A return is a job done twice, not an open
Opening the app to dismiss a badge is not the same as coming back to finish a grocery list. Define the job before you celebrate a bounce in sessions.
Journal
Field notes
Practical writing from retention studies — cohort windows, festive weeks in Malaysia, and how a conversation with someone who left actually sounds.
Festive weeks are not churn
Hari Raya, Chinese New Year, and Deepavali move when people open apps in Malaysia. Treating those weeks as ordinary drop-off makes a product look sicker than it is.
What a lapsed-user hour actually contains
Thirty minutes is short on purpose. We ask when they last opened the app, what they needed that day, and what they did instead — then we stop.
Read week four before you argue about week twelve
Twelve-week return looks serious in a board pack. In a young app, those cells are often a handful of people. Start with the week that actually has a sample.