Sarahah was designed as a way to “get honest feedback from your coworkers and friends.” It was #1 on the Appstore, ahead of YouTube and Facebook and Snapchat, on July 31st. The below powerpoint has a full walk through of the app annotated with in-depth feedback on how to grow faster.

1. Sarahah Growth Audit
Analysis By Singh Growth Group

2. For this growth audit,
we’re primarily focused
on the signup,
onboarding, and first time
user experience of the
Sarahah app.
We show pain points in
the existing process and
identify changes to the
app that will help drive
the app’s growth and
retention.

3. Sarahah Background:
• Send And Receive
Feedback Anonymously
• Sarahah means honesty
in Arabic
• Topped Appstore Charts
late July, 2017
• 14M Registered Users As
Of Late July according to
the app creator

4. Let’s start with
Sarahah’s landing
iPhone app store page.

5. Use a company
name instead of a
personal name to
improve credibility +
legitimacy for the
app.

6. App Store Screenshots
Need A Ton Of Work.
Good screenshots are an
easy way to explain the
app and entice the user to
download the app.

7. Zoom In On App Store
Screenshots:

8. What pops from the
screenshots are an inbox
and sent messages.

9. This look like any other
messaging app. How is
this different than
Whatsapp or Messenger?

10. We need to show the
unique value prop of the
app. Lets hint more
strongly to it’s
anonymous nature.

11. ASKfm makes
anonymous nature of
the app pretty clear
using text in the
screenshot itself

12. In general, this design
pattern of explaining
core value prop of the
app in the screenshots is
pretty common and for
good reason. Most
people won’t read any
further before deciding
to download or leave.

13. More examples of good
app screenshots which
explain the value prop of
the app.

14. Now for some feedback
on the User Generated
Content (UGC) that is
featured in the
screenshots.

15. For context:
The app creator originally
intended Sarahah to be
used for honest
workplace feedback.

16. For context:
The app creator originally
intended Sarahah to be
used for honest
workplace feedback.
However the app quickly
became a hit with teens
who use the app in a
more casual context.

17. So, lets remove the
workplace content.

18. On the topic of teen
adoption: Most of the
messages don’t reflect
how teens talk and the
type of content that is
actually posted on
Sarahah. Make it more
about crushes and gossip
and drama. Use more
emoji to make the app
look more fun & vibrant.

19. There are also
opportunities for
localization of the UGC.
Since this is being viewed
on the US app store:

20. There are also
opportunities for
localization of the UGC.
Since this is being viewed
on the US app store:
We can remove the Arabic
text

21. There are also
opportunities for
localization of the UGC.
Since this is being viewed
on the US app store:
We can use names and
profile pictures that more
closely mimic the US teen
download base.

22. There are also
opportunities for
localization of the UGC.
Since this is being viewed
on the US app store:
Having just two different
people feature makes the
app look unpopular.

23. NOW TIME TO
REVIEW THE
ACTUAL APP!!

24. On entry of the app first
thing I’m hit with is a
send notifications
prompt.

25. SLOW DOWN!
I don’t even know the
value of the app yet – this
feels too premature!

26. Could we prime the user
first? Tell them the value
of the app and its need
for notifications. Then hit
them with the actual
prompt.

27. This should help increase
notifications permission
request acceptance rate.
Push notifications are a
great way to re-engage
users so this could really
help long-term retention.

28. Example of good
permissions priming:

29. Text+ first tells you the
importance of
notifications and how it
directly ties into the
value proposition of the
app before actually
requesting the
permission.

30. Notice how the design of
the soft prompt mimics
the look and feel of the
native iOS notifications
prompt

31. Back to Sarahah:
On accepting the
notifications prompt…

32. Finally! The actual value
proposition of the app!

33. Finally! The actual value
proposition of the app!
Looking good so far in the
onboarding flow.

34. Finally! The actual value
proposition of the app!
Looking good so far in the
Confused as to why this is
featured in the
onboarding flow. The app
later on doesn’t do a good
job of searching for friend
since they never ask for
contacts information or
use FB friends data so
search isn’t special.

35. Finally! The actual value
THIS IS WHERE WE
SHOULD HAVE ASKED FOR
NOTIFICATIONS!
Only after the user
understands the value
proposition of the app.

36. We’re Done
Onboarding!
Let’s signup for
Sarahah now.

37. Login page.
Let’s hit register

38. Registration page.
I like that we can easily
navigate back to login if
we accidentally got to this
page.

39. Weird that our username
looks like a website.
This could be better
explained. Brings privacy
concerns to my mind.
How public is my
username? Who can visit?

40. Let’s use a generic name
to see what username
validation looks like.

41. Username taken.
As the app scales, and
most usernames get
taken, we can add in
username suggestions to
lower account creation
friction.

42. Used ‘SinghGrowth’ as my
username.
It wasn’t taken.
How surprising!

43. For future work, Sarahah
can experiment with
phone number instead of
email based account
creation. SMS as a
channel can be costly but
can have much higher CTR
than email notifications.

44. Done with name + email.
Password creation time.

45. Do we really need the
double confirmation for a
lightweight social apps?!
NO!

46. Considering how easy and
common password
recovery is double
confirmation really only
adds in extra friction for
marginal benefit to a user
in an app like this.

47. Entered my
password.
I’m done
signing up.
Let’s dive into
the actual app.

48. After singing up this is the
first screen I see.

49. The app looks barren.
I’m confused on what I
should do next.
Not good!

50. Social apps really need to
think about empty states
since most of the time
social apps are useless on
start. Without any
messages or friends this
app is pointless. We need
to get the user connected
to content ASAP.

51. Example of an empty
state.
The Circle app encourages
you to import contacts if
you have no content to
interact with.

52. More examples of empty
states can be found on
www.emptystat.es

53. Sarahah could use the
empty state to prompt
you to share the app or
share your username link
to start receiving
feedback so that the app
doesn’t remain empty for
too long.

54. Let’s move on since I’m
not sure what to do.
Let’s click on this icon.

55. EMPTY AGAIN!
A normal user at this
point is going to be
frustrated.
We worked so hard to get
onboarded on to this
app...and then nothing!

56. We need some copy in
the app to give the user
some guidance as to
1) Why the app is empty
2) What it’s supposed to
do / look like when
app isn’t empty
3) How to achieve this
non-empty state

57. Moving on let’s click the
search button.

58. Searching for user’s isn’t
any better.
We could place an upsell
here to import contacts or
connect to a social
network to find friends as
a faster way to find
friends.

59. Let’s hit the gear icon.
Although I don’t have
high hopes for finding
much value in a settings
page.

60. Finally! There’s actually
something here!

61. It would be nice to have
singhgrowth.sarahah.com
also listed on here.

62. It would be nice to have
singhgrowth.sarahah.com
also listed on here.
The web link would give
both Sarahah users and
friends from other
networks the ability to
give me feedback.
Better thing to share than
my in-app username
which only helps other
Sarahah users.

63. This could also be a great
place to add in links to
import your contact book.
Could also be a great
place to put a link to
share your profile directly
onto Facebook or Twitter.

64. So this page isn’t so
helpful either for a new
user.
Let’s go back to our home
inbox.

65. Now let’s check out what
this heart icon does.

66. Again...not helpful.
But at least this empty
state is a bit better. Weird
it doesn’t show up in
other screens. Possible
bug since the asset is
clearly there, just not on
all empty screens.

67. Time to
actually get
some honest
feedback.

68. I shared the link with a
friend on Messenger.
Good that the website
has their Open Graph
(OG) meta tags set in
order to show rich
content when the link is
shared on social
platforms.

69. Maybe add a CTA into the
snippet like
‘Give Singh Anonymous
Feedback’

70. What someone receiving
the link would see.

71. After submitting the
feedback, there’s an
upsell to download the
app on the appstore.
Nice.

72. We now have some
anonymous feedback.

73. We now have some
anonymous feedback.
That’s pretty
much it!

74. For more growth audits visit
www.SinghGrowthGroup.com
Get in touch
team@SinghGrowthGroup.com