Essays & field notes.
Operator notes from mobile gaming—where monetization, acquisition, analytics, and product loops meet—and the lessons that travel to apps, SaaS, ad networks, and digital products.
Ad Monetization & Mediation
Topic guide →- Jul 2026 D—04 · Revenue 4 min
Same Ad, Different Player Moment
A rewarded ad is not only an ad format. It is a product event. The same placement can be a continuation mechanic in one context and an escape route in another.
- Feb 2026 D—01 · Gaming 11 min
Against the 'whale' metaphor
Top-spending users aren't a species. They're a stage. The taxonomy is costing you product decisions.
- Dec 2025 D—03 · Analytics 6 min
Diligence checklists for ad-network acquisitions
What I check in a target's investment deck before reviewing anything else — the flags that decide if deeper diligence is worth the time.
UA & Payback
Topic guide →- Jun 2026 D—03 · Analytics 7 min
More Data, Less Signal
More channels don't just add inventory — they dilute signal until you're reconciling data instead of making decisions.
- Jun 2026 D—04 · Revenue 8 min
The Scale Ceiling Loop
Every product has a ceiling past which it can't scale. The only way to find it is to push against it deliberately.
- May 2026 D—03 · Analytics 11 min
The Green Dashboard Problem
Soft-launch metrics can be green for the wrong reasons. The question isn't whether the numbers are healthy — it's what made them healthy.
- Apr 2026 D—03 · Analytics 10 min
The Maturity Illusion
Most teams don't lose money because their data is wrong. They lose it because they treat immature data as mature truth — and pivot before the numbers have finished baking.
- Apr 2026 D—05 · Networks 5 min
The Algorithm Saw It Before You Did
When a ROAS campaign loses delivery for no visible reason, the first question is not what changed in the campaign. It is what shipped in the last 72 hours.
Analytics & KPI
Topic guide →- May 2026 D—03 · Analytics 4 min
When Market Intelligence Becomes Infrastructure
As market intelligence consolidates, the advantage stops coming from having the tool. It comes from the internal intelligence you build around it.
- Apr 2026 D—04 · Revenue 8 min
Your KPI tree is probably a graph
Why North Star frameworks quietly produce the wrong roadmap, and the cheap fix.
ASO & Organic Growth
Topic guide →- Jul 2026 D—01 · Gaming 3 min
When Play Becomes Upkeep
Players don't usually leave on the day they stop opening the app. The exit starts earlier — when play quietly turns into maintenance.
- Jun 2026 D—01 · Gaming 3 min
When the Player Becomes a Queue Manager
A game can have plenty of content and still feel empty if the player is only clearing the designer's queue. Mid-game retention is often an ownership problem, not a content problem.
- Jun 2026 D—01 · Gaming 10 min
Where Are Your Boss Fights?
Most products celebrate milestones. The best ones design moments where users earn the next level.
- May 2026 D—02 · Apps 11 min
Magic Gets the First Try. Progression Gets the Second Week.
Most AI products have a wow moment. Very few have a reason to come back tomorrow.
- May 2026 D—01 · Gaming 8 min
Event Debt: When Live Ops Stops Amplifying and Starts Replacing
Most live games don't collapse suddenly. They accumulate event debt — until a normal Tuesday exposes it.
- May 2026 D—02 · Apps 6 min
The Play Effect
Attention is not an asset you capture once and celebrate. In an era of infinite AI content, the advantage goes to the businesses people willingly return to.
Product Systems & AI
- Jul 2026 D—02 · Apps 10 min
ASO is an organic growth system, not a metadata project
A practical ASO operating model for mobile teams: connect store intent, creative promise, first-session delivery, retention, ratings, and paid acquisition into one learning loop.
- Jun 2026 D—02 · Apps 5 min
Faster Bottlenecks
One of the biggest AI mistakes will not be bad prompts. It will be faster bottlenecks — more output routed back through the same person.
- Jun 2026 D—02 · Apps 5 min
Prompting Is Not Briefing
Most AI work looks useful too early. AI does not fix weak briefs — it just makes them harder to reject at first glance.
- Jun 2026 D—02 · Apps 4 min
Apps Gave Us Buttons. AI Has to Earn Trust.
The next AI interface shift is not smarter answers. It is delegated action — and which tasks we are willing to let AI do instead of us.
- Jun 2026 D—02 · Apps 8 min
Your AI Stack Needs a Draft Phase
The mistake isn't which tool you pick. It's skipping the question of which workflow deserves the first pick.
- May 2026 D—04 · Revenue 10 min
Every Product Has a Hidden Economy
Most teams design features. They're actually designing exchange rates — whether they know it or not.
- Oct 2025 D—02 · Apps 9 min
When to A/B test, and when not to
Most teams under-experiment on pricing and over-experiment on copy. Here's the heuristic I use.
Life
Notes from building an independent practice in public, while the answers are still unfinished.