Uptime's mission and value proposition

Uptime is a London-based start-up founded in 2018, built on a mission to inspire people to learn quickly from trusted thought leaders without spending too much time or energy. The "micro-learning platform" presents five-minute "knowledge hacks" from books, courses, and documentaries in a snackable visual, audio, and text format, after which users can buy the book, watch the documentary, or sign up for the course. Users can access more of the 3,000+ titles with a premium subscription costing $20/month or $80/year, with a free 3-day trial.

Understanding the customer needs

The platform's journey started with a hypothesis that spending too much time on social media isn't a healthy digital habit, and that dedicating even a fraction of that time to learning something new could help. To validate this, Uptime analyzed over 100 apps and surveyed about 5,000 participants. One conclusion: hardly any platforms successfully balance high-quality educational content and a fun user experience. Most digital learning products offered formal, overwhelming amounts of information not accessible in realistic moments like a commute or a work break, so the team focused on making learning faster and easier by packing great ideas into 5 minutes.

Testing

Uptime implemented the right data tools early to generate user insight at every step of growth. In the early stages, without enough users for meaningful A/B tests, the team engaged with a small number of users one-on-one for feedback. Once the app built enough user base, A/B testing became the default methodology for every feature release. Léa's advice for smaller companies: carefully choose what's essential to test instead of testing everything, since not all tests are worth the cost and risk.

Paywall strategies

Borrowing inspiration from other apps' best practices can be a shortcut, but Léa warns that every app has different brand awareness, pricing strategy, audience, and localization, so you have to find what works for your own product and audience. One mistake to avoid: testing multiple paywall elements at once; instead, test one element at a time for accurate analysis.

KPIs - find your north star

When measuring paywall effectiveness, it's essential to keep an eye on higher metrics like retention rate that hold real business value. A/B testing might show a great paywall open rate while retention actually drops, meaning the effort was wasted. Decide what success means for your app and what signs really matter before the numbers start coming in.

Educating customers with the full product experience

Getting users on board with a brand-new app's value, with no awareness or social proof, is hard. Uptime used three approaches: leading with the product so it speaks for itself, allowing users to get the full premium experience from the beginning, and leading with the premium subscription when users reach the "aha" moment.

Episode 8 sneak peek

• On research: "It actually became very clear that there was a need for a way to spend short amounts of time throughout your day gaining knowledge, but it's actually very difficult to do so."
• On testing: "We didn't start testing from day one, what we did was introduce the basics needed for testing. We made sure that everything was tracked properly. In a startup, there's a lot more pressure to have results, and because you have less users and less resources, the impact is much bigger. You have to be a lot smarter about how you test."
• On paywalls: "There's a big caveat here because what works for one product doesn't necessarily work for another one. There are a lot of other factors to be taken into consideration, like your brand awareness, your pricing strategy, your audience, and your localization."
• On educating users: "Why should someone choose to use your product and trust you rather than anyone else out there? We've decided, at Uptime, to actually lead with the product first, let the product speak for itself."

More about Léa Samrani

Léa Samrani is a London-based product management veteran with about a decade of experience managing teams, driving product strategy, and building products from the ground up. Prior to Uptime, Léa worked as a senior product manager at Bumble and Badoo, and has years of experience as head of product management in the charity sector. She is also a lecturer at Product School.