Product strategy at Torch

Bye bye, lack of ROI

Torch experienced high enterprise customer churn due to perceived lack of ROI. Why? Customers struggled to see how individual coaching program outcomes aligned with their broader organizational goals, creating friction during renewal conversations.

Problem space

Undefined success metrics

Most customer accounts (90%) lacked clear success criteria, leaving Torch blind to the original goals buyers sought to achieve through their coaching investments.

Open-ended user journeys

Flexible user experiences worked for individual users, but made it hard to showcase value across organizations.

Disconnected reporting model

Reporting relied on scattered data sources and features, failing to deliver a clear picture of coaching activity or outcomes.

Team

I worked on this initiative at Torch from Jan 2024–Mar 2025 with

Parker Simon

Lead Product Designer

Parker Simon

Lead Product Designer

Julia Calzonetti

Sr. Product Manager

Julia Calzonetti

Sr. Product Manager

Chloe Li

Sr. Product Designer

Chloe Li

Sr. Product Designer

Susan Falcone

Dir. of Product & Design

Susan Falcone

Dir. of Product & Design

Adam Ingraham

Sr. Product Manager

Adam Ingraham

Sr. Product Manager

James Williams

Dir. of Customer Success

James Williams

Dir. of Customer Success

Heather Conklin

CEO

Heather Conklin

CEO

Jack Murphy

Engineering Manager

Jack Murphy

Engineering Manager

Kate Yesko

Head of Account Management

Kate Yesko

Head of Account Management

Catherine Allen

Head of Strategy & Operations

Catherine Allen

Head of Strategy & Operations

Josh Cohen

Engineering Manager

Josh Cohen

Engineering Manager

Mandy Varley

Behavioral Scientist

Mandy Varley

Behavioral Scientist

Solution

An outcome-oriented experience design

User experience

The redesigned coaching experience integrated both individual and company-level priorities with better shared alignment.

Data model

Concepts and language in the data model were revised to more closely align with customers’ desired outcomes.

Stronger value proposition

I refocused Customer Success messaging to emphasize customer goals and successful product outcomes (ROI) in customer-facing narratives.

Comparing different user journey models

Comparing different user journey models

Comparing different user journey models

This project is really important. It’s helping the customer see value in their investment. I think this is an invaluable step to making sure everyone is on the same page throughout the duration of the partnership.

Katie Lunsford, L&D buyer at Stripe

This project is really important. It’s helping the customer see value in their investment. I think this is an invaluable step to making sure everyone is on the same page throughout the duration of the partnership.

Katie Lunsford, L&D buyer at Stripe

You are incredibly excellent at getting to the root issue… it was a masterful use of coaching to get to what is a real issue vs what feels like a real issue

Mandy Varley, Behavioral Scientist at Torch

You are incredibly excellent at getting to the root issue… it was a masterful use of coaching to get to what is a real issue vs what feels like a real issue

Mandy Varley, Behavioral Scientist at Torch

My approach

Analyzed gaps between the value proposition and the product

I analyzed Torch’s aggregate user data to compare the existing product outcomes against customer expectations and marketing promises.

Outcome probabilities across areas of user behavior change resulting from coaching

Aligned stakeholders around a new product vision

I highlighted product gaps, outlined strategic changes, and gathered cross-functional support needed to make change happen.

Early draft of outcome-oriented product architecture

Scoped platform-wide design changes

I defined a new product structure and components to transform the experience from open-ended to guided with aligned success metrics. Paired with a new coaching data model, this became the foundation for Torch’s “contextual coaching” strategy, which launched in 2025, impacting the participant, coach, and buyer experiences.

Redesigned product feature set that delivered the new strategy: contextual coaching

Impact

Inspired executive rethink of product strategy

Torch’s leadership refined their approach to embedding organizational context into the coaching product, leading to a stronger market differentiation strategy.

Improved understanding of customer goals

Sales and Customer Success teams began capturing and integrating customer goals into their processes.

Revised the product metrics model

Torch’s leadership team created a new coaching data model, better aligned with customer value than previous approaches.

New product strategy and features reflected in refreshed company marketing

Challenges and lessons

Exposing a root issue: data model misalignment

This work revealed that not only was the product’s data model disconnected, the company was also using the wrong model altogether. To redesign the connected system, we first needed to define a new data model that aligned with the new product vision.