How to Set a 90% Weekly Retention Gate Before You Spend on Growth
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A step-by-step guide to instrumenting weekly retention, defining the 90% gate, and deciding when your product has earned the right to grow.
Most early-stage teams pour money into acquisition before their product can hold users for a month. Origami's playbook flips that: no growth spend until weekly retention clears 90%. Here's how to operationalize the gate.
Step 1 — Define the retention event
Pick the single action that means the product delivered value this week (not a login, not a page view). Write it down. Ship an event for it.
Step 2 — Cohort by signup week
Group users by the week they first hit the value event. Track what percentage of each cohort returns and performs the event in week 2, week 3, week 4.
Step 3 — Set the gate
- Consumer-ish product: 40–60% W4 retention is credible.
- Prosumer / SMB SaaS: 70–80% weekly for active seats.
- Origami-style paid B2B: 90% weekly for paying accounts.
Step 4 — Instrument before you optimize
Use a simple warehouse-plus-SQL setup before buying a full analytics stack. Manual beats premature automation.
Step 5 — Hold the line
If retention is below the gate, the answer is more user calls and product fixes — not ads. Revisit weekly.
For leaders scaling this discipline across a portfolio, our AI Consulting Services team helps translate founder-mode metrics into repeatable operating cadences.