Playbook · Early fit
Early fit × Stay
Out of season, with one task: notice the emerging veterans. Write down what your longest-standing users do and what they have built up, so the endgame can be designed from real behavior later.
- M2 Early fit
- How do we put every new user on the path that retained users took?
- Stay
- Why do veterans stay when a competitor copies the features?
M2 × Stay
The playbook
Why it's out. Growth is still founder-led and the binding work is usually Start or Return. Endgame systems built now are guesses.
The one task. Interview a few of the earliest retained users: what do they do now that they didn't in month one, and what would they lose by leaving? That becomes the input for Stay at Scale.
Not now
- Status tiers, veteran roles and collectionsThere are no veterans to serve yet; the work is upstream.
- Annual identity artifact (yearly recap)A yearly recap needs a year of history and a large base.
- Loyalty tiers without devaluationTiers work once a large repeat base exists.
Questions to answer first
- What do your longest-standing users do in their second year? Is there anything new for them to do?
- If a competitor cloned your features tomorrow, what would users lose by switching that would keep them with you?
- What do users build up that makes the product better with use: content, data, followers, reputation, or skill?
Limits
What we don’t claim
- Seasons are defaults for the cell. Evidence from your own product can move a technique in or out of season.
- A playbook names candidate moves; which one goes first depends on the binding constraint in your product.
Sources
Book content is paraphrased, never quoted at length. Last verified October 24, 2026.
Your product
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