Onboarding
Myth:Churn is a late-lifecycle problem.
Evidence:Most avoidable churn is set in the first sessions: users who reach a core activation action early retain at multiples of those who do not.
Correlation with activation is strong, but activation events must be validated causally with holdouts.
Reforge / Andrew Chen · 2019 · Independent Analysis
Channels: product · email · lifecycle
Unit Economics
Myth:Growth is an acquisition problem.
Evidence:Modest retention improvements compound through the customer base and typically move profit more than equivalent acquisition spend, because retained revenue carries no CAC.
Loyalty Economics
Myth:Loyal customers cost less to serve, pay more, and evangelize for free.
Evidence:Studying four companies over 16 months, Reinartz & Kumar found only a modest correlation between customer longevity and profitability: long-tenure customers expected discounts, were no cheaper to serve, and were not reliably the best word-of-mouth sources.
LTV
Myth:Early cohort LTV projections are reliable planning inputs.
Evidence:LTV curves flatten unpredictably; projections built on the first weeks of a cohort routinely overstate long-run value.
WOM Economics
Myth:Word of mouth is a soft bonus next to paid media.
Evidence:Vector-autoregression modelling of a social network's growth shows WOM referrals have substantially longer carryover effects and substantially higher response elasticities than traditional marketing actions - and a referral's value can be monetized from the downstream ad revenue a new member generates.
Loyalty
Myth:A points programme will increase loyalty.
Evidence:Most loyalty programmes reward behaviour that would have happened anyway; measured incremental effects are small and skew to already-heavy buyers.
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