Quick onboarding, progressive disclosure and innovative engagement features.
Consumer mobile is a hard industry: high customer acquisition costs due to competition, retention challenges, niche addressable markets and many more obstacles.
Growing sometimes involves hand to hand combat: “Evan was willing to try anything to get users. When he was home in Pacific Palisades, he would go to the shopping mall and hand out flyers advertising Snapchat”, said a former Snapchat executive about the initial growth of the company.
But once in a while, an app crack the code.
They figure out a distribution channel, partner up with the right influencers, ship an amazing product and make it work.
Today’s post is about one of those.
Ladder is a coach-driven strength training app that was launched in 2019. During the last 5 years, it has become one of the best rated App Store apps in its category, grew 500% last year alone and raised a $12mm Series A.
Patrick Murphy of Tapestry VC, a fund that participated in their latest round, summarizes the app’s edge well:
“Ladder has built engagement levers similar to social apps, but instead of selling your attention to advertisers, they’re genuinely helping you by keeping you excited to work out. We think it’s only a matter of time before Ladder is a household name in consumer fitness”
From a UX perspective, let’s see how they pull that off:
By the end of this article you’ll notice they’ve got a great product. But before sticking around, users need to experience it.
For fitness apps, the Aha! Moment happens once they complete one workout (or more) — that’s when the app’s dynamics become clearer. Ladder’s goal with their initial flow is to have users go through that experience as soon as possible.
In growth speech, we want to shorten time-to-value, have users go through a fun workout and show them all the app has to to offer.
How Ladder gets users in
To get you started, there’s a quick 3-step video-driven sequence. What stands out here is how they do a very good job making onboarding easy and attractive:
Explanations with videos are less boring than just text.1 click and 3 screens between the splash screen and the next section of the app is a very easy set of steps.They present the concept of an influencer being the coach and that you’ll become part of a team. This is novel and creates a curiosity gap — there’s something beyond just “building a workout plan”.
Great, but until now they’ve only quickly introduced the app.
To highlight what I find interesting next, we’ll need contrast.
You see, most fitness apps ask tens of questions on the name of “building your workout”. Things like “what are your goals?”, “have you worked out before?” are common place. Frequently there’s also a bothersome sequence asking for your weight, height, equipment and more.
Because of these unnecessary questions, onboarding becomes a shore.
I registered to Ladder’s 4 main competitors and counted the amount of steps between download and beginning a workout.
The difference is startling:
Ladder’s onboarding is much easier. The next screen after the 3-step introduction is a list with huge cards where you decide which goal resonates with you the most.
One step, one clear decision.
It’s OK for Ladder to offer less customization because their value proposition is exactly around workout programs that fit a specific goal.
Through copy, they also reduce the perception of commitment needed to take each step. They let users know you can go back on your decision later on so it’s psychologically easier to move forward.
All that puts you in the right mental space to keep flowing through each onboarding step.
I picked Coach Corey’s Forged because becoming a part-time bodybuilder is every designer’s dream.
Great, we’re inside now.
Getting people to do their first workout
We’ve moved forward fast, but remember: they’re still trying to get us to do a couple of workouts. I didn’t get any value from it yet.
“The Aha moment is when the user realizes the value in a product”.
– Wes Bush
After picking my favorite program, the first thing I notice is that regardless of the team, every Welcome Workout is 30”.
That makes the barrier to finish a workout very low — it’s reasonable for most people to fit that into their schedules and get started. It’s a great way to shorten time-to-value.
Another detail here is that many features are locked until you get your first workout done.
This progressive disclosure approach creates curiosity. It makes users think “what else” is there to see about the app while also putting the main next action in focus (starting a workout).
Multiple mentions about the notion that I’m part of a team contributes to making me feel curious. I can see through the main section that I have teammates and wonder what that is as it is a novel concept from what I’ve seen in multiple fitness apps’ home screens.
First workout and making people stick around
Once you get started, in-workout experience is overall good but not much different than others. It’s a permission to play in the industry after all.
Now, there are some details that make it stand out.
First, the app further introduces us the idea of teammates through a “reaction” feature — a way other users can cheer you on mid-workout, triggering a lively “emoji explosion” on your screen.
When you’re done, you’re given a tally of all the support you received. It serves as a visible reminder that your teammates digitally “have your back”.
There’s also a shared image board where you can post a post-workout picture.
Lots of teammates share and it looks like a virtual celebration wall, creating sense of bond. Being part of this “tribe” feels engaging and motivating, there’s a sense that you’re on a team that is in a similar journey.
Ladder also does a great job reinforcing your progress: streaks are a popular gamification feature but they can backfire you miss it.
As UX consultant Peter Ramsey puts it:
“As the value of a streak increases, you want the cost of losing that streak to increase too. That’s why they work. But as a result, if they do lose their streak, the user now has to incur or suffer the thing that they were trying to avoid.”
To solve for that, Ladder highlights different types of progress, not just streaks.
Whether you hit a new milestone, spent >100 calories or simply showed up, they make it clear that “a win is a win”.
After acknowledging all you gained, you’re back on the home page.
With the first workout done users get access to more features. That allows us to see how big of an importance they put on engagement, community and social features.
Out of their 4 main tabs, 2 are related to the notion of teams and being social (chat tab and team tab).
And that’s likely a big part of their success.
I spent time going through Reddit, Social Media comments and App Store reviews, and most of users mention Teams and Coaches as part of the reason they loved Ladder.
It makes sense. Fitness journeys can be lonely: you, the gym, the treadmill, headphones and that’s it. Their well executed social features makes us feel we’re on a path and have others by our side.
Premium Pricing for a Premium Product
After you’ve gone through the Welcome workout, they prompt you to pay for the subscription — there’s a free trial option but no free plan.
It stood out to me how much more it costs when compared to its competitors.
Growing fast while being the most expensive option in your category is quite an accomplishment, but to me it is not surprising at all.
When you compare it to the more generic, faceless apps in the space, it’s clear why Ladder can thrive while charging $180.
From the moment you hit the splash screen, the design quality of the app stands out. The UI is clean, intuitive, easy to use. They also leverage the charismatic, high-energy coaches well and add new layer of appeal, giving users the sense they’re part of something more exclusive and exciting. It’s a high-value signal — this isn’t just another fitness app.
In the end, Ladder’s success shows how investing in design and UX can pay off. There’s a market for quality and some users are willing to pay a premium when an app goes beyond and deliver a truly engaging experience.
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How Ladder onboards and keeps users engaged was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
