Curaleaf · Jun 2023 – Jan 2026
Mobile App Turnaround
Inherited a 2.7-star iOS app with 129 reviews, no Android presence, and no mobile-specific roadmap. Rebuilt trust through a two-phase turnaround — first stabilizing the foundation, then building a systematic growth loop — resulting in a 4.8-star rating, a shipped Android product, and measurable conversion gains.
Context
The situation
A 2.7-star App Store rating isn't a vanity metric problem — it's a compounding one. Low ratings suppress organic discovery, reduce install-to-session rates, and erode brand trust in a market where credibility is already hard to earn. The mobile product had no dedicated roadmap, no event instrumentation, no experimentation capability, and no Android app. Mobile had been treated as a web extension, not a product surface with its own user behavior and success metrics.
Strategy
How I approached it
The sequencing decision was the most important one I made: don't launch new features on a broken foundation. Phase 1 was about trust repair — auditing every 1-3 star review to build a prioritized fix list, then working through UX gaps, performance issues, and reliability problems systematically. Phase 2 was growth — only after the foundation was stable did I introduce new conversion features and experimentation. Skipping Phase 1 would have buried the growth work under continued churn and negative reviews.
Execution
What I did
Audited all 1–3 star App Store reviews to build a data-driven fix list — prioritized by frequency, severity, and conversion impact rather than recency.
Directed full iOS redesign focused on UX clarity, performance, crash reduction, and checkout trust signals — rebuilding the experience from the most complained-about flows outward.
Defined mobile-specific success metrics separate from web: install funnel conversion, session-to-purchase rate, review sentiment trend, and crash-free session rate.
Built mobile event taxonomy from scratch in GA4 — the team had zero funnel visibility into mobile behavior before this instrumentation.
Led 0→1 development and launch of native Android app, extending the platform's addressable mobile audience and driving 35% growth in total app downloads.
Established a mobile experimentation framework using Optimizely and Monetate — ran tests on home screen merchandising, search surface, and the cart-to-checkout flow.
Launched Special Deals Tray on a now-stable foundation, generating an 8% conversion increase and 10.5% revenue per session lift.
Implemented structured product intake and sprint process that increased engineering velocity by 150% without adding headcount.
Cross-Functional Leadership
Worked across iOS, Android, UX, QA, analytics, and marketing. The most critical investment was building engineering trust — the team had been handed unclear specs and reactive priorities for a long time. Establishing a consistent intake process, writing detailed specs, and making fast decisions in reviews changed how quickly we could move. The analytics relationship was equally important: standing up shared mobile dashboards gave the whole team a common language for what "better" actually looked like.
Outcomes
Impact
- →
iOS App Store rating: 2.7★ (129 reviews) → 4.8★ (5,000+ reviews)
- →
35% growth in total app downloads post-Android launch
- →
8% conversion increase and 10.5% revenue per session lift from feature launches on stable foundation
- →
150% increase in engineering velocity through structured intake and process improvements
- →
Full mobile event instrumentation built from zero — funnel dashboards adopted as weekly team operating tool
Key Learnings
Ratings are a lagging indicator of accumulated product debt — and the path from 2.7 to 4.8 wasn't a single launch, it was fixing dozens of small trust-breaking moments users had been flagging for months. The sequencing mattered as much as the work itself: launching growth features before the foundation was stable would have wasted the opportunity. The other lesson was instrumentation: you can't improve a mobile funnel you can't see. Building the event taxonomy first made every subsequent decision faster and more defensible.
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Digital Commerce Platform — Curaleaf