A common intent shaping problem
Users never set a goal in your app
The short answer: let them declare what they want. Here is how to recognise this problem in your funnel, why it happens, and how the best consumer apps design it away.
How to recognise it
- Goal features buried in settings, unused
- Sessions that wander and fade, with no direction
- Success undefined for most of your user base
Why does a declared goal change behaviour?
A user without a goal evaluates your product mood by mood: is this worth opening today? A user with a declared goal has answered that question in advance.
Self-declared intent shapes behaviour in a way assigned targets never do: people defend their own words. “I want to run a 10k” does more retention work than most features ever will.
Most products either never ask, or ask at the wrong moment, during signup, before the user knows enough to mean their answer, and then bury the goal where it is never seen again.
How do you get users to commit to a goal? Ask at the peak, make it theirs
Ask for the commitment when motivation peaks: right after a first win, when the user has just felt what the product does and believes it. That is when the answer is meant.
Make it theirs: their number, their date, their words, adjustable without shame. An imposed goal is a quota; a chosen one is a promise.
Then keep the promise visible: progress against the goal on the main screen, every session framed as a contribution to it. A goal filed away shapes nothing.
And close loops: when a goal is reached, celebrate it and invite the next one, slightly bolder. Goal after goal is the retention engine wearing the user's own clothes.
The building blocks that solve it
- Commitment: A declared goal turns sessions into contributions.
- Success Moments: Reached goals get celebrated, then renewed.
Who does this well
Strava: Chosen weekly goals turn exercise into a promise the app helps you keep.
Duolingo: The daily goal, chosen in minute one, is the spine the whole habit hangs on.
Questions founders ask
What if users pick unrealistic goals?
Guide with defaults: offer a sensible range, mark the popular choice, make adjusting later shame-free.
An ambitious goal that gets renegotiated is still doing retention work. A goal never set is doing none.
Should goal-setting happen at signup or later?
After the first win, usually. At signup the user is guessing; after a win they are deciding.
The exception is products people arrive at with a burning, specific intent: meet them at the door if the intent is already hot.