Mojo · B2C · social video editing app
Make a new kind of Instagram story people ask about, so users spread the app
Grew to several hundred thousand dollars a month with $0 on ads
Workedproduct-viralityword-of-mouth
What they did
Mojo invented animated posters in Instagram stories, a format that did not exist. When viewers saw an ordinary person post one, they asked in DMs how it was made and users recommended the app, with no referral mechanism. Advice: make the app's output visible and distinctive rather than bolting on share cards or referral features later.
What happened
Zero acquisition spend until revenue reached several hundred thousand dollars per month.
- Stage
- Growth (early growth)
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · Growing to $1M MRR with Paywall and Pricing Experiments — Francescu Santoni, Mojo“I think until several hundred thousand dollars per month, we spent zero dollar in that. Why? Because we invented basically the animated posters in stories.”
“When people saw a random guy posting this super great video, animated poster on Instagram, they were asking in the DMs, "How did you do that? That's not you." And people were just referring the app without any referral mechanism.”
“You want the output of your app to be visible.”
Related topics
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
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: Ship a rough first version in 2 months and charge from day one30 free trials on launch day, against a goal of one
- 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: 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