Lessons from a Lackluster Launch — David Barnard, Weather Up

Made a video demonstrating the new interactive widgets, originally for the paywall; it turned out well enough to become the press pitch. Sent it as a short Twitter DM ('Hey, I'm working on some really cool interactivity for widgets and weather') instead of a long email, to contacts and to journalists he did not know. Only pitch when the update is genuinely interesting enough to write about; don't send minor point releases. Kept a per-release press page with the embargo date/time.

From 2019 held a finished Apple Watch app, then home screen widgets, then waited to add interactive widgets, each time deciding the feature was no longer novel enough to get press and Apple attention on its own. Shipped everything together as Weather Up 3.0 in early 2024.

Scheduled the launch and posted the date/time as the embargo on the release's press page, squeezing it in ahead of the Apple Vision Pro launch. Apple announced its DMA compliance the same hour; some outlets published early, 9to5Mac waited a day, others skipped it. In hindsight: avoid windows when the App Store editorial team is busy and wait a month.

Single tier at $4/month or $40/year (annual only ~17% off, to keep monthly revenue for monthly API costs). Price was set from his own view of the product's value and the cost of serving multi-source widgets that refresh in the background, not from customers' perceived value or competitor prices. No discount at launch, and most articles listed the $40 price.

Build one or two features interesting enough for some attention, bundle them into a small relaunch (many people will see the app for the first time), and put the subscription on sale. Then keep shipping frequently and experiment with pricing and win-back offers.

A/B test (50/50) with RevenueCat Experiments scheduled to start at 12:01 AM on launch day: arm A pre-selected the $40/year plan, arm B the $4/month plan; nothing else changed. Annual default: ~800 annual, ~400 monthly. Monthly default: ~1,100 monthly, ~100 annual. Judge on realized LTV and revisit after the first annual renewals (day 366).

Built a custom SwiftUI paywall with a video of the interactive widgets behind RevenueCat's paywall footer view, which renders prices and the purchase button and handles purchase logic. Because offerings are remote, later paywall/price experiments needed no code or app update.

Using Apple's newer price points, created a second annual SKU at $39.99 alongside the $40 one in App Store Connect and ran the split in RevenueCat Experiments without touching code, shipping an update or testing in sandbox.

Full-screen front-camera mirror with zoom, a flash button that adds a white screen border at 100% brightness for low light, and tap-to-freeze to save a photo. Relied on App Store search: people search for 'mirror' to solve an everyday problem. Launch Center Pro similarly ranked top for launcher terms.

Relaunched a $0.99 timer app as free with many $0.99 in-app purchases (themes etc.) and an 'ultimate bundle' at about $10 that unlocked everything (around 2010-2011).

Early in the App Store, spent thousands of dollars on paid advertising for paid apps. Has done very little paid advertising since, relying on organic channels.

After two hourly-contractor projects dragged on and never shipped (~$50K lost on each, $100K written off), from 2010-2011 worked with developer partners on a mix of pay and revenue share so they had skin in the game.

For the paid-upfront Launch Center Pro, packaged features into big updates and leveraged them into Apple and press attention, producing revenue spikes. Works for paid apps, not subscriptions.

Shipped a quick iOS 17 update adding interactive widgets to Dark Noise; App Store editorial picked it for a widget list, placed first. Other list placements lower down had little effect. Keep taking these swings.

Posted on Reddit, then launched a beta, then framed each fundraise as 'RevenueCat's launching out of...' to put a narrative on ongoing building. If a launch goes poorly, launch again: few saw the first one.