Past Sessions

• Event: MAU Vegas 25
• Date: Thursday, May 22, 2025
• Speakers: Thomas Siegl, Founder and CEO, Kasva, Mark Kaufmann, CEO and Co Founder, LingQ
• Estimated read time: 6-7 minutes

Quick Read Summary

LingQ improved growth by treating mobile app onboarding and subscription monetization as one connected system, not a set of isolated screens. The headline wins came from clarifying intent early, tightening commitment moments, and making the paywall easier to choose.

Small changes compounded, a welcome screen adjustment lifted install to signup by 4 percent, a push opt in redesign delivered a rare step change, and a paywall rebuild increased revenue per install by 15 percent.

Retention improved when the product asked for a daily learning commitment in plain language and backed it with a concrete expectation, including an uplift of 4 percent on day seven retention, measured as completed lessons, not just app opens.

The through line is a practical one, optimize for clarity over cleverness, use benefits over feature lists, and keep experimenting even when most tests do not produce a win.

Start with the system, not the screen

If you want to improve subscription monetization, the temptation is to stare at the paywall and squeeze conversion. LingQ’s case is a reminder that the paywall only performs as well as the momentum you build into it. Thomas Siegl frames the operating model simply.

“Growth is a system, not a silo.” Thomas Siegl, Founder and CEO, Kasva

In practice, that means every step influences the next. Higher intent acquisition improves activation. Better activation creates earlier value, which improves conversion and retention. Stronger monetization funds product improvements and paid acquisition. Retention fuels word of mouth. The point is not theoretical purity, it is budgeting attention where compounding actually happens.

A useful decision rule for senior teams is this, if a change improves a leading metric but degrades the ability to learn, message, or retain later, you have not made progress. You have moved pressure downstream.

Fix the first click, clarify intent before you ask for data

LingQ’s onboarding improvements began with an unglamorous problem, the welcome screen was optimized for customer support workflows, not for new user intent. The primary button emphasized “I already have an account,” because support was dealing with users creating multiple accounts that then needed merging. That is operationally rational, but strategically expensive, it makes the default path feel like login, not start.

The solution was not just swapping button priority. The team changed the primary call to action to “Getting started,” and avoided calling it “Sign up,” because the actual signup occurred later, after the app explained value. That sequencing matters. It aligns with how users evaluate risk, they want proof before paperwork.

The result was a 4 percent increase in install to signup rate. That lift mattered for two reasons. First, it created more addressable users, more email addresses and more users reaching the paywall. Second, it validated a common onboarding principle, reduce perceived commitment until the value is felt, then ask for the next step.

A practical check you can apply this week is to review your first screen and answer one question, does the primary button reflect what a new user wants to do, or what your internal team wants the user to do.

Earn permission for push, do not borrow it from competitors

After capturing more signups, LingQ moved to push notifications. Mark Kaufmann is direct about channel value, email is decent, push is better for mobile. The mistake most apps make is treating push opt in as a compliance hurdle, not a persuasion moment.

LingQ adjusted the push screen to provide more visual motivation, making the outcome feel tangible. The change produced what Mark described as a “massive lift,” an unusually large improvement for a single step, compared with the more typical pattern of incremental gains.

Two insights are worth pulling out.

First, the best push prompt is not a list of reasons. It is a clear picture of the progress the user can expect, tied to their own goal.

Second, competitive research helps, but copying does not. The previous screen design leaned heavily on a competitor pattern, and the lesson was explicit.

“It’s good to do competitive research, but don’t copy blindly.” Thomas Siegl, Founder and CEO, Kasva

For teams scaling mobile app onboarding, this is the real discipline, steal principles, not layouts. A pattern that works in a game or a mass market habit app may be wrong for a content driven language product where trust and learning commitment are the core.

Paywall optimization is not cosmetics, it is decision design

The clearest subscription monetization win came from paywall optimization. The original paywall had three plans, no obvious purchase button, and a structure that forced users to tap a tier to progress. It also led with features rather than benefits, and it was long without clearly signaling that it could scroll.

LingQ redesigned the paywall around choice clarity.

They reduced plans from three to two, tightened the layout, and shifted messaging toward outcomes, including vocabulary growth, comprehension, and confidence. They also made the scroll behavior obvious and added a clear button at the bottom.

Those changes drove a 15 percent increase in revenue per install. Importantly, the lift came from two mechanisms working together, higher conversion from install to paid, and a higher share of one year users, which increased value per purchaser.

If you are leading paywall optimization, this is the underlying move, reduce cognitive load at the moment of purchase, then anchor the decision in the benefit the user already came for. Features are supporting detail, benefits are the purchase language.

Build a testing culture that expects “no impact”

Not every experiment wins, and LingQ’s team treats that as normal, not as failure. Mark noted that many tests do not show an obvious win, and even when they look positive once, reruns can produce different results. The standard is reliability, not hope.

They shared an example where a redesigned screen looked clearly better to the team, and they expected a positive result. The outcome was no measurable impact. They kept the new version anyway because it was cleaner, but they did not pretend it moved the metric.

For senior leaders, this is a governance issue. Your experimentation program needs two protections.

One, a definition of “clear enough to ship,” so you do not promote noise into the product.

Two, permission to keep improvements that reduce confusion or future support burden, even when they do not immediately move conversion. Not all value shows up in the primary metric window.

Retention comes from commitment, backed by credible expectations

After onboarding and paywalls, LingQ returned to what they called king, retention. Without retention, monetization gains decay.

A retention oriented onboarding test focused on a daily goal screen. The earlier version asked users to set a daily learning goal, while also introducing coins. The combination was too much information at once.

The revised screen simplified the decision to time commitment, and added a small line of copy that translated the chosen goal into a credible expectation, the number of words a user could learn in a year, based on LingQ’s historic data.

This change delivered a 4 percent uplift in day seven retention. Critically, retention was defined as completing learning lessons, not just opening the app. As a secondary benefit, the same change also increased signups and pro plan subscriptions.

This is a strong pattern for mobile app onboarding in subscription products, ask for a commitment that matches your value model, then justify it with a believable forecast that helps the user choose confidently.

Teach the methodology, remove confusion before it becomes churn

LingQ’s learning system is not obvious, and they treat onboarding as education. One example was a screen that confirms word learning behavior. LingQ tracks words encountered, flags new words, and as users progress, assumes unmarked words are known. That can create confusion, users may see their new words converted to known, or they may not understand what the interface is asking.

They tested a redesigned interface and clearer button copy, aiming for simpler, cleaner understanding. The result was a 5 percent increase on the measured step, and the qualitative value was reduced confusion that can lead to churn.

For growth teams, the takeaway is that retention is often a comprehension problem. Users quit when they cannot predict what the product is doing, even if the product is objectively useful. Clarity is part of value.

Do not stop at in app, acquisition and App Store optimization compound too

Although the session title focused on onboarding and monetization, the case extended into acquisition, specifically App Store optimization.

LingQ approached it holistically. They improved rating prompts, including when to ask and how often. That led to five times more App Store reviews, and an average rating increase to more than 4.8, from around 4.546 previously. They also updated keywords, iterated continuously, and tested App Store screenshots and the app icon. They saw an App Store conversion rate increase of more than 20 percent.

The strategic point is that App Store optimization is not separate from product growth. Ratings, reviews, conversion rate, and in app experience reinforce each other. When you improve onboarding, you earn better reviews. When you improve reviews, you earn more organic traffic. When you earn more organic traffic, you have more users to learn from.

Conclusion

LingQ’s results came from a consistent thesis, subscription growth improves fastest when you design the whole journey as one system. Mobile app onboarding sets expectations and builds momentum, paywall optimization turns momentum into revenue, and retention validates that the product is delivering. The teams that win are not the ones with the cleverest screens, they are the ones that keep removing confusion, keep translating features into benefits, and keep experimenting until compounding does the work.

Speaker bios

Thomas Siegl, Founder and CEO, Kasva. Thomas helps grow subscription based apps through activation, monetization and experimentation. He has worked in product and growth for digital products for more than 14 years, with the last 8 years focused mostly on mobile apps, including founding and building Uproad, and hands on work across B2B and B2C products. Sample clients include LingQ, Pons Langenscheidt, Photo Vault, meinUnterricht, Bitrock, Collectibles. He is also scaling an Application Security solution as Principal Product Manager Growth at Dynatrace.

Mark Kaufmann, CEO and Co Founder, LingQ.  After retiring from playing professional hockey internationally, Mark co founded a language learning company which has been developing language learning apps since 2002. The company started web only, then added iOS and Android apps. Mark focuses on improving how people learn languages while adapting to new technology.