SmallCase : Engagment and Retention Problem

Table of content

1. About Smallcase

2. Understand the product

3. Define

4. Segment

4. Engagment

— User drop-off

— User type

Retention

1. Userstand

2. Define

3. Resurrection Campaign

— For At risk users

— For churned users

About Smallcase

Founded in 2015

Last funding type : Series C

Total funding amount : $62M

Company Stage : Mature Scaling

Smallcase is a wealth management startup that focuses on equity investing. Their platforms and investment products are build to invest better in Indian equities. A smallcase is a basket of stocks/ETFs weighted to reflect an idea.The idea is to become a stronge alternative instrument of stock market investment.

Understand

1. What is the core value prop of your product? How do users currently experience that core value prop repeatedly?

You need some knowledge of finance, expertise and time to invest in stocks directly to get good returns.

On the other hand you have mutual fund, where you give your money to a fund manager whose team does the research and manages portfolio for you. For this research and work, they charge some money.

Smallcases are designed on themes, ideas and strategies by SEBI registered investment advisor. They suggest you portfolio to invest into but do not manage it actively.

Intro

Giving retail investors an option to invest in stocks in a way which are safer than standalone equities but offer higher returns than traditional mutual funds, to those who:

• Can not invest in stocks directly due to lack of knowledge and time
• Do no want to put high investment fees
• Wants to invest in trends and ideas for short or long term goals.

Our users experiences the value prop when they invest in a smallcase and get to see their investment amount growing/wealth generation.

To provide an investment solution to a specific segment, who wants to save time & money while compromising investment returns to an extent, through suggested stock portfolios.

In short, a easier, cheaper and a good equity investment solution with good returns.

2. What is the natural frequency of your core product?

• Casual User : 2–3 times an year
• Core Users : 1–2 times every quarter
• Power Users : every month

Frequency is based on how frequenty they are changing their portfolio, including rebalancing, buying more or selling existing smallcases.

3. Do you have other sub products? What is their natural frequency like?

SIP : Apart from lumpsum, users tend to subscribe to Smallcases with SIP option. It is for all kind of users where they have same natural frequency as the core product.

Tickertape : It is used for more in depth analysis of the product before investment. It is usually appreciated by power users who want to invest actively and wants to take more calculated approach. But the natural frequency for tickertape is weekly, where they check health of their portfolio for active rebalancing or any kind of change.

Reports, insights and emerging trends : It has 2–3 times weekly natural frequency, as people tend to stay on top of the trend and be informed about the changes happening in market. They also tend to subscribe to weekly newsletter.

4. What is the best engagement framework for your product?

Breadth/ New features : Getting users to see smallcase not just as an alternative of stock investment solution, but single point of solution for all stock market related queries. From learning new things, in-depth analysis and investment of all kind.

Option to add IPOs and Bonds in the product offering and attract a segment of customers who wants to invest in newer public businesses and more.

Depth of features: Increase user’s ticket size. Users should feel the ease of investment along with the ROI of smallcases. The fees for smallcases must justify the ROI and convenience.

Apart from this, make users invest in not just lumpsum-free smallcases but in SIPs and paid smallcases as well.

Frequency: Make people learn about investment more. Explain them situations with different market times, ticket sizes and tenure of investment. Help them invest in newer ideas and trends.

Build a community where users can ask questions and peers and/or community moderators can answer them. In the age of the content economy, where the internet is becoming the answer to all questions, finance and investment questions are also included and answered openly. Smallcase must not lose this opportunity for trust-building.

Answer: Frequency of usage

Reason: If people trust you more, they’ll be okay to see you more, talk to you more, and Engage more.

2. Define

1. Mention the action(s) that make someone an active user for your product

Core action: Invested in a smallcase

Any user who has invested in a smallcase can be defined as an active user

2. Mention the natural frequency of your product

1. Ranging from twice a year to twice a month, the average becomes once a month for smallcase investment.
2. For non-investment features like tickertape and report including newsletter it should be weekly.

3. Segment

Have a detailed segmentation for your active users. For each of your segment have a detailed definition of that segment. Some starting points for segmentation are:

1. Power/Core/Casual
2. ICP/Persona based
3. Natural frequency based
4. Revenue generated
5. Products/Feature used
6. Advanced segmentation: Loyalists/Champions/In danger/Hibernating

Your segmentation should clearly have a distinguishment of what features users value more & what’s their natural frequency.

User Segment

User Persona

Avearge fees per transaction = ₹150

Life time value = 1 Year

4. Engagement

The core goal of the product is to invest more via smallcases and make stock investment easy, cheap and more rewarding.

This will help users experience the core value proposition of the product better.

By doing this we can :-

1. Reduce LTV : CAC
2. Become a stronge alternate equity investment instrument
3. Help users create their own smallcase, which can help us build trust among power users who are our actual promoters

All of this has to be done via multiple channels and with different themes of campaigns.

So, two things :

1. This will be a continuous process of experiment and iteration based on the results of experiment. We need to figure out what is working, what is not.
2. Need to work on different themes and campaigns for different types of ICPs and user type casual/core/power.

There will be 2 types of campaigns and metrics to track,

1. User drop-off

Core proposition of the product is to buy a smallcase. This can be done via multiple user flows.

But for the campaign, we want to create a journey of events for a generic happy flow.

Every drop-off is done after a CTA is clicked and we can use that as a starting point for a campaign/email/push notification.

Retention Campaign:-

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2. User type

Casual users -> Core Users

Problem statement:

1. Casual users probably don’t trust or understand the product enough
2. They don’t think about investments that actively
3. Unless there is a solid proof of return or incentive, they would not invest again

Solution :

1. Build a community of Smallcase users or managers and creators for beginners moderated by smallcase to to build trust where people can ask question and get answered.
2. A knowledge series answering FAQs in detail with examples.

Metrics to track:

1. % of casual users joining the community
2. % of casual users making 2nd investment
3. TAT for investing in 2nd smallcase
4. % increase in LTV in a quarter

Core users -> Power users

Problem statement:

1. Increase the frequency of investments made by the user
2. Increase the amount the user invests per smallcase
3. Invest in different types of smallcases SIP, lumpsum and paid smallcases

Solutions:

1. Promote different types of smallcases including different themes via Email and push notifications.
2. Promote tickertape to make them take more calculated decisions by doing some in-depth analysis

Metrics to Track:

1. % of users increasing ticket size MoM
2. Increase event count of different investment channels

Retention

1. Understand
2. Define
3. Campaigns

1. Understand

Bird’s-eye view

1. What is your current retention rate in terms of users? Couldn’t get the actual data points but based on some public report, fintech/consumer transactional apps with 6 month retention rate of 15–30% consider to be good.
2. At what time period does your retention curve flatten? 8 Weeks

Microscopic View

1. Which ICPs drive the best retention? ICP 2. Bachelor working profession working in Tier 1. Have appetite and willingness to invest also, with little knowledge of stock market.
2. What channels drive the best retention? Push and Social media. ICPs rely on social media for market updates, so it works as a decision influencer. Push helps them stay connected to the platform and keep an eye on their investment portfolio.
3. What subfeatures or sub products drive the best retention? Reports and videos. ICPs are into investment for sometime but they also want an easy explanation of things happening around via videos and use them as refreshers also.

2. Define

Core action: Investing in a smallcase

Churned user: Those who stopped investing after sometime {where time is lower for casual and higher for power users}

Casual users will be more inclined towards voluntary churn as they are not much aligned with the core value prop of the product but core and power can have voluntary or involuntary churn.

1. What are the top reasons your users churn. High processing fees (2.5%) and brokerage on rebalancing.
2. Divide your churn reasons into voluntary churn and involuntary churn

Churn

3. What are the negative actions you’d look for? Examples, Low NPS, Support tickets, CSATs etc. Make this relevant to your product.

1. At Risk
2. Low push notification view to click conversion
3. Reduced app engagement time/ session length
4. Low conversion on email CTAs
5. Unsubscribe to newsletter
6. Remove from watchlist
7. Negative review on app/play store
8. Low NPS/CSAT
9. High ticket count
10. Churned
11. Stopped SIPs
12. Close smallcase
13. Negative sentiment on social media
14. App uninstall
15. Unlink broker account with smallcase

3. Resurrection Campaigns

Mention all the campaigns you’d run to get your users back. Your campaigns should have a clear mention and explanation of:

1. Segmentation of user type
2. Pitch/Content
3. Offer
4. Frequency and timing
5. Success metrics

How to solve for AT RISK users?

• Community to keep them engaged with general investment discussions and discounted access to the next smallcase
• Example of how their smallcase is performing well in the market
• User calling to help understand the exact issue, not just play store/social media reply
• Keep them updated about new smallcases to invest into

How to solve for CHURNED users?

• Promise better quality support
• Promote the option to create your own smallcase for more control of investment and discount on paid smallcase(for power and core users only)

Ressurection campaigns might work only for voluntary churn, so the campaign theme should address those issues only. If someone has maxed out their investment potential, we can not make them part of any campaign where we are encouraging people to invest more.

Resurrection Campaign

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