How Wrestle AI grows

Same format in all three apps: educate (show the main feature, e.g. film analysis that circles mistakes, drills, stance mode, weight-class fueling), social proof ('Join over 100,000 wrestlers' with creator footage), 'How did you hear about us?', then personalize: style, go-to attack, best position, pain-point questions ('what's costing you most matches', 'hardest part about making weight'), training frequency, height/weight plan, optional match-schedule upload, a stat screen, projected-growth graph, optional match upload. Then the paywall ($9.99/month or $59/year on Wrestle AI, ~50/50 mix) showing a generic example breakdown as a taste of the magic moment.

George's first ever expense was a virtual assistant running the app's Instagram DMs, and he says it should be everyone's first hire. Before a sponsorship call with a smaller creator for FightAI, he noticed the creator's profile showed 'Followed by Cayden Henschel'. He cancelled the call and had the VA ask that creator to DM Cayden; Cayden replied, then answered George's email, they swapped numbers and became partners.

Partnered 50/50 with Cayden Henschel, the biggest wrestling creator. No posting minimums or vesting were set (George says he got lucky and recommends setting minimum posts and vesting). Cayden posts about the app (e.g. announcing the rebuilt product, stitching a coach calling out moves with 'this app will call out the moves for you'), and recorded all the combos in his own voice; the app randomly mixes them for drills.

Match analysis is only used after each match, so they built a solid calorie tracker for wrestlers making weight. Users can upload their season match schedule and get reminders like 'your match is in 4 days and you're 5 lb over; here's how to make weight'.

Rolled out a Twitter-style feed that opens a TikTok-style For You page on video tap, full of wrestling tips. Cold start: every sponsored creator must post inside the app whenever they post on social. Ranking is a simple point system (likes, comments) heavily weighted to new content because a paid app has few posters. Goal: 'come for the tool, stay for the community', since users only analyze a match after each match.

Frequent notifications reverse-engineered from Duolingo's and applied to wrestling ('Hey, you didn't track your calories. What's going on?', 'Lock in'). Tied to behavior: tracked calories yesterday -> 'track again'; went on a run -> 'beat your record'. Users who finish onboarding without paying, and lapsed users, get 'Don't give up on yourself'-style copy.

FightAI covered any martial art. Users repeatedly asked 'Does it do wrestling?', so he built a wrestling-only app (Wrestle AI) for a niche he knew from wrestling through high school. Because no other wrestling app existed, wrestling audiences had never been hit with app sponsorships, unlike fitness, where Cal AI-style subtle integrations are fatigued. Then repeated the same product for boxing (Brawler) and is working on an MMA version.

Set up an App Store pre-order and had Cayden hype it to his audience so everyone pre-ordered; downloads landed together on launch day.

Sponsored other wrestling influencers on top of Cayden: roughly 10 at a time, never 100. As results came in, cut the roster and doubled down on the ones that worked. Since there are few wrestling creators, they try to sign as many as possible to own mindshare in season. Recommended for small budgets in unsaturated niches; harder to manage at scale.

Started paid ads for Wrestle AI the week before the episode. Pick the best videos, not always the top organic ones, because some organic winners take too long to reach the CTA (get it in within ~15 seconds). Main criterion is clarity: show exactly what the product does (e.g. uploading a match and seeing what you did wrong) in a way that isn't boring. Then a few strong creatives and scale spend.

Ad ideas that wouldn't work organically go to paid. Example: Cayden ranks the best wrestling apps (Notes app for a practice journal, MyFitnessPal for fueling) and ends 'if you want all of these, I would use Wrestle AI, my favorite wrestling app'.

Went all out several times on 'really sick looking' visuals for ads.

Wrestle AI is the only one of the three apps with a free trial; Brawler and AbMax sell straight to purchase. They are now testing taking the trial out of Wrestle AI to see how it converts.

Plan to run heavy Christmas ads aimed at parents buying the app for their high-school kids. Still working out how to sell prepaid access without breaking Apple's rules (offer codes can be given out but not sold); reselling Apple gift cards is an option but risks losing the buyer.