How 58 Borrow Money Boosted Retention with AI‑Generated Coin and Growth Systems

Background

58 Borrow Money, a tool product of 58.com, aims to satisfy users' loan needs by enabling fast borrowing processes. However, the product faced low retention because users arrived quickly, completed their purpose, and left.

User Profile and Needs

Data analysis showed the primary users are blue‑collar workers aged 30‑45, including salespeople, factory workers, drivers, and customer service staff. Two common motivations emerged: the desire to feel valued (emotional recognition) and the desire to get cheap benefits (discounts, rewards).

Strategic Response: Coin and Growth Systems

To address these motivations, the team planned a virtual coin system and a user growth system.

Coin System : A virtual currency designed to stimulate specific behaviors such as signing in, completing tasks, browsing, sharing, and redeeming rewards. It aims to increase loyalty, drive consumption, filter users, enhance stickiness, and raise the cost of churn.

Growth System : Structured to attract new users, boost activity, improve retention, and facilitate precise segmentation. By measuring user progression and value, the system ensures premium resources reach core users, cultivates habitual usage, and offers status‑based privileges, achievements, and incentives.

Visual Design with AI

After defining the product strategy, the team sought a main visual that resonated with financial themes. Wealth‑related elements such as a money tree, precious metals, and jade were selected.

Given tight timelines, AI tools became essential. MidJourney and Stable Diffusion were employed to generate the visual assets.

Using MidJourney, multiple styles of a money‑tree illustration were produced, and the most vibrant version was chosen as the primary visual. Example prompt: "A chestnut tree with large leaves in cartoon style, game icon design, dark background, 3D rendering, high‑resolution vector graphics, symmetrical composition, bright colors, no shadows, high contrast, single element --ar 1:1".

Bright colors and lively animations were added to create a pleasant atmosphere that encourages users to stay, earn coins, and complete tasks.

Growth System Visuals

The growth system leveraged the traditional Chinese hierarchy of copper, silver, gold, and jade to convey a sense of superiority as users progress through levels.

During the Stable Diffusion workflow, challenges such as ineffective control, mismatched styles, ghosting, lighting errors, and missing details arose. After iterating on models and plugins, a comprehensive prompt library—covering eight material types and twelve processing techniques—was compiled to consistently produce high‑quality visuals.

Implementation and Results

Following the creation of the main visual, the full workflow pages (sign‑in, coin redemption, task completion) were refined, delivering a cohesive experience that satisfies users' needs for value and rewards.

The AI‑assisted approach dramatically shortened production time, and after launch the product achieved notable business impact, driving new revenue highs.