+68% daily active users by turning watching into doing

The brief

WaterBear is a B-Corp impact streaming platform. Impact content has a known problem: people watch, they feel something, and then they do nothing. The job was to close the gap between watching a film and taking a real-world action, without nagging people or guilt-tripping them into it.

What I did

I co-built Watch for Impact, a product-led growth framework where the act of watching triggered a real-world action. One minute watched planted one tree, for example. It ran across product, partnerships and creative, so the action was built into the experience with real-time product feedback rather than bolted on at the end. The framework also stood up a real business model. WaterBear was the platform and tech that made the experience possible, and the gathering point for a community of people who wanted to do more good. Delivering it took three more partners: a content partner supplying the films for the campaign playlist, an impact partner making the impact tangible (trees planted, corals nursed, plastic removed, meals donated), and a sponsor covering the cost of those actions.

The result

From November to December 2025, when the first Watch for Impact campaigns launched, daily active users rose 68%, high-quality traffic 26%, and watch time 12%.

Why I'm proud of it

It challenged the idea that impact and engagement trade off against each other. It showed a business model that paid off precisely because real impact was being made. And it lifted retention in a way that felt sustainable rather than forced. Done right, all these pieces feed each other, and the numbers said so.

In the product