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Hi everyone!
After my big cross-country move in October, every week for the past month, I've been saying the same thing: okay, I think we're 95% done.
Here's the thing: we had a choice: either hire a company and move all our stuff from LA to Atlanta, or sell/donate it and buy everything new on the spot. After much deliberation, we went down the second path, thinking: well, we don't even have THAT much stuff, do we? It'll be easy to replace.
I was very excited. It felt like a great fresh start.
If only someone had told me what it actually takes to replace EVERYTHING you have.
I'm not talking about the big things like bed frames and sofas — those are actually easy. I'm talking about small stuff: forks, placemats, stickers, notebooks, those skewers you use maybe once a year — piles and piles of it.
The problem was, I didn't realize how many things I owned and was actually using.
It made the breakup easy. And your users can feel the same.
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Steal of the week
Last week, I wrote about another retention tactic, but actually, this one is my favorite.
The steal is simple: show users what they've accumulated, created, or achieved with your product.
This is something that can be used when people are cancelling or, even better, way before that on a regular basis. That's when the real genius happens: when we regularly make users realize how much they're using our product, how much value they're getting, and how much they've already invested.
Canva uses it during the cancellation flow, but Spotify made a whole marketing campaign out of it. Every year, people share their stats, their song of the year, their top artists — turning a retention tactic into a virality machine. Genius, right?
Psychology behind why it works
Endowment & loss aversion (why giving up "your stuff" hurts)
Our brains hate losing things more than we enjoy gaining them. Think about that gym membership you kept for months "just in case" — even when you weren't going. When Spotify shows "You listened to 50,000 minutes this year," they're making you feel the potential loss of all that accumulated history.
Availability & salience (what you see is what you remember)
Users forget daily value until you make it visible. It's like not realizing how often you use your phone until you see "You picked it up 150 times today." When Duolingo displays "365-day streak," that invisible habit suddenly becomes concrete and valuable.
Identity & self-signaling (this is who I am)
We keep things that define us. It's why people hold onto their college textbooks or old running medals — they represent who we are. When Strava tells you "You ran 500 miles this year," they're not showing stats. They're saying "You're a runner." And we don't cancel subscriptions that define us.
Mistakes that make users ghost
Here's how this tactic backfires and sends users running:
Reminding non-users they're non-users. Imagine sending someone "You created 2 designs this year!" when they're paying $12.99/month. That's not a reminder of value — that's proof they're wasting money. They'll ghost faster than I abandoned the idea of bringing my barely-used juicer across the country. If usage is low, this tactic is a cancellation accelerator, not a retention play.
Sharing meaningless numbers without emotional weight. "You searched 19,264 times" means nothing. "You enjoyed 1,485 songs" hits different because it's about the experience, not the action. Or worse: "You logged in 47 times" versus "You maintained a 47-day learning streak." One is a database stat; the other is an identity statement. Share the wrong metric, and users will think "So what?" and ghost before you can say "retention rate."
How to implement like a pro
I honestly think it's a great move, so here's my advice on how to implement it:
Make it about value realization and talk about the results you brought them: "You completed 23 projects" or "You saved 15 hours with automation." This is how you remind users they got their money's worth and prevent them from ghosting when the renewal email hits.
Make it about identity — it's even more powerful. "You're among our most active creators" or "You've built a 6-month habit." We hate abandoning things that define us. (I don't want to tell you how many books I brought cross-country just because they make me feel like someone.) Make your product part of who they are, not just what they use.
Segment communication by engagement: with low-engaged users, skip the stats entirely (or replace with a better-looking metric) and make it about feedback requests, onboarding tips, and guidance to build the habit first. Showing someone who barely uses your product how little they've used it is like handing them a cancellation form. You need to bring them to actual engagement before you can remind them how great it's been.
If you forget everything, remember this:
People don't miss what they can't see — regularly showing users what they've built and gained makes your product irreplaceable, turning invisible value into emotional attachment.
