When Sheel Mohnot mentioned Lapse was topping the charts, I had to check out what all the buzz was about. Lapse, a “Dispo-meets-Snapchat” style app, turns your phone into a disposable camera, where photos remain a mystery until they develop later in the day. With its rapid rise in popularity, I decided to take a closer look at how the app hooks users, particularly with its onboarding flow and invite system.
In today’s post, I’ll walk you through some key screenshots and provide a bit of commentary on what makes their approach work—or in some cases, feel a bit aggressive.
Whether you’re looking for inspiration for your own app’s onboarding or just curious about Lapse’s strategy, there are definitely some lessons (and maybe a few red flags) to explore. Let’s dive in!
The Lapse team leaning hard into "Invite Only"
Dogfood notes:
- onboarding process requires new signups to connect address book, capture profile photo, and invite 5 friends
- privacy notice is strategically mentioned at the bottom of the first screen, likely to encourage users to grant permissions more easily and improve activation rates
- when inviting friends, they’d pop you into an sms modal with pre-filled text with pre-populated messages such as “ok this is cute” or “love this” etc
- automated sms prefill tested (hella optimized) for k factor. However, there’s nothing to share that’s cute, that you love, or you’re obsessed. You can’t even use the app yet!
- share url utilizes profile photo for og image invites. Capturing profile pic prioritized for viral “invite only” sharing to friends
- your unique landing page is qr code with fomo text to join friend
- throughout the entire website & app store “invite only” text is plastered literally everywhere and feels thirsty
- Website references “limited seats” making the company ethos of “real life, less likes” seem like a farce
- Lapse wants your friends, and happy to insert a multivariate fake testimonial on your behalf without you even using it, or getting past the registration flow.
Thoughts?
To wrap things up, what’s your take on Lapse’s invite-only approach and the requirement to invite friends before fully joining? Especially with the pre-populated message about how much you "adore" the app—does it feel clever, a bit shady, or a hard pass? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
And if you enjoyed this quick breakdown, let me know! I’d be happy to follow up with a more in-depth audit of Lapse’s user experience.