Psychology
Make an achievable next step feel worth taking.
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A marketing strategy inspired by Duolingo: build motivation, make progress rewarding, and give people a reason to return to your app.
In developmentThis playbook is not usable yet: there is nothing to install or copy until it is ready. The walkthrough is a proposed adaptation awaiting review. Its plays are researched and work on their own. Inspired by Duolingo, not affiliated with or endorsed by Duolingo.
Meet Pocket: an imagined app for young adults building a little financial breathing room.
Build an emergency fund, one doable step at a time.
Fit matters more than resemblance. Keep the underlying reasoning and change the surface execution for your users.
Make an achievable next step feel worth taking.
Connect useful progress with a reason to return.
Encourage effort without making setbacks feel like failure.
The complete playbook covers seven connected lenses. These are its proposed strongest areas.
A play is one focused marketing move with its own fit, adaptation, guardrails, and test. These canonical plays are included in the Duolingo playbook and can also be installed and used by themselves.
The playbook adds a central strategy around them. The play records stay independent, so choosing one never requires adopting the whole playbook. Every play below is researched and cited, with its status printed beside it.
Get someone to see why the product matters.
When learners who already know some of the subject are offered the optional placement test, label it as checking their level rather than as a test. Duolingo doubled the tests taken in Japan.
2× placement tests Placement tests taken by new English learners in Japan after Duolingo reworded “take a placement test” to “check your English level” (both options' copy changed). Company-reported, no base, period or retention figure.
2 evidence entries, each with what it does not establish. Evidence from Duolingo.
The playbook supplies the central strategy. Its canonical plays can also be used independently. The free engine helps your coding agent put either format to work.
Adapt the approach to your idea before you build.
Work through a product decision with context.
Check whether a feature still serves your direction.
Connect your positioning to a first launch plan.
Each play packages one insight, adaptation, guardrails, and a test for your coding agent.
Browse standalone plays ↗Give people a reason to come back, and make their improvement visible.
When someone misses a planned session or comes back after a long gap, make the return itself earn a small bonus — or open it into an easier session with a gift.
+0.40 visits/week A 125-point bonus (about $0.09) for the planned gym visit after a missed one added 0.40 weekly visits over four weeks — 27% above the placebo group's 1.48. Milkman et al. megastudy, 24 Hour Fitness members.
2 evidence entries, each with what it does not establish. Evidence from Milkman et al. megastudy, Duolingo, Strava.
Open the full play ↗Keep recurring reminders fresh with a small pool of useful messages. Pick a variant at each send, skip the one this person got last, and log the choice so you can learn which messages lead to action.
4 evidence entries, each with what it does not establish. Evidence from Duolingo, Drink Less.
Open the full play ↗Put today’s progress where people already look: offer a home-screen widget showing whether the task is done, and open straight to it. Ask people to add it just after a completed session, when its usefulness is easy to explain.
4 evidence entries, each with what it does not establish. Evidence from Duolingo, Gratitude, UbiFit Garden, Hevy.
Open the full play ↗