Contract Growth Product Manager — Activation, Onboarding & Subscription Conversion

About LifeScribe

LifeScribe turns a person's spoken memories into beautifully written Chapters that compile into a Life Book. A member talks for a few minutes; our AI engine returns a literary-quality chapter in under 30 seconds. We are live on iOS and Android.

Our primary members are 65–85 years old. Our secondary buyer is their adult child, 45–60, buying it as a gift. That split — the buyer is often not the user — shapes almost every product decision we make.

We are a small, fast team. The platform (Flutter apps on both stores) was built in under a year. We are past "does it work" and squarely on "why don't enough people who install it subscribe."

Why this role exists

We know our install-to-subscription rate is the single most important number in the business and we are not satisfied with it. We have a detailed hypothesis about why — a rewritten onboarding flow, a 24-step activation funnel design, and six specific conversion enhancements — all already documented.

What we do not have is someone who has sat next to a 74-year-old while she tries to record her first Chapter.* We want to be proven wrong about our assumptions before we spend three months of engineering on them, and then we want the winning changes shipped and measured.

You are that person for the next twelve weeks.

What you'll own

1 · Usability for older adults (weeks 1–4, ongoing)

• Run moderated usability sessions with real members and prospects aged 60–85, plus Gen X gift-buyers. Recruit them, moderate them, record them, and show us the tape.
• Produce a prioritized friction inventory: every point where a member hesitates, taps the wrong thing, asks "did it work?", or quits.
• Audit the app against WCAG 2.2 AA and against age-related realities we care about more than the checklist: presbyopia, reduced motor precision, low technology confidence, fear of "breaking something," and the specific anxiety of "will I sound foolish?"
• Validate or kill our existing accessibility toggles (Large Text, High Contrast, Less Motion, Simplified Layout) based on whether members can find and use them.

· End-to-end flow mapping and instrumentation (weeks 2–6)

• Produce the definitive current-state map: install → account → first Chapter created → first Chapter viewed (our true activation moment) → paywall → subscription. Every screen, every permission prompt, every dead end.
• Sit with our funnel instrumentation and tell us where we are blind. Define the events we are missing. Work with our backend engineer to close the gaps so that every step in the map has a number under it.
• Deliver a leak-ranked model: how many members we lose at each step, what each point of recovered leakage is worth in monthly revenue, and therefore what we fix first.

3 · Conversion and subscription optimization (weeks 4–12)

• Own the target-state flow. Pressure-test our existing onboarding rewrite against what you learned in research; change what deserves changing and defend what doesn't.
• Design and sequence the experiment roadmap: paywall placement and framing, free-Chapter grant, the value moment, the family-share loop, the trial-to-paid transition.
• Write specs our engineers can build from without a follow-up meeting.
• Report weekly on the numbers, not the narrative. Kill your own losing ideas quickly and publicly.

Deliverables and milestones

| Week | Deliverable | Definition of done |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kickoff audit plan + recruiting pipeline for usability participants | 12+ qualified participants scheduled across 60–85 and Gen X buyer segments |
| 2 | Current-state flow map (every screen, every branch, every gate) | Reviewed and accepted by CEO; matches shipped app, not our docs |
| 3 | Round 1 usability findings + highlight reel | ≥8 completed sessions; top 10 friction points ranked by severity × frequency |
| 4 | Instrumentation gap report | Named list of missing events with the exact funnel step each unblocks |
| 5 | Leak-ranked funnel model with revenue impact per step | Every step carries a number or an explicit "we are blind here" |
| 6 | Target-state flow + prioritized roadmap (Now / Next / Later) | Sequenced, effort-estimated with engineering, signed off |
| 7–8 | Build specs for Now tier; first experiments live | Engineers build without clarification meetings; experiments have pre-registered success criteria |
| 9–11 | Experiment operations + round 2 usability on shipped changes | Weekly readouts; at least 3 experiments concluded with a call |
| 12 | Final report: what moved, what didn't, what to do next and who should own it | Handoff-quality; a new hire could pick it up cold |

How we measure your success

Primary: measurable, sustained lift in install → paid subscription.
Supporting:** activation rate (members who view a first Chapter), second-Chapter rate, paywall view → subscribe, trial → paid, day-30 retention, and a decrease in support tickets that begin "I can't figure out how to…"
Non-negotiable: every recommendation you make is traceable to either an observed member behavior or a number. We do not ship on taste.

Requirements

• 6+ years in product management, product design, or UX research, with at least 2 years owning a consumer subscription funnel end to end. You have personally moved a conversion or activation metric and can walk us through exactly how, including what failed.
• Hands-on moderated usability research. You have run sessions yourself — recruited, moderated, synthesized. This is not a role where you brief an agency.
• Native mobile fluency (iOS + Android). You understand that App Store subscription mechanics, permission prompts, and store review constraints are product constraints, not implementation details.
• Analytics literacy sufficient to define events, read a cohort chart, spot a survivorship-biased funnel, and tell a real lift from noise.
• Writing. Our engineers work from written specs. If your specs need a meeting to be understood, they're not done.
• Demonstrated respect for accessibility and older-adult usability. Prior work with 55+, healthcare, senior living, financial services for retirees, or genealogy audiences is a significant advantage.

Strongly preferred

• Experience with app-store subscription monetization (free grants, trials, offer codes, paywall design, price testing).
• Familiarity with Flutter apps and how that constrains rapid UI iteration.
• Genealogy, memoir, legacy, estate, or senior-care category experience.
• You have shipped for an audience where the buyer and the user are different people.

How we work — read this before applying

Boomer-Safe is a hard constraint, not a preference. Everything we ship is bound by it:

| Rule | Meaning |
|---|---|
| No urgency, no FOMO, no countdowns | Pressure tactics that lift conversion on a 28-year-old make a 74-year-old close the app and not come back |
| No mortality framing | We never say or imply "before it's too late" in product |
| No streaks, no badges, no shame mechanics | Missing a day must never feel like failure |
| Warm, unhurried tone | Reassurance beats efficiency |
| ≥18px body text, ≥56px tap targets, prefers-reduced-motion respected | Floor, not ceiling |

If your conversion playbook is scarcity timers and dark-pattern trial walls, we will not be a fit, and that's fine — say so now and we'll both save a week.

How the team is built.You'll work with: the CEO. You will have direct access to the CEO and to the data.

Compensation

Fixed monthly retainer of $1,500 and participation in your subscription conversions via a profit sharing plan - huge upside potentil (75mm baby boomers). 12-week term - but if you perform, then you stay on and reap the rewards of your subscriptions. Extension or conversion to a permanent Head of Product role for the right person.

To apply

Send three things. Applications missing any of them are not reviewed.

1. A résumé
2. One case study, one page maximum, of a consumer funnel you improved. We want: what the metric was before, what you changed, what the metric was after, how you knew the change caused it, and one thing you tried that failed.
3. Answers to these, brief:
   • Download LifeScribe on iOS or Android and go as far as creating a Chapter. What is the single biggest thing you'd change, and what evidence would you want before you'd trust that instinct?
   • Describe a time you ran usability research with someone over 70. What surprised you?
   • A stakeholder is certain a redesign will fix conversion. You suspect the real leak is two steps earlier. What do you do in your first week?