Understand the product and user

To get to the core of your product is by identifying its core value and how users repeatedly experience it. Analyze usage patterns (e.g., frequency by user type) and evaluate how well your app supports consistent, engaging experiences.

Core Value Proposition

A core value proposition is simply the primary advantage a product offers its customers. It is not your product or service, its the factor that makes you stand apart from your competitors.

Natural Frequency

Natural Frequency is the number of times a user interacts with your product over a period of time. Apps like Instagram have a daily (multiple times a day) frequency whereas a matrimonial app like Shaadi.com will have a frequency as low as once in a lifetime.

Let us take an example of Hotstar:

• Core Value: Free entertainment via exclusive TV shows, movies, and sports highlights. It does so by the following - first, exclusive access to shows from all of Star's channels across India, including concurrent and archived shows. Second, access to a huge catalogue of free movies, including the latest ones just few weeks after their release. Third, sports highlights for all tournaments on the platform.
• User Experience: Consistent app updates with new content, personalized home page, and cross-selling of relevant titles.
• Natural Frequency: Casual users (2-3 times/month), core users (6-7 times/month), power users (5 times/week).
• Engagement framework: Depth for Hotstar is core, this means two things.

1. Watch time per month - The more users spend time on the app, the more ads they watch - thereby having a revenue impact
2. No. of distinct titles consumed - The more distinct titles a user consumes, the higher the retention. This also exposes a freemium user to different categories of ads surfaced.

Who is an active user?

Any user who has experienced the CVP can be considered as an active user.

For Spotify, an active user could be someone who has come back to the app at least twice a week and stays on the app listening to music for at least 10 minutes or someone who has subscribed to the app.