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Sticky Products: How the Stickiness Factor Boosts Company Profits
Being "sticky" isn’t always a bad thing—especially when it comes to creating a successful product. When a new product enters the market, its primary goal is to attract users and retain them. The success of an app or platform often hinges on its ability to achieve this, as loyal users are more likely to make purchases and drive revenue.
Alibek Narimbay, CEO of Biometric.Vision and a seasoned entrepreneur in IT solutions and artificial intelligence, shares valuable insights on how to develop products that resonate with users by drawing from real-life case studies.
The Importance of User Experience
For the past five years, we’ve been developing facial recognition technology and integrating it into various business processes,” explains Narimbay. “While biometrics is commonly associated with cybersecurity, its potential goes far beyond fraud prevention. Our technology focuses on delivering a comfortable and seamless user experience. User experience has a profound impact on a company’s profitability, yet it is often underestimated. One critical metric for assessing a product’s performance in the SaaS (Software as a Service) sector is the Sticky Factor—a measure of how well a product retains its users and keeps them coming back
What Is the Sticky Factor?
The Sticky Factor represents the likelihood that users will return to a product because it provides convenience, safety, and value. A high Sticky Factor indicates strong user retention and loyalty, while a low Sticky Factor often points to usability issues or unmet customer needs.
“If solving customer problems is your guiding principle, you’ll spend less time trying to retain users and more time improving your product. On the other hand, if customers find your product difficult to use, they’ll quickly move on to competitors,” Narimbay warns. Research shows that about 70% of users will leave a platform in search of simpler alternatives if they experience poor usability.
How to Create a Sticky Product
1. Offer High Value with Minimal Effort. A successful product solves users’ problems quickly and efficiently.
Case Study: OKAuto. In 2017, Biometric.Vision developed OKAuto, Kazakhstan’s first mobile app for checking and paying traffic fines with a single click. The app gained over a million users—representing a quarter of the country’s drivers—without any advertising. By simplifying a previously time-consuming process, OKAuto created immense value for users.
2. Remove Barriers to Use
During the COVID-19 pandemic, banks faced the challenge of serving customers remotely. To address this, Biometric.Vision introduced a set of computer vision technologies that allowed users to verify their identities online via banking apps. This eliminated the need for physical branch visits, maintaining security and convenience.
3. Create a “Hook” to Retain Users
Products must offer features that make users reluctant to return to old methods.
Example: Uber
“Uber optimized the taxi booking process,” says Narimbay. “With just two clicks, users know the driver’s rating, estimated arrival time, and trip cost. This convenience makes it hard for users to return to traditional methods like calling a dispatcher or hailing a cab.”
4. Simplify Processes for Maximum Convenience
Biometric technologies offer fast, safe, and hassle-free user verification. With facial recognition, there’s no need for logins or passwords—users gain access to services in seconds. These innovations are also widely used in public service applications, reducing errors and saving time.
5. Educate Users on Product Benefits
Innovative products may require guidance to help customers understand their value.
Example: Custom IT Solutions
“When developing IT solutions, we dive into a company’s business processes to identify problems, often uncovering issues even the business owners are unaware of,” Narimbay explains. Biometric.Vision’s solutions address diverse challenges, from KYC (Know Your Customer) compliance for banks to automating HR processes for taxi services.
Currently Biometric.Vision provides four core computer vision-based technologies: Document Verification, Liveness Detection, Face 2 Face Detection and Face Search. By integrating these solutions, we address a variety of business challenges, including fraud prevention and reducing staff and office rental expenses.
Measuring the Sticky Factor
Two key metrics are essential for calculating the Sticky Factor:
DAU (Daily Active Users): The number of unique users who engage with a product daily.
MAU (Monthly Active Users): The number of unique users who interact with the product at least once a month.
The Sticky Factor is calculated as:
Sticky Factor = (DAU / MAU) × 100%
For example, if an app has 5,000 daily active users (DAU) and 150,000 monthly active users (MAU), the Sticky Factor would be:
Sticky Factor = (5,000 / 150,000) × 100% = 3.33%
This low Sticky Factor suggests poor user retention and low engagement, indicating the need for product improvements. A good Sticky Factor is around 20% for most industries and 50% for social networks and messaging platforms.
The Bottom Line
The Sticky Factor is a powerful metric for evaluating user loyalty and activity, which directly influences revenue. A stable and engaged user base fosters audience growth and increases payments, making stickiness a critical focus for SaaS products. However, it’s important to note that stickiness isn’t the only measure of success. For some industries, like e-commerce, revenue may be a more relevant metric than user engagement frequency.
How do you measure user retention for your products? Do you calculate the Sticky Factor, or do you use other metrics? Share your thoughts in the comments!