Stolo: the UX research that actually moved retention
Traders were signing up for Stolo's options platform but not coming back. I spent weeks watching Hotjar recordings and interviewing traders, across 100+ sessions and 200+ conversations. The findings drove feature changes that lifted retention 18% and conversion 12%.
The context
Stolo is an options trading platform for retail traders in India. It provides tools for options analysis, strategy building, and trade execution. The market is competitive. Acquiring a new trader is expensive, so keeping existing ones engaged matters more than almost anything else.
When I joined, the user base was growing but retention was a problem. People would sign up, poke around, and then disappear within a few sessions.
The question I started with: Why are traders leaving after signup? Is it a product problem, a UX problem, or are we just attracting the wrong users?
The problem
The team had theories. Maybe the onboarding was too complex. Maybe the interface was cluttered. Maybe features were too hard to find. But none of these were validated ; they were opinions, not insights. Without knowing the real friction points, feature prioritization was just guesswork.
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What I did
1. Watched 100+ Hotjar sessions
I started with the quantitative side. For each recorded session, I tracked:
- Drop-off points: Exactly where users stopped engaging
- Rage clicks and confusion signals: Which UI elements frustrated people
- Feature discovery: What features users found vs. missed entirely
- Session duration trends: How engagement changed across sessions 1, 2, 3
Two things jumped out. First, the onboarding tutorial was the biggest drop-off point, which was not surprising. But second, and more interesting: users who made it to the "Scalping Terminal" feature had dramatically higher retention. They just had trouble finding it.
2. Talked to 200+ traders
The session data showed me where the problems were. To understand why, I needed to talk to people. I ran deep-dive interviews with three groups:
- Churned users: Why did you leave? What were you hoping to find?
- Power users: What keeps you here? Which features matter most?
- New users: What was your first impression? Where did you get stuck?
Two insights came through clearly:
- New traders felt overwhelmed by the interface. They didn't know where to start, and the onboarding tutorial was too generic and didn't match their skill level.
- Power users loved the Scalping Terminal and Multi-Layout analysis. But these features were buried deep in the navigation. Users who found them stayed. Users who didn't, churned.
3. Fixed the two biggest problems
Based on the research, I led two parallel workstreams:
Better onboarding: I redesigned the activation funnel to segment users by skill level. Instead of one generic tutorial, beginners and experienced traders got different first-time experiences. Beginners got guided hand-holding. Experienced traders got pointed straight to the power features.
Feature surfacing: I moved the Scalping Terminal and Multi-Layout analysis into more prominent positions in the product. New navigation structure, contextual prompts during natural usage moments, making sure users actually discovered the features that would make them stay.
Results
+18%
User retention MoM
+12%
Subscription conversion MoM
200+
Traders interviewed
The combined effect of better onboarding and feature surfacing drove an 18% MoM increase in retention. Subscription conversion went up 12% too, as more users were reaching the features that justified paying for a plan.
What I learned
- Quant tells you where. Qual tells you why. Hotjar showed me the drop-off points. Interviews explained them. You need both to make confident product decisions. Either one alone gives you an incomplete picture.
- The best feature you've built might be invisible. The Scalping Terminal was the most retention-driving feature in the product. But users couldn't find it. Making it more prominent was as impactful as building something new from scratch.
- Don't give everyone the same onboarding. A generic tutorial alienates beginners (too complex) and experts (too basic). Segmented onboarding tracks fixed this, and the activation rate improvement was immediate.