The Superwall Podcast · 2025-10-14
Asher Herbstman & Thatcher Clough - I Built a $30k/mo App That Helps You Quit Smoking
Asher Herbstman and Thatcher Clough co-founded Clear 30, a science-based app (with clinical psychologist Dr. Fred Muench) that helps people quit or cut down on weed. After organic, influencers, Reddit and SEO struggled, self-filmed paid ads on Meta/TikTok became the engine. Two months focused on onboarding and ads took subscriptions from ~$10K to ~$30K/month: a value-equation onboarding, a pre-rating prompt (reviews 50 -> ~1,000), a 'this costs money, fair trial' slide (+3%), and a paywall whose first screen became a 7-day program outline (conversion ~20% -> 30%).
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Numbers mentioned
| Subject | Metric | Value | Quote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clear 30 | revenue Subscription revenue in the previous month, before the onboarding/paywall push | USD 10K/month approximate | “In the last 2 months, we went from doing 10k in subscriptions last month” |
| Clear 30 | revenue Subscription revenue this month, still trending up | USD 30K/month approximate | “and then we made 30k in subscriptions this month, and the trajectory keeps going up like that.” |
| Clear 30 | conversion rate Paywall conversion for 18-20 year olds as shown on screen (units unclear); 26-30 year olds convert at almost double | 0.19 | “Like if you look and you're seeing like 18 to 20-year-olds convert at 0.19, while you know even just a few years older at 26 to 30, it's almost double that.” |
| Clear 30 | conversion rate Paywall conversion for 26-30 year olds vs 18-20 year olds | almost double the 18-20 rate approximate | “Like if you look and you're seeing like 18 to 20-year-olds convert at 0.19, while you know even just a few years older at 26 to 30, it's almost double that.” |
| Clear 30 | conversion rate Paywall conversion of users whose quit reason is saving money | 23% | “saving money is at, you know, 23% conversion, whereas like legal obligations at 29” |
| Clear 30 | conversion rate Paywall conversion of users whose quit reason is legal obligations | 29% | “saving money is at, you know, 23% conversion, whereas like legal obligations at 29” |
| Clear 30 | cost Average incoming user's self-reported weekly spend on weed ('upwards of') | USD 55per user /week approximate | “our average user that comes in spends upwards of $55 a week on weed, and yet our program is $30 for a year” |
| Clear 30 | price Yearly plan | USD 30/year | “our average user that comes in spends upwards of $55 a week on weed, and yet our program is $30 for a year” |
| Clear 30 | conversion rate Onboarding intro screen pass-through; fluctuates with which ads are running | 85–90% approximate | “There's about 85, 90% conversion on this screen, but we've seen it fluctuate over time depending on what ads were running” |
| Clear 30 | share Share of users who saw improved mental clarity (used as social proof in onboarding) | 81% | “So we saw 81% of users saw improved mental clarity” |
| Clear 30 | drop off Drop-off on the long reflective goal/trigger questions ('less than 5%'), host reading the chart; guest said 'almost no drop-off' | 5% approximate | “the drop-off was like what, less than 5%?” |
| Clear 30 | users '25,000-plus people' cited in onboarding as having used the program | 25K users approximate | “we also address the perceived likelihood of achievement proven by 25,000-plus people” |
| Clear 30 | conversion rate Paywall conversion with the old paywall (feature carousel first screen); '18, 19%, round to 20%' | 18–20% approximate | “Yeah, 18, 19%. I'm going to just round it off and say 20% conversion for this paywall is what we saw” |
| Clear 30 | conversion rate Paywall conversion after replacing only the first screen with a 7-day program outline | 30% approximate | “Yes, that's the only thing that changed, and we jumped from like a 20% conversion to a 30% conversion.” |
| Clear 30 | conversion rate Onboarding conversion lift from the 'this costs money / fair trial' price-anchoring slide (points vs relative not specified) | +3% approximate | “Yeah, it actually increased our conversion by like 3%” |
| Clear 30 | count App Store reviews before adding the in-onboarding rating prompt | 50 reviews approximate | “going from, you know, like 50 reviews to we're almost at 1,000 right now” |
| Clear 30 | count App Store reviews after the in-onboarding rating prompt ('almost at 1,000'), still growing | 1,000 reviews approximate | “going from, you know, like 50 reviews to we're almost at 1,000 right now” |
| benchmarkShare of SMS messages read within 5 minutes of receipt | share Read within 5 minutes | 95% approximate | “Something like 95% of people who get a text read it within 5 minutes of getting it.” |
| benchmarkShare of app users who decide whether to pay within the first 5 minutes | share | 85% approximate | “85% of users decide if they're going to pay for your app in the first 5 minutes” |
| personOrganic creators the guests know who went viral but earned little | views Made about $1,000 off 10M views | 10M viewsper video approximate | “And we know people who've gotten 10 million views on videos and made 1,000 bucks off of 10 million views” |
| personOrganic creators the guests know who went viral but earned little | revenue Revenue from 10M organic views | USD 1,000 approximate | “And we know people who've gotten 10 million views on videos and made 1,000 bucks off of 10 million views” |