What caused the sudden 30% decrease in daily active users for Ajaib's mutual fund investment feature last week?

Introduction

The sudden 30% decrease in daily active users for Ajaib's mutual fund investment feature last week is a critical issue that demands immediate attention and thorough analysis. As we delve into this problem, we'll employ a systematic approach to identify, validate, and address the root cause while considering both short-term and long-term implications for the product and business.

Our analysis will follow a structured framework, beginning with clarifying questions to gather essential context, ruling out basic external factors, understanding the product and user journey, breaking down the metric, gathering and prioritizing data, forming hypotheses, conducting root cause analysis, and finally, proposing validation methods and next steps.

Step 1

Clarifying Questions (3 minutes)

• Looking at the timing, I'm thinking this could be related to a recent product update. Has there been any significant change to the mutual fund investment feature in the past two weeks?

Why it matters: Recent changes often correlate with sudden metric shifts. Expected answer: Yes, there was a UI redesign launched 10 days ago. Impact on approach: If confirmed, we'd focus on UI/UX issues in our analysis.

• Given the magnitude of the decrease, I'm wondering about potential technical issues. Have there been any reported outages or performance degradation in the past week?

Why it matters: Technical problems can cause immediate and significant drops in usage. Expected answer: No major outages, but there have been some intermittent slowdowns. Impact on approach: We'd investigate the extent and impact of these slowdowns.

• Considering user segments, I'm curious if this decrease is uniform across all user types. Do we see any particular user segment more affected than others?

Why it matters: Segmented data can reveal targeted issues or changes in user behavior. Expected answer: New users seem to be more affected than long-term users. Impact on approach: We'd focus on the onboarding experience and new user journey.

• Thinking about external factors, has there been any significant market volatility or economic news that might influence investment behavior?

Why it matters: External factors can dramatically impact user engagement with financial products. Expected answer: The market has been relatively stable, with no major economic news. Impact on approach: We'd likely focus more on internal factors if external conditions are stable.