“CRM is not the most effective lever for engaging users — actually that's product. But CRM is a great way to circumvent a six-month product backlog and an engineering backlog and rapidly iterate on ideas. It's got built-in measurement and segmentation.”

CRM lets you circumvent a six-month engineering backlog

Product is the strongest retention lever, but customer-engagement platforms (Braze, Iterable, Leanplum) let growth teams overlay messaging and in-app experiences on top of the product without waiting on shipping. Day-zero cohorts refresh daily — even small apps can iterate every day or two on first-run flows.