This Self-Improvement App Might Kill MasterClass: RiseGuide Review (2026)

Coming up, we're going to break down a self-improvement app that's going to help you with building a little bit of your communication skills and charisma as for you developers out there and teach you a little bit about retention and more importantly monetization. Stay tuned. >> [music] >> What is up AppNation? It is Steve P. Young, founder of AppMasters.com, the place you go when you want actual paid content related to helping you grow your app downloads and more importantly those revenues. And today we're going to take a look at an app called Rise Guide.

I love the app. It really teaches you a lot about communication and memory, which is the track that I'm going through and I'm going to break down some of the awesome things that they're doing from a monetization and retention perspective and maybe a few subtle onboarding changes that I would make if I ran this app. So, without further ado, let's get started. All right, here's the app. It is called Rise Guide and we're going to go through the app flow. Here's the onboarding splash screen. Super basic, become a better version of yourself. Here you can pick and the good thing is it changes based off what you select. So, for me cognitive skills and training my mind to better recall, that's the thing that I'm going through before all those who want to need help with communication, which I feel like is extremely important especially in the age of AI. Communication's going to be key cuz you need to communicate not only

to the AI, but to those to real humans too, all right? So, the thing I want to point out is we're going to go through the cognitive skills because that's what I'm more interested in, but then these questions that are about to appear change based off of what you're most interested in, all right? Cool. Where did you hear about us? I always love these type of screens and I like it early on in the onboarding cuz it's a good way to attribute your installs.

What we found is if you're running paid media spend, generally you're going to see a boost in App Store search especially when you're running social media campaigns. So, this is a great way to track your installs and not have to rely on the meta SDK and all the MMPs out there, but just having this attribution of this question helps you with your attribution as well. So, if you pick anything else, you'll just go to this screen. You're in the right place, trusted by 200,000 people. If you hit social media, they will ask you where which social media platform you found them.

All right. I'm going to go relatively quick for the rest of the onboarding flows and I'll stop when there's important. But what do you want to achieve? Always good to ask because it's going to help with some of your marketing. So, if you find that hey, most people want to boost memory more and those who select boost memory tend to activate more and pay you more, then your creative start changing to be like, hey, boost your memory, right? So, I love these type of questions if not only to see what people pick and then ultimately convert, but to also help you with your marketing efforts.

Okay, we've got your back, all that stuff. What type of thinking feels more natural to you? How easily are you distracted? How often do you procrastinate on important task? How often do you feel confident expressing your ideas in conversation? So, these are like pretty basic questions. The thing that you have to keep an eye on is as you keep asking questions now for education, fitness, longer onboardings tend to work better.

Yes, you're going to get drop-offs during these onboarding because it's long. But the people that actually make it through are more likely to pay anyways. So, what we found is like productivity, utility apps, you can have short onboarding, but for these type of apps, you got to have a longer onboarding, okay? And the thing I want to point out is mix and match, right? As they're answering questions, let them know that you hear them. With this screen, there's nothing to worry about and then show some social proof. We've helped more than 200,000 adults to train their cognitive skills and can help you too, okay? So, I love this. Again, they're asking a bunch of questions. Do you agree, disagree? All this stuff right here, [snorts] all right? Again, a little bit of break, so it's like six questions and then break. Have you ever tried intelligence training? This would be a good thing to know because then you

can decide, hey, most of my people never done anything, like most of my target my audience have never done any intelligence training or hey, we're targeting so are we targeting complete beginners or are we tar- targeting intermediate to advanced? And that's going to help with your marketing later on. All right, what stands in your way? And then here, I love this screen. This is whose intelligence and personality inspire you the most? Now, I selected James Quick. I think that's how you say his last name, but these this is another way of adding social proof. This is borrowing somebody's credibility and incorporating it into your app. And so, you can say like an Einstein quote or you know, one of the popular entrepreneurs quotes, but this type of screen I love, so I put Jim Quick and he says, look, hey, your plan will be backed by the knowledge and insights of the world's greatest minds like Jim

Quick, right? Easy, great stuff. All right, rate your readiness to train your cognitive skills, and that's more like commitment. I'm all set, by the way, I'm ready to learn. And then here's regurgitating what you put down. All right, your level. I'm pretty high already. Impressive. Why? Now, I love these type of questions especially for education and fitness, like tell me why cuz you want to get them the user starting to think about their dream outcome.

And these type of questions start doing that. So, do you have a specific reason for training your intelligence? Hey, why do you want to learn this? How much time are you willing to commit? We know from Duolingo asking this question actually increases retention rates, right? Preparing the plan. I took a couple of screenshots here just to show you that things are moving and then also that nothing happens. This just moves and then takes me directly to say next screen. I don't have to I love these type of screens too from this is anecdotal, but another app founder I talked to, this screen where all it does is show animations like 100 zero to 100% zero to 100% he reported that he saw a 10% increase in conversions when he added this screen right before ultimately the paywall, right? Your personalized cognitive skills plan is ready.

Now for weeks, love this, continue. This another commitment. So, now I have to tap and this cool animation, the purple takes all over the white and then now we have the paywall, right? We have weekly plan and a yearly plan. I do think that's more interesting. We found that the highest LTV tends to be weekly and yearly with monthly like far behind. So, I love the the way they've kind of done this. I really love this paywall as well.

I've seen a few other apps do this with their competitors, but what Rise Guide is doing really well is doing it on a per day basis, so it's only 19 cents per day, whereas you spend $4 on Starbucks and then thousands of dollars on courses. One is fun, one is just interactive and not as fun and this is both fun for only 19 cents a day. So, when you're seeing it as a 19 cents per day, users are like, yes, that's actually pretty cheap, not $70 a year.

So, you want them to think 19 cents per day versus $70 a year. Now, after I start a 3-day trial, they do ask me to create an account. I'm going to pause here. What we've seen cuz I've seen other apps do the exact opposite where they will ask you to create an account before showing the paywall. We've actually saw for one of our fitness clients a 52% increase in sales by showing the paywall before the registration. So, when we show the registration and then the paywall not a lot of people were seeing the paywall.

We only saw 60% of the people seeing the paywall. That means actually I think it was 40%. That means 60% were dropping off on just a sign-up screen, right? So, we found that more people are willing to pay you than give you their email address and sign up for another account. So, ask for the paywall and then ask them to sign up. Now, after that, after I signed up, I've got the intelligence training plan, which is what I signed up for. I like this secondary onboarding cuz different podcast guests have showed us that having the secondary onboarding and specially when you're trying to get users to engage with the premium content, this actually works. So, rather than just dropping them into a homepage and be like, hey, here's your modules, get started, you just guide them through the entire journey. So, I like love this. Social proof, never stop selling.

Social proof, social proof again. Here's the module, here's what you're going to get. Important here. No questions left behind. They've got experts to help you with with any questions that you may have and then another commitment screen right here. Okay. And then here's the course. This is the first course. Again, they're not landing me onto this module where I can start this course. They're just saying, get started with your course. So, start now. Tap here to go forward, tap here to go back and then I'm started. Now, I've got some suggestions. As a reminder, let's go back real quick. They did all these questions, right? They asked me to commit and then they show the paywall.

Right? And then they went through the secondary, what I call secondary onboarding. Now, here's what I would change if I were them. Commit, secondary onboarding, social proof, social proof, here's what you're going to get, no questions left behind, and then hit them with the paywall. And then you can go here's your first lesson, here's everything else. Because I think for me in particular, you've asked a lot of questions, but now people want to see what's inside. Right? So I might try to show them what's inside.

You got some great features with social proof and then hit them with the paywall and then they're pretty much ready to go. Hit them with their first lesson and all that stuff. So that's the changes I would make. So now you can go here, right? Right after the paywall. But let's go back to the flow, okay? So here's the lesson and I really love the way that they try to get users to engage. So I want to show you the fun part of taking this app and learning through this app. So your journey starts now, 15-minute lesson, that's what I said I was willing to commit.

So boom, start now. How your memory really works. They're sharing with me the different tips and strategies. So you walk into a room and forget why or read a page, you're not alone. That's a great messaging by the way, you're not alone. And then they're walking me through the idea. So as I tap more, right like this part as I tap this part it's taking me to the next step. Next step. And then they got a video. They have Jim Kwik who I selected anyways. So it's really good. I'm like, oh this is cool.

I watched the video, really good video as well. Attention is everything. So for me I want to get better at memorizing like names in particular. I meet a lot of people and I just hate asking like, what was your name again? Like unless they have a badge, right? So and then also for me to retain a lot of the strategies that I hear. I'm pretty good at that because I'm just very passionate about it. But attention is the most important thing when you're trying to memorize. So I'm like, oh this is great.

So again, they got a little quote down here. They got this memory hacks playbook. I love this. Just a PDF you can download it and I've saved it. So you can go through it and I love these type of handbooks because you can use this as a way to as a lead gen campaign as well. So if they had web to app campaigns, you can be like, hey download our free memory hacks playbook and then within the playbook you obviously try to upsell them to an app, right? Through the app or subscription. So love that.

Why do people forget? And so this is interesting, having a quiz after a lesson. A short lesson but having a quiz. Now, why do people forget what they read shortly after finishing it? The brain naturally deletes unused information, the information was never properly encoded, memory declines rapidly with age. So that and the correct answer was the information was never properly encoded. Remember, attention is everything. You paying attention? You paying attention? That is everything that helps your memorization. All right, techniques to sharpen your recall.

And then they talk about more feedback. The mom method, love, motivation observation and mechanics. So I'm going to go through these quickly because I'm giving away their lessons for free. But here's what I love. This quiz, they ask you for a quiz. Again, it's which action best supports encoding new information in memory? Rereading the same paragraph multiple times, highlighting important sentences, explain the idea in your own words.

Okay, you guys want to guess? Explain the idea in your own words. Teach, you know? As I learn something I usually tell my wife or my kids I'm like, hey guess what I just learned. Really? I don't even care if they listen. For me, I'm just trying to make sure it sticks into my mind. So this is how memory really works. I love this. I love this 103 comments up here too that I just realized. I was like, oh that's interesting. And depending on the course you take, they have this like little flip stuff right here within Rise Guide that I really love. So I'm not just you don't want users just to be like tap tap tap tap tap, right?

Doom scrolling, doom tapping all the way. You want them to pay attention. So I love this. What's your motivation? I told them my motivation and then there's a Rise Guide coach. So now they're starting to incorporate some of those premium features, right like talk to our AI experts into this lesson, which I love too. It's going to help with their retention. We've seen that. All right. Lesson complete, you want to rate us, you know? Sure, rate this lesson, great. Streaks are always good because it helps build it. There's a positive and negative, but usually positive. The negative is now they have a long streak which is a good problem to have. I don't and I break it, you might lose that user forever. So there's other ways to think about that, but that's secondary. You just want to add streaks because streaks do help with actually increasing that retention. People want to keep their streaks alive usually.

Right? Continue. Do you like us as much as we like you? I love this. Right? We love your review. Tell everyone why you enjoy Rise Guide. Thank you for your support. Continue. And unlike just showing an App Store ratings prompt, what they do is take you to the actual App Store. Now I don't have real data to show if App Store reviews, written reviews, helps more than just ratings. I don't have that data, but from our before black hat strategies, we found out that the keywords that people use in their reviews actually did help with your ASO. Not I don't know if it's true today because it doesn't work as well as it did in 2015 when I first discovered this idea, but it's also important to realize that hey, maybe sometimes having written reviews a little bit at a higher level in terms of like ask, obviously less people are going to write it, but when you get people writing it, it's going to help

your organic stuff too cuz it's user generated content. All right, so I left them a review and then I went back into the app. Thanks for sharing and then now this is the module. This is what I like, right? Instead of just landing me here and getting me to do everything, I like the fact that they just took me to there and be like, check done. And I love these little things where it makes it feel like it's to-do list. That's literally how I do my all my to-do list. I have a thing where I can just check off or X out right here.

So I love this and that that little UI UX trick should help you with getting users to go along your app journey. All right, I'm going to show you a few things within the app. So that was the home right here. I'm going to go to journey. You can see all the different lessons. Again, I like this because it can show like progress and where I'm headed. So I have a road map of where I'm going to eventually end up. Here's the ask ask experts. Here's the explore section. I love this. I'm going to scroll down a little bit because check this out. Trending now, love this.

Use your app to show what's popular. That's what users want to see. Right? We did had another client that all we did was change the subject line of their second email address. Now these are people who activated a trial. We wanted them to stay on and not cancel the trial. So this fitness app was like, hey, we need people to work out just once cuz I know if I can get them to work out just once, they're going to stay with me for a long time. So I said, all right. We changed the second email from the benefits of hit workouts, high intensity interval training to our most popular workouts. The content was pretty much the same cuz the content was that. So when we changed that, we two X the workout completion.

So use this, right? Use what's hey, here's our most popular features. Here's what's trending now. Learn from the best. So I love So I love this. Trending now, learn from the best. Expert inspired. Again, you're borrowing social proof. These people are famous for a reason. They've shared a lot of great content. You can leverage some of that content into your own content as well, All right, here's some really cool tools. So I kind of showed you just the gist of what you're going to get, but with Rise Guide, here's a cool thing. If you scroll all the way on to today, you get all these cool everyday tools. Now for me I want to remember names. I want to be like, so good at remembering your names, all right? So name trainer, here it is. You got this Modern Millie Dr. Suzuki.

I don't know if I said that right. You got Jessie and you got Perry Marshall. All right, I'm going to hold right here and I want you guys to remember this. All right? Now the key is associating the name with some of the qualities that you see. Now this person's easy, she's Asian so she's got an Asian name. All right. >> [laughter] >> I'm Asian, too. All right. You got Modern Millie I'm like, oh she looks modern and she's younger so I'm going to put modern. All right, Jessie I was like, Jessie does not look messy. That's sort of how I came up with this. I was like, okay Jessie does not look messy cuz she looks very proper, she's smiling. And then Perry Marshall, what's the dude? He looks very like his head looks like a marshmallow. That's sort of how I thought about it. Perry, marshmallow, okay? Now let's play this game. See if you guys can guess. Now I just literally showed you guys so you

guys should be able to guess who's who. I'll give you a second to figure it out. I got it. And I got it all right as well. So really easy, that's what I learned through the app itself. Like train yourself, once you learn the name, associate something about them with the name. That is it. So go check out Rise Guide in your favorite App Store, iOS and Google Play or rise guide.com if you want to increase your memorization skills like boom or your communication skills because I hate talking to people. It's going to really help you break through that shell. Trust me. You want to be an entrepreneur, you want to be a founder, you're going to have to sell. You're going to have to talk to people. All right. Don't talk to AI all the time.

Talk to real humans once in a while. Till next time, I'll see you on the next video.