Mojo · B2C · social video editing app
Ship a rough first version in 2 months and charge from day one
30 free trials on launch day, against a goal of one
Workedvalidationpaywallpr-launch
What they did
After the pivot, took about two months (with two founders plus an intern) to build a glitchy alpha and launched it on Product Hunt. Added a subscription from day zero as the demand signal: $10/month (they had considered $1) with a 30-day free trial so nobody paid by accident. No onboarding paywall for the first few years, so trials reflected actual interest. Success bar set in advance: one trial from a country other than France.
What happened
About 30 trials on day zero; the team first thought the app was broken. Payment used as the best proxy for real interest after the previous app's vanity downloads.
- Stage
- launch
- Effort
- Two founders plus an intern, about two months of build
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · Growing to $1M MRR with Paywall and Pricing Experiments — Francescu Santoni, Mojo“That was the main reason that we actually added subscription into Mojo from the get-go.”
“we didn't even add an onboarding paywall for a few years, because what we wanted to measure is the actual interest.”
“And we are like, if we get one trial period from one country that we don't know, so except us and France because of friends maybe, we will celebrate. And we got, I think on the day zero, 30 trials.”
Related topics
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More from Mojo
All 22 Mojo tactics- Show only the yearly plan first; tuck monthly behind a 'view all plans' buttonYearly plan uptake up ~15-20 points; one of three tests behind a 60% ARPU lift
- Show the yearly plan as about $10 a month next to the $25 monthly planNew revenue +10% in the US and +30-40% in Brazil and Mexico
- Use a long scrolling paywall with reviews and a free vs pro comparison in JapanNew revenue +20% in Japan; failed in the US, where a clean video paywall won
- Show free users a paywall when they open the app, at most once a week~15% of new revenue from existing users; no complaints in reviews or support
- Keep a generous free tier, then show free users a paywall at launch once a weekAbout half of conversions come after day 0 vs ~15-20% industry-wide
- Check 7-day cancellations before keeping a higher price that won on early revenueRejected a winning higher price after a yearlong model showed lost long-term revenue
More from this episode
- Mojo: Show the paywall at the end of onboarding, before people try the appStill brings in most free trials today
- Mojo: Give one person all paywall tests; test big changes first, then small onesMany experiments run by one person; founder credits it for monetization gains
- Mojo: Raise prices above other video apps to aim at small businessesRevenue per user up about 50%; lighter users churn more
- Mojo: Double the price in Turkey to keep up with inflationTested and rolled out; founder says the effect was positive, no numbers
- Mojo: Make a new kind of Instagram story people ask about, so users spread the appGrew to several hundred thousand dollars a month with $0 on ads
- Mojo: Pay influencers in new countries to post about the app on their accountsUnprofitable at first; Brazil took off weeks later and is now a top 3-5 country
- Mojo: Push yearly plans so ad spend pays back in about 30 daysSkips LTV prediction entirely; no results reported
- Mojo: Match each week's ad spend to that week's trials, by country and platform
- Mojo: Put off email and push campaigns while they would add little growthReached $1M+ monthly revenue without CRM; expected gain was single digits