For a product designed to solve a specific problem, users leaving after achieving their goal isn't a failure. These "positively churned" users become powerful brand ambassadors, driving word-of-mouth growth in a market large enough to sustain this model.

Hinge's primary goal is for users to find success and leave the app. This "designed to be deleted" philosophy forces the team to innovate on getting users offline and into real-life relationships, a stark contrast to typical tech products that optimize for keeping users on the platform.

Reacting to churn is a losing battle. The secret is to identify the characteristics of your best customers—those who stay and are happy to pay. Then, channel all marketing and sales resources into acquiring more customers that fit this 'stayer' profile, effectively designing churn out of your funnel.

As commercial enterprises, dating platforms are incentivized to maximize user engagement and retention. A user finding a successful, long-term partner means losing a customer, creating a fundamental conflict of interest with the user's ultimate goal.

Don't obsess over preventing every customer from leaving (logo retention). Instead, focus on increasing the spend of remaining customers (revenue retention). Even with customer churn, you can achieve overall growth if your loyal customers expand their usage and spend more over time.

To survive the decline of dating apps, Grindr is leveraging its brand to sell physical goods. Crucially, it's focusing on consumable, recurring-purchase items like pills and skincare. This creates stable, long-term revenue streams from a user base that eventually stops using the core dating feature.

For subscription businesses, retention is the most powerful yet invisible revenue lever. Instead of focusing solely on new signups, analyze and reduce churn. A seemingly small 2 percentage point drop can result in significant recurring revenue, like an extra $10,000 per month, from customers you already have.

Contrary to their marketing, dating apps are financially incentivized to keep users single and swiping, not to help them find a long-term partner. Their business model thrives on user churn within the dating pool, not successful exits from it.

While founders often focus on raising prices to increase LTV, the churn rate has an inverse and equally powerful effect. Cutting churn in half instantly doubles the value of every customer you have, offering a highly efficient path to boosting enterprise value without changing prices or increasing marketing.