Bohemian Research

Challenge

Bohemian Research is a market research technology company that connects researchers and their surveys with the people who answer them. Its consumer app, RewardRoo, rewards users with cash and gift cards for completing surveys, polls and games. It is available in 40 languages and has over 500,000 users.

Retention is the core problem. Surveys make up a significant part of Bohemian's business, and the team has limited control over the survey experience itself: it decides which surveys to serve, but not the interface or the order of the questions. A rewards layer around the surveys was one of the few levers left to bring people back.

The idea was an energy-based spin the wheel mechanic. Users earn energy by completing surveys and spend it to spin for rewards, giving them a reason to finish one more survey and to return once their energy has recharged.

The difficulty was everything behind that idea. Energy needed a maximum, recharging over time, a cost per spin, and protection against users spending energy they didn't have. Building and maintaining that in-house meant engineering time a small team didn't have. Míra Podorský, Head of Product & Design, described a backlog with "so many things going on and so little hands".

Solution

Bohemian built RewardRoo's wheel on Trophy's API-first points infrastructure. Trophy runs the energy economy and manages wheel spin allowances, while Bohemian Research built their own UI on top.

Energy, managed by Trophy

Energy is a Trophy points system with a maximum balance and automatic recharging over time, at a rate of one energy every two hours. Spins spend energy, and some wheel segments give it back: when a user lands on one, Bohemian's backend sends Trophy an event, and a rule fires that adds the energy to the user's balance.

Trophy can also block any spin that would take the energy balance below zero, so rapid repeated spins can't overspend energy. When the app opens, it asks Trophy how much energy the user has and shows it as a progress bar.

Spin the wheel, managed by Trophy

The wheel mechanic is managed by a separate points system in Trophy. Users are granted a daily free spin which Trophy automatically consumes when they spin the wheel. Bohemian Research manages the UI of the spin, respecting the free spin balance and the energy balance combined.

Recharge notifications through webhooks

When a user's energy is full, a Trophy webhook tells Bohemian's messaging system, which sends a push notification to encourage further engagement. Trophy's webhooks guarantee at-least-once delivery, so notifications are never missed.

Tuning without an app release

The recharge rate, the energy cap and the events that grant energy are configured in Trophy rather than sitting in code. Bohemian's product team can adjust the economy, and test changes, without waiting for a new app version to ship and clear store review.

Implementation

Bohemian contacted Trophy, shared its gamification plan, and received a gap analysis within two days. The backend integration was built while the team waited on front-end work, and a beta ran in Brazil and the Czech Republic ahead of the full launch in spring 2026.

Bohemian's backend is Python, so a Bohemian developer integrated Trophy through its Python SDK. The app identifies each user with Trophy at app initialization, reads their energy and maximum energy through the points API, and reports a metric event whenever a user spins the wheel or completes a survey. Most of the integration code was written with AI coding tools, with up to date documentation and a shared Slack channel as reassurance.

Results

Bohemian's energy and wheel system went into its beta markets with no critical errors and no user complaints. The team has run experiments on when, and to whom, the wheel is shown, and because the economy lives in Trophy rather than in app code, it can adjust energy without a release.

• Build time: roughly three to four times faster than building the energy system in-house, by the developer's estimate.
• Faster iteration: energy changes are made from the Trophy dashboard instead of an app release.

If you're adding engagement loops to a consumer app and want a team to design and ship them, see Trophy gamification services.

Future Plans

The wheel is the first gamification mechanic in RewardRoo, with more planned on the same foundation:

• Streaks: a leading candidate, since the habit is simple: complete a survey. The team is exploring streak freezes that users earn from the wheel or from achievements, and weekends that don't count against a streak because surveys aren't promoted then.
• Achievements: milestone rewards alongside points, such as completing a set number of surveys.
• Leaderboards: localized to users in the same country, so each leaderboard stays a small, competitive cohort.