Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

$10M ARR Without Ever Testing A Paywall — Luke Martin-Fuller, Visible

Luke Martin-Fuller, co-founder of Visible (a wearable plus app for pacing chronic illness), explains validating with a mock-up waitlist (5,000 in a week), a free app with a 'Founding 100' that grew to 50K users by word of mouth, partnering with Polar for hardware sold at cost (~$80 + $20/mo or $14.99/mo annual), and growing from $1M to $10M ARR in two years on only Meta UGC ads plus word of mouth, with a qualifying web quiz, a paid member-video program, no paywall tests or lifecycle email, and a quiet Series A at ~$7M revenue.

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17 tactics

Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness

Put up a site with a 3D mock-up and a waitlist before building anything

5,000 waitlist signups in about a week

“I think we maybe paid someone on Fiverr to create a 3D mock-up of a wearable. And I think the site just said pretty much what the hero on our website says now, which is "Pacing, made simple."”

Workedvalidationlanding-page

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness

Start with a free app and 100 waitlist users in a Facebook group

Free app grew to ~50K users by word of mouth before any wearable

“We worked with a group of 100 people initially from that wait list. We called them the Founding 100. And we were in a Facebook group with them. We were jumping on calls with them all the time.”

Workedvalidationfeature-development

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness

Send 100 free wearables to users and iterate before charging anyone

Charged only after over a year; then $1M to $10M ARR in two years

“We did the same thing with 100 users. We sent out 100 wearables and iterated until we thought we had something of value and that was all for free.”

Workedvalidationfeature-development

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness

Let users opt in to share anonymized data with university researchers

Papers in Nature and with Mount Sinai; builds trust when buyers research; no revenue number

“Even in our free app, one of the first features we built was an opportunity for people to opt in, to share their data on an anonymized basis with researchers.”

Workedpartnershipspositioning-niche

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness

Buy Polar's heart-rate sensors retail, then wholesale, then co-design a custom band

Real-time data other wearables couldn't give; guest calls it a productive partnership

“So we just bought some and shipped them out and integrated. They have a kind of open SDK and that was enough for us to prove out the concept.”

Workedpartnershipsfeature-development

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness

Sell the band at cost (~$80) and charge $20 a month for the app

Lowers the barrier to buy; host thought $80 looked too cheap to be good

“which is that we don't make any money on the hardware that we sell.”

Workedpricing

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness

Run only Meta ads with customer videos, and earn back each dollar the same day

$1M to $10M ARR in two years, cash-flow positive; ~50% of customers from paid

“And then in terms of paid, it's all been Meta. And on that channel, it's UGC that's worked really well for us.”

Workedpaid-socialweb-to-app

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness

Recruit members to film ad videos; pay a flat cash fee per video used

Main source of Meta ad creative; run by a team of two

“And then people would submit an audition tape. And then once they're into Slack, we give a brief every week and people will have the opportunity to share a video with us. And if we use it, then they'll get paid some money.”

Workedugc-creatorscreator-ops

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness

Test each member video with a small ad budget; scale only the winners

Only 1-2 videos a week ever get scaled spend

“I think what we do is we get those videos and we'll test them on paid, very small budgets and see where the signal is and we'll scale up the one that seems to be working.”

Workedpaid-socialexperimentation

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness

Hire a chronic-illness creator you paid for a video as social media manager

Kickstarted outreach to the right creators; founder says it helped, no numbers

“One is called Creator Collaborative, and that's working with existing creators in the chronic illness space to create awareness and visibility of what we offer.”

Workedinfluencerteam-process

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness

Use a web quiz that tells poor-fit visitors the product isn't for them

Same quiz since launch; guest says it protects retention; untested

“And we've had one quiz that I think went up when we went live in October of '23 and it hasn't changed since, but it's a classic web funnel”

Workedweb-to-apponboarding

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness

Sell on the web so buyers can pay with HSA or FSA money

Adds payment options, better ad signals and no 30% app store fee

“One is around being able to introduce new payment methods, in this case, HSA, FSA.”

Workedpayments-checkoutweb-to-app

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness

Offer a free app without the wearable so people can try before buying

A big chunk of acquisition, all word of mouth; barely promoted

“So what we do have is I guess the free app as an opportunity. It's still there. There's still some amazing value in it. You just don't get a wearable”

Workedproduct-activationword-of-mouth

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness

Move the web funnel off a flaky no-code tool so you can test it

Guest's biggest win of the year; test results still to come

“We were like, "If we touch that, it's going to fall over, so let's just leave it." So we've rebuilt all of that in-house now”

Unknownexperimentationweb-to-app

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness

Launch an AI feature that explains your health data in plain language

Early-access users hated it; back to the drawing board

“We tried to launch a product, a feature that would help you make sense of some of your data in natural language.”

Failedfeature-development

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness

Test new features with an early-access group, then explain changes with results

Kept a failed feature away from most users; eases resistance to change

“We have to be really careful with how we consider rolling things out and often come to our community with some data about why we're doing this thing.”

Workedfeature-developmentretention

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness

Stay cash-flow positive to $7M revenue, then raise a small, quiet Series A

Raised at ~$7M revenue from an aligned investor; funds data science and product

“So we did a very small by industry standard Series A at the beginning of the year from a super aligned investor, someone that understood what we were all about. And we decided not to publicize that.”

Workedfinancing

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2026-08-19

Numbers mentioned

Subject	Metric	Value	Quote
Visible	count waitlist signups in ~1 week from a mock-up website	5,000 signups/week approximate	“I think we had 5,000 people sign up to a waitlist for a product that didn't exist yet in about a week”
Visible	users free app users before the wearable, all via word of mouth	50K users approximate	“I think we grew to about 50,000 users all through word of mouth in those early days on an app that didn't even have a wearable”
Visible	funding raised first angel round target to cover founders' rent for 12 months	USD 50K/one-time approximate	“Hey, if we can raise $50,000 so that we can pay ourselves enough to pay our rent for 12 months”
Visible	team size	5 people approximate	“So I think there were five of us by the time we started actually making some revenue, which was over a year later.”
Visible	time to milestone time from start/funding to first revenue	12 months approximate	“Wow. So you built this out for a whole year before you started charging for it.”
Visible	users people using Visible's platform (free + paid)	300K users approximate	“Over 300,000 people use a platform to pace their energy.”
Visible	count free wearables sent to beta users before monetizing	100 wearables/one-time	“We sent out 100 wearables and iterated until we thought we had something of value and that was all for free.”
Visible	price armband sold at cost, no hardware margin	USD 80/one-time approximate	“So what that looks like for us is roughly 80 bucks for the band.”
Visible	price monthly membership	USD 20/month	“And then it's either $20 a month or 14.99 if you're taking on an annual subscription.”
Visible	price monthly equivalent on annual subscription	USD 14.99/month	“And then it's either $20 a month or 14.99 if you're taking on an annual subscription.”
Visible	arr subscription ARR starting point	USD 1M approximate	“And then once we hit one million in subscription ARR, we grew to 10 million in exactly two years.”
Visible	arr subscription ARR, reached with one paid channel (Meta UGC) and word of mouth	USD 10M approximate	“And then once we hit one million in subscription ARR, we grew to 10 million in exactly two years.”
Visible	time to milestone $1M -> $10M subscription ARR	24 months	“And then once we hit one million in subscription ARR, we grew to 10 million in exactly two years.”
Visible	arr title figure: $10M ARR without ever testing a paywall (matches body)	USD 10M approximate	“it's genuinely incredible that you hit 10 million in ARR without ever sending a lifecycle email, zero experimentation”
Visible	share share of acquisition from paid (Meta); rest word of mouth; attribution uncertain	50% approximate	“only 50%-ish come through paid channels. The rest come through word of mouth.”
Visible	count member UGC videos that get scaled spend after small-budget tests	1–2 videos/week approximate	“Truly only one or two maybe in a week will ever get any scaled spend.”
Visible	team size team running creator/member video programs and paid spend	2 people	“It's a team of two. We're pretty lean.”
Visible	time to milestone median time from first landing-page visit to purchase	10 days	“So median time from someone landing on our website to making a purchase is 10 days.”
Visible	revenue revenue when Series A raised; cash-flow positive	USD 7M approximate	“And then we grew to, I think, seven million in revenue cashflow positive before we decided to take some more money on.”
Visible	share share of team with lived experience of chronic illness	50% approximate	“nearly half of our team are people with lived experience of these issues”
Visible	count US and UK only	2 markets	“You're only available in two markets, right? You're only available in the US and the UK.”
Oura	price Oura subscription in the UK (guest's recollection); ~$6-7 in US	GBP 6/month estimate	“I actually think it's six pounds in the UK, but maybe it's six or seven dollars in the US.”
benchmarkApp store in-app purchase fee avoided by selling on the web	share	30%	“And then of course, there's that 30% fee that you do have to pay if you're using IAP.”
aggregateOther apps' members/creators posting small organic TikToks	share share of small organic TikTok posts that go viral	1% illustrative	“And then one of those in every 100 might go viral.”