Reflecta

• Onboarding lacked depth and personalization

  • Didn’t feel like Reflecta truly knows the user
  • Missed asking basic yet essential questions (e.g., “What do you work on?”, “What do you do for work?”, “What is your name?”)
  • Should progress from simple icebreakers to deeper, more specific questions

• Unclear progress and timeline

  • User wanted to know how much longer the onboarding would take
  • Including a progress bar or percentage indicator could set clearer expectations

• Credit card request appeared prematurely

  • Asking for payment too early undermines trust
  • Need to establish “radical truth” and demonstrate clear value before requesting billing information
  • User hesitated to share more details because they didn’t understand the remaining time or benefits

• Onboarding questions felt purposeless

  • User didn’t see why deeper questions mattered
  • Without understanding the “why,” it’s hard to motivate users to continue
  • Need to explain the purpose of each question and tie it to concrete user benefits

• Gamification to reduce drop-off and increase engagement

  • Introduce playful elements during information input (e.g., badges, progress milestones)
  • Emphasize “fear of losing progress” if credit card isn’t entered at key moments
  • Keep gamified interactions in the core onboarding flow, so users feel rewarded as they proceed

• Stronger, more meaningful data points to motivate journaling

  • A 22% performance boost study isn’t compelling enough on its own
  • Consider featuring a personalized founder’s story to illustrate real-world impact
  • Highlight success stories across diverse user segments (e.g., “This musician journaled and then released a mega hit”)

• Social proof and peer activity

  • Show in-app notifications like “Today Björn Keune already journaled. It’s your turn.” to encourage action
  • Demonstrate active community engagement to build trust and FOMO

• Trust remains the user’s biggest concern

  • Users need reassurance that investing time and money is worthwhile
  • Clearly communicate data privacy, long-term benefits, and concrete outcomes
  • Build transparency around how user data will be used to improve their experience

In the last month we've made lots of improvement for Reflecta as we start to bring on more users.

Sage has grown, as we've added lots of new features in the backend so it understands it's user better, and can provide more tailored advice and guidance.

One of the main forms of delivery for this guidance is through sage cues. Small messages which are generated for the user both on a schedule as well as upon completing morning reflections.

The onboarding flow has iterated as well, providing users with an interactive chat with Sage to immediately start diving into their journaling experience. Upon finishing the onboarding flow users are provided with a radical truth insight for themselves as well, getting to see a bit of a Sage's analytical capabilities right off the bat.

We just shipped an update that introduces Tanstack Query as state management to our web app making it noticeably faster for all users.

Additionally, we rolled out a beta for Sage 1.1 to test our initial implementation of a more powerful version of a daily guide.

Around 3 months ago we started working on Reflecta. The problem we want to solve is simple: make the world's best tools to navigate inner work and personal evolution accessible to anyone.

Not everyone can afford to work with leadership coaches and mentors. So with this intention in mind, we built the first version of Reflecta.

So far, it consists of 2 components. A distraction-free writing interface to journal. And an AI-guide called Sage which is designed to help you in your personal evolution journey.

After the first user cohort, we learned that the biggest problem for people to stick with journaling in the long-run is that after the first few weeks they drop off because they don't see the tangible benefit.

The truth is, journaling and practices that facilitate looking within don't give immediate results. But rather, it's a subtle process over time that helps you live your life more fully, and harmonically.

Right now, we are working on re-designing Sage to help with that problem. And gently guide people to develop a journaling practice that sticks.

We will release a new version soon, and iterate with the next user cohort.