Business Context

Splice is a music creation platform where producers discover samples, organize libraries, and create projects using desktop tools and plugins. Leadership wants a better definition of an "active user" because MAU is growing, but paid conversion and 90-day retention have been flat.

In the last month, Splice reported 1.8M MAU, 420K DAU, and 310K paying subscribers. Of MAU, 62% downloaded at least one sample, 28% opened the desktop app on 5+ days, 19% exported a project, and 11% used Splice Create or another creation workflow at least 3 times. New-user Day-30 retention is 41%, but among users who downloaded samples only, it is 24%; among users who downloaded samples and exported at least one project, it is 67%. The Head of Product asks you to define a "healthy active user" metric that better reflects durable value creation and can be used in weekly product reviews.

Requirements

1. Define what a "healthy active user" for Splice should mean, including the core behaviors that indicate real product value.
2. Propose a primary metric and any supporting thresholds needed to classify a user as healthy active.
3. Explain how you would validate that this definition predicts retention, subscription conversion, or long-term engagement.
4. Identify key cuts of the metric to monitor over time and diagnose movement.
5. Recommend guardrails so the metric is not gamed by shallow activity.

Data Available

• user_events: session starts, sample views, sample downloads, searches, saves, likes, project opens, exports, plugin usage
• subscriptions: plan type, trial start, conversion date, cancellation date, renewal status
• user_profiles: signup date, acquisition channel, geography, device/OS, creator segment
• content_events: sample pack metadata, genre, creator, content freshness, recommendation source