Referral

What is it?

Yulu’s referral system is a growth program designed to drive both acquisition and engagement — expanding the user base through trusted peer recommendation, and rewarding existing users with incentives that encourage long-term loyalty. A self-sustaining loop of growth and value.

The challenge

Yulu’s focus on gig mobility had already created strong organic word-of-mouth growth — but we needed a simple, effective referral program to accelerate it. The aim: tiered referral benefits and a competitive leaderboard that increase engagement, simplify reward tracking, and amplify referrals as a key acquisition channel.

The referral system before the redesign.

The approach

A deliberately simple groundwork: invite a friend ⇝ friend signs up ⇝ you and your friend both receive a reward. The reward was Yulu eCash on each successful referral, plus a bonus on reaching a tier.

From there, the implementation aimed to scale referral into a feature that could move both revenue and acquisition.

Phase 1 — A dashboard

The first focus was a single view to track referral growth in one place. The new “Earnings” dashboard let users monitor both pending and successful referrals across service type (Quick Ride and Rentals), re-initiate with ease, and nudge friends who hadn’t finished the journey.

We simplified and sped up the process so taking part felt effortless — which drove more sharing.

Phase 2 — Gamifying

Four or five months after Earnings launched, product wanted to push referrals further. The priority was to gamify, with two features:

• Boost engagement with a competitive leaderboard that highlights top referrers.
• Increase the share of referrals with a tiered reward program.
• Improve the visibility and accessibility of the referral program within the app.

The goals

• Increase user engagement with the referral program.
• Increase referral-based user acquisition.
• Lift the share of successful referrers from 10.5% to 15%.
• Grow the referral channel’s share from 10.5% to 25%.

The process

I stand for simplicity, empathy and experimentation — values that align with Yulu’s design philosophy. I began with data, competitive analysis and hypotheses with their risks, then moved into iterative design and critique before testing for feasibility, validating with users, and handing off.

Competitive analysis.

Decisions

A few things every iteration earned its way toward:

• A progress bar showing the user’s current tier — a sense of achievement.
• Subtext telling users how much more they needed to unlock the next reward.
• A hero section featuring the coin, reinforcing the idea of earning.
• A focus on eCash bonuses — the thing that grabbed attention and drove motivation.

Wireframes and tier-card explorations.

Final design