Fieldnote: from 9% to 21% trial conversion by sending users outside
Trial users never saw the feature that made the app special. One task on their next walk changed that.
On this page
Fieldnote makes a note-taking app for researchers who work outside: biologists, archaeologists, people counting birds at dawn. Their trial users loved the app in demos and then rarely came back. With Tally, the team found the moment new users got stuck, and raised trial-to-paid conversion from 9% to 21% in one quarter.
A small team, a specific product
Fieldnote has six people and around four thousand paying users in thirty countries. The app records notes, photos, voice memos and GPS positions, and keeps working without an internet connection. That last feature is why people choose it, and it turned out to be why many of them left.
The question
Ana Ferreira, Fieldnote's head of product, started with one question: what do the users who stay do in their first week that the others do not? She built a Tally funnel from signup to the first synced note, and compared people who paid with people who did not.
The answer was clear. Almost everyone who paid had synced a note from the field within their first week. Most people who did not pay had only ever used the app at their desk, connected to Wi-Fi. They never saw the feature that made Fieldnote special.
Our demo showed the app in a field. Our trial let people use it in an office. We were selling one product and giving away another.
Ana Ferreira
What they changed
The team made three changes in one month:
- A first task outside. The welcome screen now asks new users to take one note on their next walk, with the phone in flight mode.
- A sync celebration. When the first offline note syncs, the app shows exactly what happened: "Recorded without signal, saved safely, synced at 14:02."
- A longer trial for field seasons. Users can start their trial when their next trip begins, not when they sign up.
The results
| Measure | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Synced an offline note in week 1 | 23% | 61% |
| Trial to paid | 9% | 21% |
| Support questions about sync | 140 a month | 45 a month |
What they watch now
Fieldnote's main dashboard has one big number at the top: the share of new users who sync an offline note within seven days. Every product decision is checked against it.
