Trophy Updates - December 2025
Push notifications in beta, wrapped API, restore streak API, points metering controls and achievement API updates.
Product experiences that delight and retain
Learn how to leverage user psychology to hook users on your app—with their blessing.
THE TROPHY METHOD
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- 1. Aligning Incentives
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- When you build a product that provides massive value for users, they will beg you to use every psychological trick at your disposal to make sure they stay hooked.
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Jason Louro
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- 2. Establishing A Habit
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- Now that we've made sure our product provides users with value and incentives are aligned, the next step is to help the user build a regular usage habit.
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- 3. Maintaining Engagement
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- With incentives aligned and a habit established, we must keep our users consistently delighted, encouraged, and engaged.
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News & Updates
Trophy Updates - November 2025
We went to WebSummit + a new user details page, streak restore utility, and leaderboard performance improvements
Trophy Updates - October 2025
Webhooks, leaderboard breakdowns and a new AI docs assistant.
Trophy Updates - September 2025
Leaderboards are here! Plus streak freezes, idempotency and more...
Gamification Guides
How to Build a Wrapped Feature for Your App
Learn how to create year-end wrapped experiences that drive viral growth and re-engagement for consumer platforms
8 Mobile App Engagement Strategies That Actually Improve Retention
Proven tactics product teams use to keep users coming back. From gamification to lifecycle emails, learn what works and when to use each strategy.
How to Build an Energy Feature
Building energy systems from scratch means handling regeneration, consumption, and caps. Here's the technical reality and faster path.
How to Build an XP Feature
Building XP systems from scratch means handling points triggers, economic balance, and award logic. Here's the technical reality and faster path.
How to Build a Streaks Feature
Building streak tracking from scratch means solving time zones, consistency, and edge cases. Here's the technical reality and faster path.
How to Build a Leaderboards Feature
Building leaderboards from scratch takes months and creates ongoing maintenance burden. Here's the technical reality and a faster alternative.
Growing B2C companies fast
Insights we've gathered from B2C founders at high-growth companies
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- How Lifesum's Outcome-Focused Approach Built Trust with 65 Million Users
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- When Marcus Gners, Chief Growth Officer and co-founder of Lifesum, joined the Levels Podcast, he shared a perspective that challenges how most founders think about building health and wellness products. After 13 years and 65 million downloads, his team discovered something crucial: users don't download their app because they want to track food. "People don't use a food tracking app because they want to build a giant archive of everything they've eaten in their life," Marcus explains. "They use
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- How Lifesum is Building an Unfair Competitive Advantage in Wellness
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- With 65 million users and 13 years of nutrition data, Lifesum is expanding into supplements and biomarkers. Marcus Gners explains their platform strategy and why owning the audience creates cheaper customer acquisition than traditional wellness companies.
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Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
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- Want Beats Should: The Psychology Behind Habit Formation in Health Apps
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- Health apps traditionally use guilt and shame to drive engagement. Lifesum's Marcus Gners explains why appealing to users' wants instead of shoulds creates sustainable motivation, and what health apps can learn from gaming.
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Building a Community
The Discord Revolution: How Nepal Elected a Prime Minister and What It Means for Communities
When Nepal's youth organized a political movement, they didn't use Facebook—they used Discord. Punit shares this fascinating story and explains why dark social and gated communities are replacing the public web, and what founders should do about it.
Why Programiz Built a YouTube Channel Before Launching Their SaaS
Programiz had millions of users but zero brand recognition. Discover why they spent a year putting faces to their content before launching their paid product, and what this reveals about the evolution from utility to community.
From WhatsApp Group to 150,000 Users: How Buen Provecho Validated Their Food Waste App
Guillermo Martinez shares how Buen Provecho spent months validating their concept through a WhatsApp group before building their app, managing everything manually to prove demand existed before investing in development
How One 67-Year-Old User Became Buen Provecho's Biggest Customer
While most users are young professionals or families, Buen Provecho's top user is a 67-year-old woman who orders 2-3 times daily as her walking exercise. Guillermo discusses unexpected user personas and the power of user stories.
Why Buen Provecho Shows Impact, Not Just Discounts
While competitors emphasize the "cheap" aspect of surplus food, Buen Provecho focuses on environmental impact with CO2 savings and waste prevented. Guillermo explains why this protects premium brand partnerships.
The 1000 Cookbooks Project: How User Research Shaped a Startup's Strategy
Before CKBK even existed as a platform, founder Matthew Cockerill faced a fundamental question: In a world drowning in free recipes online, do cookbooks still matter?
Growing Marketplaces
How Chefadora Solved the Two-Sided Marketplace Problem: From Mom's Kitchen to 100K Users
Starting a two-sided marketplace is notoriously difficult. You need creators to attract users, but you need users to attract creators. It's a chicken-and-egg problem that has killed countless startups. Read how Chefadora, a recipe-sharing platform made it through.
The Supply-Constrained Startup: Why Buen Provecho Can't Run Ads Like Other Apps
Guillermo Martinez explains why having too many users is actually a problem for Buen Provecho's business and how supply constraints shape every decision they make about growth.
Why Buen Provecho Refused Investment from Grocery Chains (And How It Saved Their Business)
Guillermo Martinez explains why Buen Provecho turned down strategic investment from major supermarket chains and how that decision protected their ability to become the dominant platform in their market.
The Franchise Model That Didn't Work: Lessons from Entering New Markets
Guillermo Martinez explains why Buen Provecho's franchise approach to Colombia failed and why they'll never use that model again for marketplace expansion.
Why 38% of Purchases Come from Favorited Stores (And The Problem It Creates)
Buen Provecho discovered that power users who favorite stores get instant notifications and snap up inventory fast, creating a two-tiered user experience. Guillermo discusses how they're addressing this imbalance.
Building Trust Without Looking Like You're Selling "Second-Tier Food"
One of Buen Provecho's biggest early challenges was overcoming the stigma that surplus food equals poor quality. Guillermo explains how mission-driven branding and curation helped build trust with their first users.
Engineering
How to Build a Wrapped Feature for Your App
Learn how to create year-end wrapped experiences that drive viral growth and re-engagement for consumer platforms
How to Build an Energy Feature
Building energy systems from scratch means handling regeneration, consumption, and caps. Here's the technical reality and faster path.
How to Build an XP Feature
Building XP systems from scratch means handling points triggers, economic balance, and award logic. Here's the technical reality and faster path.
How to Build a Streaks Feature
Building streak tracking from scratch means solving time zones, consistency, and edge cases. Here's the technical reality and faster path.
How to Build a Leaderboards Feature
Building leaderboards from scratch takes months and creates ongoing maintenance burden. Here's the technical reality and a faster alternative.
Handling Time Zones in Global Gamification Features
Time zones break gamification features in subtle ways. A user in Tokyo and a user in New York can't fairly compete on daily goals without careful handling.
Gamification Case Studies
How Brilliant Uses Gamification to Improve Engagement and Retention
Discover how Brilliant leverages gamification to boost retention and engagement.
How Charity Miles Leverages Gamification to Boost Retention
Learn how Charity Miles uses gamification to improve engagement and retention, and add value to its users.
How ClassDojo Uses Gamification to Improve Engagement and Retention
Explore the mechanics and tactics behind ClassDojo's gamification strategy.
How Codecademy Uses Gamification to Improve Engagement and Retention
Explore how Codecademy implements gamification to enhance user engagement and retention.
Coursera Case Study: The Impact of Gamification on Retention and Engagement
Explore how Coursera implements gamification to enhance user engagement and retention.
How Elevate Uses Gamification to Improve Engagement and Retention
Elevate is a great example of how gamification can improve user engagement and retention.
Gamification Examples
10 Apps That Use The Challenges Feature
Wondering how the challenges feature can enhance your app? Learn from these 10 examples of how to use it successfully.
22 Education App Gamification Examples
Curious about gamification in education apps? Check out these 22 examples of how it's done right.
12 Examples of Fitness App Gamification
Wondering how gamification can enhance your fitness app? Learn from these 12 examples of successful gamification tactics.
10 Apps That Use The Points Feature
Explore how 10 apps are leveraging the points feature to create compelling user experiences.
10 Apps That Use The Progress Bars Feature for Gamification
Wondering how the progress bars feature can enhance your app? Learn from these 10 examples of how to use it successfully.
10 Best Examples of the Rewards Feature in Gamification
Curious about the rewards gamification mechanic? Check out these 10 examples of how it's done right.
Newsletter
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