Creating a new product line and app experience for a ready-to-eat brand
A well-timed acquisition during an unprecedented event
In 2020, HelloFresh acquired Factor75—now known simply as Factor—as part of a deliberate move to expand its total addressable market during a moment when the entire world was confined at home. The timing proved pivotal: demand for ready-to-eat meals exploded.
By the time I joined HelloFresh two years later to lead the RTE (ready-to-eat) design team, the pandemic had fueled a 20× surge in Factor’s growth. Hypergrowth was exciting, but I was already planning for what came next—when the market would mature and a fresh bet would be required to drive the next wave of growth.
That bet began with an unsolicited discovery effort I started in May 2024 that grew into a full end-to-end redesign of the Factor experience with executive sponsorship by June 2025.
Notable outcomes
$60M USD projected 1st year impact
Driven by gains in AOV and AOR, along with lower CAC fueled by a stickier, self-reinforcing product flywheel.
Recalibrated the Factor logistics network
In August 2025, a full overhaul of the U.S. logistics network—including procurement, storage, and shipping—went live in support of this project.
67% AOV improvement over control
Average order value rose from $121 to $202 during the beta, indicating that customers were purchasing more products in each box.
Heeding the call and anteing up
Over the course of a year, the work loudly gained traction—circulating through leadership in the form of docs, spreadsheets, prototypes, and decks—until it became too prominent to ignore. By the following quarter, it earned a dedicated presentation with C and VP-level leaders.
What followed was the fastest greenlit project in the company’s history. Factor Programs became the first major consumer-facing initiative in North America to receive all requested funding in the previous two years.
July 2024: A trio of slides from the presentation to executives 2 months ahead of yearly planning.
Shifting from functional to transformative benefits
To move into the next phase of growth, my proposed strategy involved moving away from discount-driven, low-intent prospects and instead toward higher-intent customers motivated by clear goals. The strategy centered on reinforcing the behaviours they were already showing and encouraging new ones aligned with the results they wanted for a healthier lifestyle.
This was a foundational rethink of how Factor was perceived: communicating what people believe they want, then expressing Factor’s value in content and an experience that resonates with them starting with the sign-up funnel.
Speaking to intrinsic motivators during sign-up to build trust
From the first touchpoint, Factor Programs begins demonstrating how the service can improve a prospect’s life and the lives of those around them. By crafting an experience grounded in storytelling, we build trust early, increasing the chances that prospects move confidently through sign-up.
The sign-up experience can be divided into 3 distinct arcs:
The beginning: “Factor feels low effort.”
Passwordless sign-up and sign-in remove friction, while profiles effortlessly bring all household (and non-household) users together.
The middle: “Factor understands me.”
Users share their goals, and Factor matches them to outcome-oriented programs—even when the goal is simply convenience. Clear value props, what’s in the box, schedules, reviews, and FAQs build confidence along the way.
The end: “Factor cares about my success.”
Members are invited to free consultations and guided with timely, supportive notifications and a daily meal plan that helps them stay on track and make meaningful progress.
The “why” and “how customers will stick around
Creating positive habits. Strong habits form when extrinsic and intrinsic motivators work together in a repeatable loop—a trigger, the action it sparks, a rewarding moment, and a bit of added investment that makes the next cycle even better.
Put simply, the user’s switching costs should rise with every cycle—not in monetary terms, but in the growing effort or time it would take to abandon the progress they’ve made.
Programs tap into this dynamic, using well-timed triggers and purposeful actions to amplify engagement across the app’s core experiences.
Time to value (TTV) measures how long it takes a new user to feel the product’s benefits. In our business, that moment can be delayed—a week or more may pass between sign-up and the arrival of the first box. Rather than treating this as dead time, Programs treats it as a strategic window to build momentum and demonstrate value before a single meal is delivered.
To align leadership, we framed TTV through three clear tiers:
Basic value: Receiving and using the first box—the essential, table-stakes moment when customers finally experience the product.
Immediate value: Connecting with a dietitian during or right after sign-up, giving customers an early sense of confidence, support, and momentum.
Exceed value: Completing a program and feeling meaningfully better—mentally, emotionally, or physically—beyond their initial expectations.
Every part of the experience, and every feature proposed to support it, had to justify itself through one of these TTV tiers. Value to the end customer—not feature volume—became the north star.
❝
Factor decreases the barrier for me to eat something healthier when I'm struggling with intense cravings for something less healthy.
Dillan, Programs customer
The beginning of a multi-year investment
By the end of Q3 2025, the Programs beta rolled out to 10% of new inbound Factor prospects without support from the U.S. GTM team. Even so, early results were decisive: average order rates climbed from 3.4 to 4.6 boxes within the first four weeks.
Experiments, surveys, and ongoing user research continue to shape the experience, with expanded studies planned for 2026 that will focus first on active customers and then on former ones.
Factor, through Programs, now has all the makings of a category-defining product—one that leverages the full power of HelloFresh’s vertically integrated logistics and technology stack to help people become better, healthier versions of themselves at a scale competitors cannot match.
