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A while back, I worked on a product where influencers could turn themselves into AI personalities, and users would pay to interact with them.
Not just chat. Calls, images, subscriptions to specific characters.
A layered monetization model:
- Tokens for usage (chat, calls, images)
- Subscriptions for deeper access
- Platform takes a % cut
On paper, it’s simple. In reality, it raises one core question: How do you design for long-term LTV in a product like this?
Because novelty fades fast.
You need to think about:
- Emotional retention (why come back to this AI?)
- Content freshness (does it evolve or feel static?)
- Progression (does the relationship deepen over time?)
- Spend loops (are users nudged without feeling pushed?)
And then there’s distribution.
We assumed desktop. We considered native apps. But real usage told a different story:
Mobile web won.
Which changes everything:
- Performance becomes product
- Friction = drop-off
- Payments, UX, and speed need to feel native without being native
Designing in this space isn’t just about UI.
It’s behavior, psychology, and business model. All tightly coupled.
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I spent over a year as the product designer for Hypernative. They just raised $40M in Series B funding not long ago.
Hypernative is a real time security platform for Web3, protecting billions in assets across 60+ blockchains. The product is genuinely best in class. But when I started, the UX wasn't matching the tech.
The UI was super complex, data heavy, and required a steep learning curve. For a security platform where seconds matter, that's a big problem. If your users can't parse a critical alert instantly, the best detection engine in the world doesn't help.
So We rebuilt the experience around three pillars: clarity, actionability, and scalability.
Clarity meant redesigning the threat severity system so users could gauge urgency at a glance. Actionability meant replacing static alerts with interactive ones that included recommendations, historical context, and mitigation steps right in the UI. Scalability meant building a modular dashboard so different teams could customize the interface for their workflow.
The results were 40% improvement in threat detection response time. 30% increase in user retention. 25% reduction in false positive friction.
In complex B2B products, design is the difference between a tool people tolerate and a platform they rely on. Especially in security so if the UX creates cognitive load at the moment someone needs to act fast, you've already lost.
Perfect design
20K for design?” No.
$20K is not for design. It’s for fixing decisions that are already costing you money.
Because the problem isn’t UI. The problem is: users don’t reach the value onboarding doesn’t convert flows break motivation the product isn’t generating revenue, even though it could
We’ve had cases where redesigning onboarding increased conversion by +40%. You’re not paying for screens. You’re paying for your product to start working. And yes - it’s not for everyone.
If you want to understand where your product is losing money - you can book a strategic session here: 👉 https://contra.com/s/k6qZgFA2-mobile-app-ui-ux-design-audit-and-growth-strategy-for-mobile-app
🔖 Tags
#mobileappdesign #uxdesign #productdesign #growthdesign #uxstrategy #mobileux #appdesign #conversionrate #retention #onboarding #startupdesign #saasdesign #figmadesign #uidesign #productgrowth #userexperience #uxaudit #designstrategy #appgrowth #uxui #asol_design
Paying for design to fix broken onboarding and add 40% conversion — that reframe alone is worth sharing everywhere
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