Levels Podcast

The episode contains a handful of genuinely useful operational data points - subscription model switch driving repurchase from <10% to 52%, 90% of subscribers converting after the first lesson, LTV tripling - but the density is diluted by vague non-answers ('we don't really test that part'), meandering product walkthroughs, and stretches of the host narrating what was just said back to the guest.

“our repurchase rate was lower than uh 10%. So uh, even though we have huge uh, uh premium trials or premium users, but they don't really renew their uh premium service”

“Most of our 90% of our subscribers subscribe our premium after right after they test the first lessons”

Most frameworks here - subscription vs. one-time purchase, streak gamification, organic social as a growth lever, country-level pricing - are well-established playbooks rather than fresh thinking; the one genuinely interesting angle (framing the product as a 'communication confidence' app rather than a language app) gets touched on but not developed with any depth.

“Language is not the only way how we can communicate each other. Even though I can speak English well, it's different story to communicate with some kind of English speaking people”

“if you practice with AI or some AI videos, you feel like when you really speak you have some opportunity to speak with a real person. You still afraid of speaking it”

Ji Woong Jang is a genuine founder-operator who has built a real product to meaningful scale (5M downloads, 500k MAU) and can speak from direct experience on monetization pivots and organic growth; however, language barriers lead to imprecise answers and the scale, while solid, is not yet at a tier that commands exceptional authority.

“we just passed the 5 million uh, download uh three days ago and then our active users more than about 50k. So 500k”

“since 2024 we have uh 52% of the repurchase rates and then uh this make uh us uh to make the revenue uh the profits”

The episode is above average for specificity - real download numbers, before/after repurchase rates, exact price points, the 90% conversion timing finding, the 75/25 organic-paid split, and a 2-3 percentage-point retention lift from streaks all appear - but several key topics (paid spend levels, cohort data, exact timeline of the monetization pivot) are left vague or unanswered.

“even though we raised our price from 8.99 per month to 14.$99 per month, we don't really be changing on our conversion”

“for the TikTok and Instagram YouTube we have more than 300,000 uh followers”

The host surfaces a reasonable set of topics and occasionally digs productively (paywall placement, streak architecture, social team incentive structure), but too often summarises the guest's answer and receives agreement rather than pushing on vague claims, and several interesting threads - like why LTV tripled mechanically, or what the paid marketing unit economics actually look like - are never pressed.

“have you experimented with when you present the premium plan and try to convert people like where in the flow”

“Yeah, I mean it's a funnel basically. Right. Because it's you know you show it right at the end of the lesson”