Learn to Earn
Reward users for completing the learning actions that predict product success.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 98%
Learn to Earn is an activation method that converts product education into a rewarded sequence of behaviors. The company identifies the actions most strongly associated with successful adoption, packages them as tutorials or exercises, and gives users money, credits, coins, or tokens after verified completion. The reward supplies an immediate reason to begin, while the exercises move users toward the product's activation point. The company then measures whether rewarded learners convert and retain better than comparable users. The model is especially useful where unfamiliar products create hesitation, but it must reward genuine learning and use rather than clicks that disappear once payments stop.
Origin
Extracted from Marketing Against The Grain through examples involving crypto exchanges, Rabbit Hole, and the earlier 21.co service acquired by Coinbase.
Core principles
- 01Users learn products faster when valuable actions receive immediate rewards.
- 02Rewards should target behaviors correlated with conversion or retention.
- 03Learning can serve acquisition, activation, and education simultaneously.
- 04The incentive must accompany real product use, not passive content consumption.
- 05Brands can fund rewards because educated users create downstream value.
How to run it
- 1
Find predictive actions
Use behavioral evidence to identify the product actions correlated with conversion, value realization, or retention.
Pro tip Start with the shortest path to the user's first meaningful outcome.
Watch out Do not reward actions merely because they are easy to count.
- 2
Build learning exercises
Create concise tasks that teach users how and why to perform each predictive action.
Pro tip Let users complete the exercise inside the actual product where possible.
- 3
Attach verified rewards
Pay money, credits, coins, or tokens only after the required behavior is completed.
Pro tip Scale reward value with the difficulty and business value of the action.
Watch out Weak verification invites abuse and automated farming.
- 4
Measure downstream behavior
Compare activation, conversion, retention, and customer value for rewarded learners against an untreated cohort.
Watch out Exercise completion alone does not prove the program works.
- 5
Refine the curriculum
Increase rewards for actions that create durable value and remove tasks that attract only incentive seekers.
Pro tip Test whether users continue the behavior after rewards decline.
In the wild
A crypto exchange gives a new user a sequence of exercises that explain an asset and require basic product actions. After each verified exercise, the exchange deposits a small amount of the relevant coin into the user's account.
→ The user learns the product, experiences ownership, and reaches initial activation.
A freemium software company identifies three actions associated with paid conversion. It turns them into an onboarding course and awards account credits when users complete each action in the product.
→ More users reach the activation milestone and the company can test whether the rewards improve paid conversion and retention.
Common mistakes
Rewarding passive exposure
Watching or clicking without demonstrating product use may inflate completion while leaving users unactivated.
Choosing unrelated tasks
Exercises must teach actions tied to customer success rather than arbitrary engagement.
Ignoring post-reward retention
A program that works only while payments continue may be buying temporary activity instead of learning.
Is it for you?
Best for
Products with a learning curve and identifiable activation actions that predict conversion or retention.
Not ideal for
Simple products with no meaningful learning requirement or businesses unable to verify task completion.
From the transcript
“Learn to earn.”
“What a great incentive to get someone to actually start to use your product.”
“I could incentivize people within a freebium product to do the core actions that I know translate to that person, probably becoming a customer, probably…”
From the episode
Web 3, Customer Acquisition, and Value Props (Twittersode)