AllTrails: keep hikers coming back and premium members renewing

You are a product manager at AllTrails, the app people use to find, plan and follow hiking trails. How would you raise retention, both across the app as a whole and among members who pay for the premium subscription? ```hint Respect the hiking calendar People rarely hike every day, and many stop for the winter. Decide what "retained" should mean for this product before choosing solutions, and treat a lapsed free user and a premium member approaching renewal as different problems. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Should retention be measured by app opens, by hikes recorded or navigated with the app, or, for premium, by subscription renewal? - Is there a recent drop in retention to explain, or is this a general goal to raise it? - Are premium members mostly on annual plans, so the deciding moment is a once-a-year renewal? - Which users matter most here: new users who never complete a first hike, regular hikers, or premium members who rarely use paid features? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A definition of retention that fits episodic, seasonal use, with separate measures for overall activity and premium renewal - A segmentation of users by hiking experience, activity level and subscription status, with a justified focus - Pain points and solutions mapped to first use, ongoing engagement and winning back lapsed users - Prioritization by impact and effort, including specific levers for premium value and renewal - Metrics, guardrails and an experiment plan that account for seasonality and long renewal cycles ### Follow-up Questions - Premium renewals fell this year. How would you tell whether the cause is the product, the price or the season? - How would you keep users engaged through winter in regions where trails are snowed in? - Should some premium features move into the free tier to grow the user base? How would you decide?