Orbital Fitness had strong download numbers from the start. The problem only became visible once the team looked past installs and into what was actually happening after day one.
The Challenge
Most new users stopped opening the app within two weeks of installing it. The onboarding flow front-loaded account setup before showing any real value, workout tracking required a stable connection the gym environment didn’t reliably provide, and notifications were tuned for engagement volume rather than relevance, training users to ignore or disable them entirely.
The Approach
We rebuilt onboarding to get a new user into a real workout inside the first session, deferring account setup until after that first win. Workout tracking moved to an offline-first model that synced once connectivity returned, removing the single biggest source of mid-workout frustration. Notifications were redesigned around actual training patterns, a missed streak or an upcoming personal record, rather than a fixed daily send schedule.
The Results
Day-30 retention improved by 65% following the rebuild, and the app’s store rating rose to 4.7 stars as the friction points behind negative reviews were addressed directly. Both iOS and Android now ship from the same release pipeline, which has also cut the time to ship platform-specific fixes.
