Why Global Leaderboards Fail (And How to Fix Them)

Leaderboards seem like gamification 101. Show users where they rank, create some competition, watch engagement soar. But on the latest episode of the Levels Podcast, Punit Jajodia shared why Programiz's leaderboard initially flopped—and what they learned about making gamification actually work.

The lesson goes deeper than just leaderboard design. It's about understanding motivation, connection, and why copying features from successful apps rarely produces the same results.

The Launch That Didn't Land

When Programiz added coding challenges to their platform, the team naturally included a leaderboard. Users could solve problems, earn experience points, and see where they ranked globally. On paper, it made perfect sense.

The feature got traction—but not the explosive engagement they'd hoped for. Something felt off.

"I think one of the mistakes we did there was the leaderboards were great, right? It's all our engagement, were pushing lots of challenges every day, but what we didn't do and that we should have done was there was only one global leaderboard."

The problem wasn't that leaderboards don't work. The problem was that global leaderboards create what Punit calls an "overwhelming" experience.

The User Number 2,000,004 Problem

Imagine you're a new user. You've just joined Programiz, solved your first challenge, earned some points, and excitedly check the leaderboard to see your progress.

You're ranked 2,000,004.

"A global leaderboard can be overwhelming, right? I want to create a... You see all the biggest numbers."

What does that number even mean to you? You're lost in a sea of strangers. The top spots are occupied by people with tens of thousands of points—a gap so large it feels insurmountable. You have no idea who these people are. You have no connection to them. And you have no realistic path to ever appearing on the visible portion of the leaderboard.

It's not motivating. It's demoralizing.

This is the fundamental problem with global leaderboards at scale: they create the same loneliness problem that Programiz discovered in their core product. You're technically competing with millions of others, but the experience feels isolating rather than energizing.

The Missing Ingredient: Personal Connection

Punit's realization was simple but profound:

"And what we realized is I should be able to create my own leaderboard with my friends."

This changes everything. Instead of competing against anonymous user #47,298, you're competing against Sarah from your study group, or your college roommate, or your coworker who's also learning Python.

Suddenly the numbers matter. Being 50 points behind your friend creates motivation. Beating them by 10 points feels like an achievement. You know these people. You can talk to them about it. The competition becomes personal.

"You don't want a global leaderboard. You want a local leaderboard with your friends. You don't want a streak. You want a streak that you share with your friends."

This isn't just theory. Look at how successful apps implement leaderboards. Fitness apps show you versus your running group, not versus every runner in the world. Language learning apps compare you to people in your class or friend circle, not to millions of global users.

The pattern is consistent: meaningful competition requires personal connection.

The Duolingo Trap

Punit warns against what we might call "the Duolingo trap"—copying features from successful apps without understanding why they work.

"Don't gamify because you see Duolingo succeed with streaks. First, understand what streak means to your user in terms of the success or the transformation you're trying to bring in their life."

Duolingo's streak works because daily practice is essential for language learning. The streak reinforces the behavior that creates the transformation. But streaks aren't magic—they're only effective when daily engagement actually drives the outcome you're promising.

For Programiz, the equivalent might be a building streak—30 days of shipping projects. But copying Duolingo's exact implementation without understanding your own user journey leads to features that look right but feel wrong.

Designing Leaderboards That Work

Based on Programiz's experience, here's what effective leaderboard design requires:

Start with the relationship, not the ranking. Ask: who do my users want to compare themselves to? Who would they actually care about beating? Design the leaderboard around those relationships.

Make comparisons feel achievable. If the gap between users is too large, motivation dies. Local leaderboards naturally create tighter competition because you're comparing similar skill levels and commitment levels.

Enable social interaction. Leaderboards work better when users can talk to each other about them. Programiz's Discord community creates space for this. Just showing numbers without enabling connection misses half the value.

Consider context-specific boards. Instead of one global board, create multiple contexts: by school, by cohort, by course, by city. Let users find the comparison group that's meaningful to them.

Think beyond top positions. Most users will never reach the top 10 of a global board. Design for the middle 95%: show percentiles, highlight personal progress, create micro-competitions with nearby users.

The Philosophy Behind the Feature

What makes Punit's perspective valuable is that he doesn't just talk about features—he talks about purpose. The leaderboard isn't the strategy. It's a tool in service of something larger.

"You have to use gamification as a tool for motivating the people to take certain action again and again and again. So it's really a leadership tool in a way. As a leader, you as a leader are leading someone through a transformation and your software or the gamification elements of the software are only the road to that."

This reframe is powerful. You're not gamifying to increase engagement for its own sake. You're using game mechanics to guide users toward a transformation in their lives. The leaderboard succeeds when it motivates behavior that creates that transformation.

For Programiz, the transformation is becoming a builder. So the leaderboard should motivate building. Does competing globally against strangers motivate building? Not really. Does competing with friends who are on the same journey motivate building? Absolutely.

Getting the Motivation Right

The deeper lesson here is about understanding motivation before choosing mechanics.

"Before you gamify your app or bring the community element to the app, just think deeply, not just in terms of badges and the carrots and sticks and the features, but really how is it going to contribute to the user's life. Just look at everything from the user's lens."

Ask these questions before implementing any gamification:

What behavior are you trying to encourage? Be specific. "More engagement" isn't an answer. "Solving one coding challenge per day" is an answer.

Why should users care about that behavior? How does it connect to their goals and the transformation you're promising?

Who do users want to share progress with? Whose opinion actually matters to them?

What makes progress feel real? Is it absolute numbers, relative ranking, personal improvement, or social recognition?

When you answer these questions first, the right features become obvious. When you skip them and jump straight to "let's add a leaderboard," you get what Programiz got: technically functional but emotionally flat.

The Fix in Progress

Programiz is now redesigning their leaderboard system around these insights. The vision is friend-based leaderboards where you can create your own competition groups, and school-based leaderboards for educational contexts where users naturally know each other.

"So that is the direction we're going. You live and you learn."

This isn't just a feature update—it's a fundamental rethinking of how gamification should work in their product. Instead of showing you're one of millions, it shows you're competing with people who matter to you.

What This Means for Your Product

If you're considering adding leaderboards or have implemented them with disappointing results, Programiz's experience offers a clear diagnostic:

Are your users competing against people they know and care about, or against anonymous strangers? Connection transforms competition from overwhelming to energizing.

Does your leaderboard create achievable goals, or does it highlight an impossible gap? Seeing a 50,000 point spread to first place kills motivation.

Have you thought about the experience for users ranked #1,000,000 versus just the top 10? Design for the majority, not the elite.

Does your product enable social interaction around the leaderboard? Numbers without conversation miss the point.

Most importantly: did you start with understanding what transformation you're creating and what behaviors drive it? Or did you just add a leaderboard because everyone else has one?

The companies that win with gamification aren't the ones with the most features. They're the ones who understand their users deeply enough to know what will actually motivate them—and then build around that insight.

Key Points

• Global leaderboards overwhelm users by showing them ranked as user #2,000,004 among strangers
• Programiz's initial leaderboard got engagement but not the explosive growth they expected
• Personal connection is the missing ingredient—competing against friends is motivating, competing against strangers isn't
• Copying features from successful apps (like Duolingo's streaks) fails without understanding why they work for that specific user journey
• Effective leaderboards should be local, social, achievable, and designed for the middle 95% of users
• Gamification is a leadership tool for guiding users toward transformation, not a feature checklist
• Programiz is rebuilding their leaderboards around friend groups and schools where users know each other

Listen to the full conversation to hear more about how Programiz thinks about gamification philosophy and why the technology matters less than the intent behind it.