Case study · Needle

Turning a stalled music app into a breakout social product

I reframed the product around one resonant behavior, then led the brand, experience, and design system through a high-growth relaunch.

Role: Head of Design
Partners: Founders · Engineering · Marketing
Timeline: 2021–2024
Scope: Product strategy · UX/UI · Brand · Design system · Go-to-market

A person holding a phone displaying Needle's redesigned social music feed

In one minute

The brief

Reverse stalled growth by finding the behavior people genuinely valued, stripping away product noise, and rebuilding Needle around a sharper social-music thesis.

The tension

Needle had fewer than 100 installs, retention below 12%, and weekly engagement in decline. The app was cluttered, the brand lacked distinction, and a small team could not afford to keep investing in features that obscured the core value.

The app had features. It needed a point of view.

Research revealed that 55% of users found the app only somewhat easy and nearly 40% called it moderately complex. Interviews exposed the counter-signal: people loved discovering a song through another person and using music to express identity. Song of the Day was the heart; groups, points, and extra mechanics were getting in its way.

The signal that changed the work

The usability evidence was weak. Fifty-five percent found the app only somewhat easy, and nearly 40% called it moderately complex. Interviews kept pointing to one bright spot: Song of the Day.

Build everything around one daily ritual.

I reframed the north star around helping people feel seen through music. We centered the product on Song of the Day, added captions and comments to deepen expression, simplified navigation to Home, Discover, and Profile, and removed non-core features.

Decision 01Make Song of the Day the primary loop and remove competing mechanics.

Decision 02Design for identity and emotional connection, not passive streaming.

Decision 03Build the product system and launch story as one coherent expression.

Needle's redesigned comments experience shown on a phone held in front of a bright window

Get the whole company behind the same idea.

I facilitated founder and engineering workshops to align on why people share and listen, translated the strategy into two behavioral archetypes, and ran weekly decision-making with the CEO, cofounder, and marketing lead. Engineering shaped feasibility early rather than receiving a finished answer downstream.

What changed because I was there

A founder workshop reframed the roadmap around why people share music. Product, brand, engineering, and launch marketing left with one north star.

Needle's component library and interface design system displayed in Figma on a laptop

Make product, brand, and launch feel inseparable.

I led the full brand, UX, and UI redesign and built a complete Figma system so the team could move quickly without losing coherence. I also created launch assets that connected the in-product experience to the go-to-market story.

Needle's App Store ranking and enthusiastic user reactions after the relaunch

From fewer than 100 installs to 61,000.

The relaunch reached #9 in App Store Social Networking and #62 overall, grew to 61K+ installs and 11M song impressions, raised day-30 retention from under 12% to 39%, nearly tripled session time, and converted 17% of daily users to premium.

InstallsUp from fewer than 100 before the relaunch.

Day-30 retentionUp from under 12% before the relaunch.

Song impressionsA stronger core loop created meaningful reach.

Premium conversionShare of daily users who upgraded.

Looking back

“A messy product can stall growth by obscuring the very thing users value. The most important move is to find the core feature people connect with, then design the entire experience around making that connection clearer, stronger, and easier to repeat.”

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