Daily Goals & Payday Pass
A seasonal gamification system built into a live, revenue-generating consumer app, combining daily tasks with a 45-day progression loop and a new virtual currency.
The problem
The goal was to increase retention, engagement depth, and long-term user value inside an existing consumer app, without breaking trust or economics. This was not a greenfield build. It required fitting a sophisticated gamification layer into a live product, powered by a new non-redeemable progression currency called Benjamin Bucks.
The product
A two-layer system. Daily Goals generate 3 to 4 short repeatable tasks each day; each completed task grants Benjamin Bucks that roll into a season-long progression track, the Payday Pass. Seasons run 45 days, reset automatically, and introduce new reward lineups each cycle, ending in a recurring loot box once all fixed milestones are complete. This decoupled daily engagement from longer-term motivation while tying everything back to a single controllable economy.
Introducing friction: the Golden Goal
To improve margin efficiency and prevent low-value task cycling, I introduced a semi-hard gate. At a defined milestone it blocks new Daily Goals from refreshing until the user completes a single high-value task, framed as a special quest rather than a punishment. This inserted margin-positive behavior at the exact moment of peak engagement without degrading the experience.
My role
As Product Manager I defined the vision and success metrics, designed and tuned the progression and reward economy, wrote requirements across app, backend, and gamification services, coordinated engineering, design, analytics and go-to-market, and partnered with external gamification consultants to validate pacing.