Design school teaches you to make the first screen beautiful. It rarely teaches you what brings someone back on day 7, day 30, day 90. A retention loop is the repeatable trigger-action-reward-investment cycle that compounds.
Open a product you use daily. What's the trigger that pulls you back? What's the smallest action you take? What reward do you get, and what do you invest that makes the next loop easier? Map that, and you've done more real growth work than a semester of theory.
