Driving Climate Action Through Gamification, Personalization & Habit-Building
Product Manager @ Dashbaord.Earth
At Dashboard.Earth, a mission-driven climate tech startup, I lead end-to-end product development: user research, spec writing, roadmap planning, engineering support, and content systems. I also built lightweight internal processes that helped our small team ship faster and learn from what we released.
In Q1 2025, I helped lead a company-wide push to improve user engagement, increase monthly actions, and test affiliate conversion. Along the way, we laid the foundation for long-term retention and behavior change.
I’m happiest when I’m working across disciplines and using product thinking to drive real-world impact.
tldr;
This quarter, we focused on turning our climate action app from a resource library into a behavior-shaping experience. Users enjoyed exploring content, but many struggled to take their first action and rarely returned after logging one.
My goal was to understand what would motivate users to take action more consistently and build long-term habits. We improved onboarding, expanded action variety, launched gamified features, and introduced better guidance. Not every experiment succeeded, but we saw strong gains in engagement, conversion, and roadmap clarity.
Goals
Improve conversion from account creation to first action
Increase new user retention
Increase monthly actions taken across all users
User Insights
Through surveys, interviews, and data, we learned:
Users loved logging their first action, but churned immediately after.
Logging the same few actions daily became redundant - users needed variety.
As we added more content, retention stalled due to user overwhelm.
Community features were “nice to have,” but not a real retention hook yet.
Behavior change felt more satisfying when progress was visible and celebrated.
What I did:
Expanded & Structured Content
Grew our climate action library from 6→ 40+
Introduced “bulk logging” to reduce user clicks and fatigue
Added action categories and featured seasonal content to support habit variation
Onboarding Personalization
Developed a survey to segment users by motivation & experience
Assigned users to lightweight personas (“Impact Explorer,” “Community Builder,” etc.)
Delivered tailored “First 5 Actions” to guide next steps and reduce decision fatigue
Affiliate Action Experiments
Rolled out new one-time affiliate actions with light cash incentives
Shipped in-app messaging (partially) and ran content tests to boost discovery
Identified surfacing and targeting gaps as blockers for conversion
Results
🌱 +57% increase in actions taken per month
🌱 +18% lift in first-action conversion (39% → 46%)
🌱 40+ new climate actions launched, including “easy win” behaviors and affiliate-based incentives
“The app encouraged me to incorporate new practices into my routine... I try to eat plant-based meals weekly, learned how to recycle electronics, and take shorter showers.”
— Maya R.
“The gamified approach made the process fun and engaging, motivating me to explore other green initiatives.”
— Anna G.
“Seriously, Dashboard.Earth is totally my jam – it's been a game-changer for keeping me accountable to Mother Earth every single day. For instance, three days a week I make sure to run about 5 km to the gym and then hop on the Big Blue Bus for the ride home. The mental health "gainz" from that routine are, like, for real for real.”
User Feedback
More features ≠ more value — users need clarity and relevance, not just volume
Behavior change requires guidance — personalized onboarding and routine-setting drive deeper engagement
Shipping the right thing is only half the battle — timing, surfacing, and sequencing matter just as much
Sometimes the smartest move is not to build — deferring social features let us focus on core value first
You won’t always have clean attribution — but smart bets and clear user signals are enough to make meaningful decisions
What I learned
I’m looking for my next mission-driven product role with a team tackling real-world challenges through thoughtful, creative product work. I’m especially excited about climate and sustainability, behavior change, and products that blend digital engagement with measurable offline impact.