The "Hike" and the Fall
A story of how Hike became the greatest messenger and then fell even harder
If you are in your 20s or 30s , you must have seen the OG of Chatting Apps :
The Hike Messenger.
Still cannot remeber ? I’ll help you with that.
“Life me thoda hike kar diya”. Yaad aaya?
Many believe that it was the fastest growing and the best messenger that the had seen. But then , what happened to it?
I have a 3-part story to tell about It :
The biggest Growth Hack of that Time
How they increased frequency of Usage?
What lead to its downfall with time?
Driving Organic Acquisition - The Growth Hacks
From user interviews , they found that for their users , Internet was expensive (Remember? The pre Jio - 2G - era) . So how could they bring their network online?
And here comes the Hack.
Hack No. 1 : Talktime
One of the biggest growth hacks that Hike used was "Talktime as a reward' .
Hike gave Talktime as an incentive to get their network on Hike.
Back then , when you used to install the app , You would get talktime and SMS data worth Rs. 50 and if you make a successful referral , that person wold get Rs. 25. Even if you referred someone and tat person is not on internet or hike , you would receive an SMS.
This lead to a massive amount of virality and user Inflow for Hike.
Hack No. 2 : Privacy
As people started to come to Hike in bunches , started to Show off and close groups formed , some newer needs emerged.
Through interviews , Hike found out that those college kids , used to talk through their Dad's phone in their close groups , and then delete those chats at Night.
Also , an anecdote of a user who tells that His mom used to check his phone when he went for shower. To prevent that , he installed a App Locker. But mom being an Indian Mom , asked him to either unlock it or She'll tell the dad.
And this insight , Ladies and Gentlemen , lead to the real aha moment .
An app locker , which shows the same feedback on putting a right or wrong password. But real chats are there only if the password was right.
Snapshot of Hike’s Peak :
DAU - 22-23 Million
DAU/WAU - 57% (Yes, That is huge , but can be understood as its a closed network , If you found at least one or two close friends there , you are bound to chat daily.
D1 Retention - 95%
D30 Retention - 70-75%
Aha Moment - You found atleast two of your friends on Hike
At the peak , Hike found that there were two different network circles forming :
People who came to show off (small no. of 10+ people groups)
People who came to talk and feel connected with their people (large no. of 3-10 People groups).
People had found organic PMF - Me , my close friend , my girlfriend or boyfriend. Hike was the only product solving for this. This hidden chat solved for Privacy.
Now , Hike had to solve for Frequency of usage.
How “Stickers” made Users to stick ?
Here was the problem statement :
Let's say if someone is sending 2-3 Messages a day , now can you increase this frequency by 15x of that .
The answer to this can also be understood by Fogg's behaviour model of Motivation , Ability and Trigger.
So , what was the motivation for their core userbase?
They were mostly Teenage Lovey- dovey boys and girls? That wanted to send love texts to each other.
What was the ability that current product gave?
Text , typing out words
What was the trigger?
Notification by other person.
And here’s how they solved that :
How can you increase the motivation to send texts?
By making it more full of emotion.
How to do so?
Use texts along with images as a picture tells a thousand words.
And how to improve the ability?
To click and send rather than typing it out. Simple.
It moved almost all the users above the Habit Line of Fogg's model.
Casual users started to become core users and core users became power users.
Frequency of usage went up by upto 100%.
Then they doubled up on that single feature. How can you make a sticker more interesting ? Add animations to it. What's after that? Add sound to it. Even better?
Make it full screen.
Damn.
Hikey Dumpty had a great Fall
So , if it was such a big success story , Why did it not work?
Most people say that it was ahead of its time. But isn't it a good thing?
It cannot be the reason for sure.
Hike was from day 1 a "Closed Network". And as instagram began to boom , they thought they can become both for their users. You get either Open Network , where you consume feed , share memes with each other or you can keep your network closed only , i.e. people who you chat with.
But remember , the core need of their users was Privacy. And as they created an open network in Hike , People started to think that It has evolved into something just like other social media apps and the core USP , Privacy was at risk.
If they hadn’t done that, Hike could still have been large at like 20-30 million DAU - that’s the number of people who wanted privacy. It was this need to become Instagram which really led to their downfall.
The core Network started churning as soon as they felt that the privacy was taken away from them.
This wraps my account for the rise and fall of Hike Messenger.
Do you have any comments on it ? Or have an interesting suggestion to cover in my next article , you can surely comment it down.
Well written Nitin :)