2019, Delaware 🇺🇸
Productivity
Francesco Tai Bernardelli
Head of Marketing, Akiflow
Results
Improved retention and activation, as well as marketing and product alignment
Revamped brand and messaging in a competitive market
Positive impact on user churn and retention
Overview
Akiflow is a seed-stage productivity startup that secured $1.8 million in funding, led by Benson Oak Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator and notable angel investors. Their mission is to help users achieve more with less effort by applying proven productivity principles and frameworks in their day-to-day workflows.
Akiflow offers a unified digital planner and calendar, and AI assistant integrating tasks and schedules into a single platform, designed for professionals seeking efficient task and calendar management.
Competing with tools like Todoist and Motion, Akiflow differentiates itself through features such as time blocking, universal inbox, and seamless integration with over 3,000 apps.
When their CEO reached out, Akiflow sought to enhance their retention and engagement strategy to better align marketing and product, as well as revamp their messaging and positioning on their website to distinguish themselves in the competitive productivity software market.
Scope
During my collaboration with Akiflow, I partnered with their marketing and product teams to address critical growth challenges, enhance product retention, and revamp their brand presence ahead of a fundraising campaign.
This engagement spanned in-depth growth optimization, lifecycle marketing, and a complete website redesign to position Akiflow for scalable growth.
Month 1-2: Growth Model Review and Retention Strategy
Conducted a comprehensive growth model review, identifying opportunities to improve product retention, reduce churn, and enhance measurement processes.
Defined key qualitative user states across retention and activation, including habit moments, aha moments, setup, and signup milestones.
Designed an analytics strategy to track these user states as measurable events, such as cohort analyses.
Established a cross-functional process for product and marketing teams to align on experiments targeting retention, churn, and activation improvements.
Performed a detailed UX/UI review of key activation, feature, and cancellation flows, delivering actionable recommendations to increase time-to-activation and reduce churn.
Created end-to-end lifecycle marketing campaigns across emails and push notifications, covering customer acquisition, activation, expansion, and churn prevention.
Month 2-3: Product Messaging & Website Redesign
Revamped product marketing messaging by repositioning features and renaming elements based on a competitor analysis to sharpen differentiation.
Conducted in-depth research into web design references from industry leaders to inspire a modernized brand presence.
Redesigned the entire marketing website, structuring a new sitemap and wireframing 12 key landing page types in FigJam, including persona pages, feature pages, use case pages, and more.
Wrote compelling copy for 29 landing pages within two weeks, leveraging ChatGPT workflows for efficiency.
This collaboration addressed Akiflow’s churn and retention challenges, aligned marketing and product efforts, and positioned the brand with a refreshed and scalable digital presence, setting the stage for future growth and successful fundraising.
I had the pleasure of working with Matteo, and he consistently impressed me with his expertise, unwavering work ethic, and dedication. Matteo's extensive skill set in product and marketing made him highly effective in identifying obstacles and implementing solutions. He brings to the table solid references, deep industry knowledge, and practical solutions. No fluff, just results. Matteo stays updated on the latest trends and tools, ensuring that his strategies are always current and effective. Everything was seamless and highly professional.
Francesco Tai Bernardelli
Impact
These efforts not only aligned marketing and product teams but also positioned Akiflow for scalable growth and a successful fundraising trajectory.
Improved retention and activation: Conducted a UX/UI review and implemented lifecycle marketing campaigns, enhancing key user milestones like setup, habit formation, and churn prevention.
Revamped brand and messaging: Repositioned product features and redesigned 12 landing page types with compelling copy for 29 pages in just two weeks.
Aligned cross-functional growth efforts: Established collaborative processes between marketing and product teams, driving retention, churn reduction, and activation experiments.
This case study demonstrates how strategic growth optimization, lifecycle marketing, and brand transformation can position B2B SaaS startups for success in competitive markets and high-stakes fundraising campaigns.
