen widget now lets users complete tasks directly from their iPhone home screen — no need to open the app. I used AppIntent (iOS 17+) which writes the completed task ID to a shared App Group UserDefaults key. When the app comes back to the foreground, AppDelegate picks it up and syncs the completion. Both small and medium sizes are supported.
Referral system
Built a full referral flow from scratch. Every user gets a unique code. Share it with a friend — they get 7 days of Pro free, you get 7 days of Pro free. No App Store Connect changes needed: I'm managing it via a proExpiresAt field on Firestore, completely outside RevenueCat. Users who've invited at least one person get an Ambassador badge on their profile.
Onboarding email sequence with Brevo
Set up a 4-email automated sequence triggered at registration: welcome (day 0), how to read your plan (day 1), motivation check-in (day 3), one-week follow-up (day 7). Running on a cron job via Brevo's API. The domain getlifepilot.org is now fully authenticated — took about 20 hours for DNS propagation.
Paywall and notification improvements
Localized paywall headline that changes based on context (streak milestone, trial expiring, goal limit reached). Added a weekly summary notification every Friday at 7pm and a trial expiration reminder 6 days after signup. Inactivity reminders now mention the user's actual goal title.
What's next
Build 1.2.6 with all the above (code is ready, just need to archive and submit)
Monitor the new Search Ads keywords for 3-4 days
Start tracking funnel events now that PostHog is wired up properly
Reflections
Nine weeks in. This week felt more like building a growth engine than building features — referrals, emails, better notifications. The product is starting to have systems that work while I sleep. Still no revenue yet, but the pieces are in place. Now it's about getting enough users through the door to validate retention.
If you've run referral programs for mobile apps or have experience with onboarding email sequences, I'd love to hear what worked — drop it in the comments.
I like that the refferal system doesn't require App Store changes. Faster iteration usually wins.
Exactly — no review cycles, no waiting. Ship fast and see what sticks. That's the only way at this stage.
The strongest signal here is that you are now building growth loops, not just features.
One thing I’d watch carefully is whether the referral system is being introduced too early in the user journey. If users have not yet felt a clear “this helped me move closer to my goal” moment, the referral ask can become easy to ignore even if the reward is decent.
For LifePilot, I’d probably track one activation event before referral exposure, something like: user creates goal, gets plan, completes first meaningful task, then sees the referral prompt. That way the invite is tied to momentum, not just account creation.
Same with the onboarding emails. I would make the sequence less about explaining the app and more about getting the user to one small win as fast as possible. For a goal app, the first win matters more than feature education.
Since you already have PostHog wired up, the next useful question is: which moment predicts someone will come back on day 3 or day 7? That should drive the emails, notifications, and referral timing.
These are really sharp observations, thank you.
The referral timing point hits home — I launched it after account creation which is probably way too early. I'll move the trigger to after the user completes their first meaningful task or receives their first AI plan. That makes much more sense as a "share this" moment.
On onboarding emails — you're right, I've been explaining features instead of pushing toward a win. I'll rework the sequence around one clear goal: get the user to create their first goal and complete one task in the first 48 hours.
The PostHog question is exactly what I should be asking. I have events firing now but haven't done the retention analysis yet. Day 3 and day 7 retention by activation event is going on my list this week.
Really useful framing — building for the momentum moment, not just the signup moment.
That is the right direction.
For LifePilot, I’d treat the first 48 hours as the whole product right now. If a user creates a goal but does not feel one small moment of progress quickly, the rest of the growth loop will probably not matter yet.
The clean sequence I’d pressure-test is:
goal created
AI plan generated
first task completed
then referral prompt
That way the referral ask comes after the product has created a small win, not before.
Same with email. I would not explain LifePilot broadly. I’d write every onboarding email around one action: get the user back to the goal and make them complete the next small step.
If useful, I can put together a short written breakdown for LifePilot around activation events, onboarding email flow, referral timing, and a simple 7-day retention test plan.
Share your email if you want me to send the details privately.
That sequence is clean and I've already implemented it — referral prompt now fires after the first task is completed, not at signup.
The email point hits too. I've rewritten the onboarding sequence around one action per email: get back to the goal, complete the next step. No feature explanations.
The 48-hour frame is a useful constraint. I'm going to treat activation as the only metric that matters for the next two weeks and see what the numbers say.
Really appreciate the depth here — this thread has been more useful than anything I've read in the last month.
That is a strong move.
If you already changed the referral trigger and rewrote onboarding around one action per email, the next useful layer is not more advice. It is turning the next two weeks into a clean retention test.
I’d keep it very narrow:
which activation event predicts day 3 return
which email brings users back fastest
where users drop before first task completion
whether referral exposure after first task creates actual invites
That gives you a real growth read instead of just “we improved onboarding.”
If you want, I can turn this into a short written retention/activation breakdown privately: event map, email flow, referral timing, and a 7-day test plan for LifePilot.
Share your email if you want me to send the details.
Those four questions are exactly the right ones. I'm adding them to my tracking list for the next two weeks.
PostHog is now wired up so I should start seeing the activation funnel data soon. The referral conversion after first task is the one I'm most curious about — it's either the right moment or still too early.
Will report back in the Week 10 post with real numbers.
Good. That means the next two weeks should probably be less about adding features and more about proving one retention hypothesis cleanly.
At this point, the useful part is not more public advice — it is mapping the exact activation funnel, email timing, retention checkpoints, and referral conversion flow against the PostHog events you already have.
That becomes much easier to reason about privately with the actual event structure and onboarding flow in front of you.
If you want, send your email and I’ll outline how I’d structure the retention/activation test properly.
Thanks for the advice — really actionable. You're right, the next phase should be about proving one retention hypothesis, not shipping more features.
I'd love your input on structuring the activation/retention test properly. My email is [email protected] — feel free to reach out whenever.
Just sent you a note.
Kept it focused on the activation funnel, PostHog events, onboarding flow, referral timing, and the 7-day retention test.