Jackson Shuttleworth
Jackson Shuttleworth is a Group PM at Duolingo, where he leads the retention team and the powerful streak feature. The streak feature, which gamifies consecutive days of learning, has been Duolingo’s most important and innovative growth lever and a key driver of their growth to a $14 billion business with almost 600 million users.
Growth & Retention Skills
Implementing a streak mechanic creates a sense of loss aversion that motivates users to return daily to protect their progress and solidify long-term habits.
"Streaks is the most impactful feature. We have, right now, over 9 million users with a year plus streak. If you look at the numbers, I think it's been our biggest growth lever. What Duolingo really fo..."
Push notifications are most effective when they reference a specific metric or status that the user has already invested in emotionally, such as a multi-day streak.
"Us sending better, whether it's copy or timing, so many of our notifications work because they reference the streak, because users care about the streak. And so, not only is it itself, us iterating on..."
Moving from generic microcopy to language that reinforces a user's psychological commitment can lead to substantial increases in conversion and retention.
"We've actually set up really good infrastructure for copy testing. We used to say continue, our standard CTA is continue, and we changed that to commit to my goal, and it was a massive win."