Benjamin Kowalski

Design for Growth: Balancing Acquisition and Retention

Dropbox

DoorDash

Disqus

Popular Pays

Ben Kowalski

Design Director at Dropbox (early DoorDash)

Understand how acquisition and retention fit into the growth lifecycle, the value of each, and the key metrics.

Importance of acquisition and retention

Sign up conversion, viral loops, and more help get more customers to try or buy your product.

Tips to design better acquisition flows

Examples to help you keep customers happy and coming back to your product for years.

Designing with retention in mind

Shape the future of business. Develop the vision, strategy, and influence to make design a critical driver of transformation.


Chief Design Officer | Advisor | Author

Samsung

Amazon

Bank of America

Expedia Group

PayPal

Rachel Kobetz

Chief Design Officer @ PayPal


DLSE07 – Q1 2026

DLSE08 – Q2 2026

A two-week cohort program for Senior Directors, VPs, SVPs, and CDOs ready to lead at the strategic level — not catch up to it. Build the position, influence, and operating model that AI and organizational pressure now demand from design leaders at the top.1. Lock in your strategic positionAlign design to business priorities so your role as a strategic driver (not a service function) is unambiguous.2. Make the business case in C-suite languageConnect design decisions to measurable outcomes. Demonstrate return on design in the terms that drive budget, headcount, and investment.3. Lead organizational change, not just design workBuild the cross-functional influence and stakeholder relationships that let you drive transformation — not just respond to it.4. Build an operating model that scalesStructure your team, systems, and rhythms so design delivers at scale — without the whole thing depending on you.5. Lead into what’s nextLead in territory that didn’t exist before, where roles are blurring, design is moving upstream, and human and AI systems are working side by side.Includes 2 Office Hours with Rachel for personalized guidance on your leadership challenges.

The leadership bar has moved. DLS: Executive is built for what it requires now.

Lead the next evolution of design

Turn design decisions into business results

Drive transformation across the organization

Build an operating model for what’s next

Lead your career with the same intention

Senior Design Leaders: Senior Directors and VPs ready to lead beyond the work and position design as a strategic business driver.

Senior Design Executives: VPs and SVPs leading large teams through AI, shifting org structures, and rising C-suite expectations.

Design C-Suite: SVPs and CDOs using design to lead the business through what’s next — not just respond to it.

Bad Learning Design Is Costing You Customers — Here's the Science Behind It

Learning Scientist | L&D Strategist

Vanorsdale Learning Lab

Great Game of Business

Docebo

National Alliance on Mental Illness Florida

English Like a Native

Dr. Christie Vanorsdale, Ed.D, Ms.Ed.

Researcher. Practitioner. 15 years translating learning science into results

Cohort 1

You've updated the onboarding. Rebuilt the knowledge base. Added walkthrough videos, help articles, live training sessions. Your customers still aren't adopting the product the way you need them to.The instinct is to fix the content. More of it. Make it Better, or Shorter. More visual. But, the problem isn't the content.It's that content was never designed to produce learning in the first place.Human beings don't retain complex knowledge because they watched a video or completed a walkthrough. Retention requires intentional sequencing, cognitive scaffolding, and an architecture that reduces friction rather than creates it. Most customer onboarding violates every one of those principles — not because the people who built it weren't smart, but because they were never taught what learning science actually says about how knowledge transfers.This workshop gives founders and leaders the diagnostic framework to identify exactly where their customer education breaks down — and the research-backed principles to fix it. You'll leave with a clear line of sight between learning architecture and the revenue outcomes you actually care about: adoption, retention, and renewal.

Learn the science behind knowledge transfer and leave with a diagnostic framework that connects learning architecture to business outcomes.

Understand why customers aren't retaining your product using learning science

Pinpoint exactly where your customer onboarding breaks down

Apply three evidence-based principles to improve product adoption

Connect learning design decisions to churn, adoption, and renewal.

The Scaling Founder Complex product. Customers churn before reaching value. Onboarding feels broken but there's no framework to diagnose why

The Customer Success Leader Owns onboarding and renewals. Content exists but adoption is flat. Needs a framework and internal buy-in.

The L&amp;D Manager Fixing customer education with no infrastructure or alignment. Knows training theory. Missing the revenue impact language

Build a strong case for your UX impact on business — with Design KPIs.

Sr. UX Lead • LinkedIn Top Voice in UX

European Parliament

Lexware

Otto Group

Axel Springer SE

SmashingConf

Vitaly Friedman

20 years of experience • Senior UX Lead @ EU Parliament • Speaker • SmashingMag

A practical guide to measuring design impact on business goals — from design KPIs to UX strategy.

May 2026

July 2026

<ul><li>🌷 40% off – "TULIP" till June 7</li></ul>UX always has a lasting impact on business. But it's incredibly hard to spot between all the business decisions, internal politics and ever changing OKRs.In this 4h-workshop, we’ll dive into how companies measure UX, how ROI of design work and choose reliable design KPIs to report to senior management.You'll learn:<ul><li>Key business and product metrics</li><li>Business ↔ UX value architecture</li><li>Design KPI trees that visualize value flow</li><li>How to show ROI of your UX work</li><li>Measure quality of AI experiences</li><li>Leading vs. lagging indicators</li><li>Causation vs. correlation in UX</li><li>Reliable UX metrics (TARS, SUS, SUPR-Q etc.)</li><li>Feedback scoring and gap analysis</li><li>UX scorecards, and how to establish them</li><li>Effective survey design, statistical significance</li><li>How to measure UX in B2B and Enterprise</li><li>Real-world case studies of how orgs measure UX success</li></ul>That's what you should be expecting:🔴 Live and practical 4h session 🪴 Real-life examples and case studies 👫 Dedicated Q&amp;A time to answer all your questions 🔬 Video recording, slides, resources, templates 🏅 Well-deserved certificate for your hard work

A focused 4h 30mins deep-dive into how to measure UX and design impact — even with very limited access to users.

Design Impact

Product and UX Metrics

Design KPI Trees

Measure UX in B2B and Enterprise

Reporting UX Metrics and UX Strategy 

Product designers and product managers who want to track their impact and align design goals with business objectives.

Design and UX Leads who want to connect their design initiatives to business outcomes and lead with data-driven insights.

UX researchers and practitioners who want to improve UX maturity, articulate value and drive strategic decisions.

Build profitable growth strategies that work across channels -- today and tomorrow

Fractional DTC Marketing Leader

Estée Lauder

StartupCD

BioSchwartz

Love Wellness

Dropps

Temilola Agbede

Fractional Marketing Leader & Advisor for Consumer Brands

Cohort 2

Q2 Cohort

Your Meta campaigns that once delivered $50 CAC are now hitting $75+. You're under pressure to show profitable growth, but the solutions you've tried: TikTok, influencers, promotional strategies haven't solved the underlying challenge. They've either created new dependencies or put more pressure on your margins. The real issue isn't your execution but it's that you're optimizing tactics within a strategy that wasn't built to last. DTC brands often focus exclusively on capturing today's ready buyers through paid platforms, without investing in the brand foundation that cultivates future customer preference. This creates a cycle where sustainable growth feels just out of reach. There's a better path forward. This course teaches the integrated approach that scales consumer brands sustainably: capturing today's ready buyers through strategic acquisition while building the brand equity that naturally reduces tomorrow's CAC. You'll learn the same frameworks I use to acquire quality customers, reduce CAC, increase LTV, and grow revenue and profitability all while building marketing strategies that perform across channels, not just on Meta.

Build marketing that converts today's buyers while cultivating tomorrow's

 Diagnose What's Actually Broken in Your Growth Strategy

Integrate Brand Building with Performance Marketing

Architect Retention Systems That Compound Growth

Build Quality-Focused Acquisition Strategies

Present Board/Leadership Team-Ready Growth Strategies

Solve Real Challenges with Expert Coaching

Marketing/eComm Managers to VPs scaling DTC brands facing rising CAC and pressure to prove sustainable, profitable growth strategies.

DTC founders wearing multiple hats who need to balance brand vision with performance accountability and investor expectations.

Consultants, freelancers and agency strategists advising consumer brands on diversified growth strategies beyond single-platform tactics.

Agentic AI

Coding with AI

AI Workflows

Claude Code

OpenClaw

Vibe Coding

AI Evals

AI Transformation

RAG & Search

AI for PMs

AI for Engineers

AI for Designers

AI for Marketers

AI for Founders

Product Sense

Product Discovery

User Research

Prototyping

Growth

Analytics

Tech Foundations

Strategy

Influence

Leadership

Career Growth

Machine Learning

LLM Ops

Context Eng

Security

System Design

Figma

Design Systems

Visual Design

Design Strategy

Automation

Content Marketing

Demand Gen

Go-to-Market

Product Marketing

Positioning

Social Media

Brand

B2B Marketing

SEO & AEO

AI for Leaders

AI Governance

Communication

Management

People Operations

Exec Presence

Storytelling

Goal-setting

Personal Brand

Fundraising

Everyone

Operators

Data Scientists

Business Analysts

User Researchers

Customer Success

Project Managers

HR Professionals

Sales People

Lawyers

Finance

Investors

Real Estate

Educators

Creators

Introduction and Agenda

Speaker's Background and Experience

Icebreaker: Where Are You From?

A Story from Doordash: The Cheesecake Factory Effect

Defining Acquisition vs. Retention

Key Metrics for Acquisition and Retention

Overview of Acquisition Tactics

Acquisition Tactic: Using Incentives

Acquisition Tactic: Viral Growth

Acquisition Tactic: Sign-Up Optimization

Acquisition Tactic: SEO and SEM Strategies

Shifting Focus to Customer Retention

Retention Tactic: Building Engagement Loops

Retention Tactic: Increasing Frequency of Use

Retention Tactic: Improving Perceived Performance

Key Takeaways and Conclusion

Q&A Session

Product managers who drive strategy, development, and launch of products.

Designers who craft user experiences, interfaces, and visual design.

Startup founders building new businesses, from MVP to scale.

User researchers conducting interviews, usability studies, and customer research to inform product decisions.

User experience design — information architecture, interaction design, usability, and end-to-end experience flows.

Driving user acquisition, activation, retention, and monetization through product-led growth strategies.

Design for Growth: Balancing Acquisition and Retention

What you'll learn

Why this topic matters

You'll learn from

Ben Kowalski