What should product leaders consider when building a mission-driven product and scaling niche apps? In this episode of Product Talk hosted by Jonathan Ozeran, Hallow Co-Founder Erich Kerekes shares his insights on transitioning from a corporate career to founding a successful Catholic prayer and meditation app, navigating the challenges of product development and user engagement, and leveraging data to create a personalized experience for a growing community. Tune in for actionable advice on turning passion projects into thriving businesses.
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Show Notes
- Transitioning from a corporate career to founding a mission-driven product
- Identifying the intersection of faith and meditative practices as a market opportunity
- Iterating on the initial app with user feedback to improve the experience
- Adopting a flexible, adaptable approach to product team structure and responsibilities
- Aligning product development with evolving company priorities and goals
- Tailoring management styles to individual team members for optimal performance
- Leveraging user advisory boards and surveys to gather continuous feedback
- Implementing feature flagging and A/B testing to validate product enhancements
- Overcoming technical scaling challenges with database optimization and infrastructure
- Localizing content and features for international expansion
- Defining key metrics like week 4 retention as leading indicators of long-term success
- Qualifying meaningful user engagement actions beyond just app opens
- Balancing free and paid features to align with the mission of accessibility
- Exploring opportunities for virtual/augmented reality in the prayer experience
- Adding seamless transitions like a “prayer clock” to enhance the user flow
- Continuously expanding content and features to serve users at all faith stages
- Emphasizing the importance of community and shared prayer experiences
- Advising product builders to take small, actionable steps towards their vision
- Maintaining a focus on user needs and aligning metrics with the core mission
- Embracing flexibility, adaptation, and upfront communication of values and goals
About the speaker
About the host
Jonathan is a product and operations leader, company builder, investor and advisor. He has assembled, scaled and led product, design, software engineering, hardware engineering and machine learning teams across numerous financing stages (pre-seed through Series G).