App development at SerpHike is built for retention, not just launch-day installs. PW.live's app, built and marketed with this approach, saw 58% more installs plus 41% better 30-day retention in 2025.
How SerpHike builds apps properly
What's included?
- Cross-platform builds for most consumer apps, native where performance demands it
- Onboarding flows designed to hit the first "aha moment" fast
- Push notification and retention hooks built in from day one
- App Store and Play Store listing groundwork for later ASO work
Evidence: apps built and grown by SerpHike
Build for the second week, not the launch
Most apps are downloaded, opened a few times and forgotten. Adjust's benchmarks show average retention falls to 26% on day one, 13% by day seven and 7% by day 30 (Adjust retention guide). We design and build apps around the moments that bring people back: a reason to open the app each day, notifications that are useful rather than noisy, and progress users can see.
How we build
- Discovery: the one job the app must do brilliantly, and the metric that proves it
- Design: onboarding that gets to value in the first session, tested with real users
- Build: native or cross-platform depending on the product, see native versus cross-platform
- Analytics: event tracking and retention cohorts set up before launch, not after
- Launch: store listings, review prompts and a plan for the first 30 days
Habit features are worth the effort. Duolingo's product team has written that streaks and leaderboards helped increase current user retention by 21% and grow daily active users 4.5x over four years (Lenny's Newsletter, Jorge Mazal).
Privacy and platform rules
Apple's App Tracking Transparency changed how apps can track users across other apps; Meta estimated it cost the company $10 billion in 2022 (CNBC, Feb 2022). We design analytics and marketing measurement that respects consent, and we build data handling to the rules that apply to you, including India's DPDP Rules phasing in from November 2025 (India Briefing on DPDP Rules 2025).
We built and marketed apps behind PW.live's 58% install growth and 41% better 30-day retention.
After launch
Most of an app's value comes from what happens after release: fixing drop-off points, improving store listings and adding features users ask for. We stay on for iteration and pair with app marketing if you need growth.