A weather app · B2C · host's own app
Spend 5 months building a novel feature meant to win press and ads
Unknownfeature-developmentpr-launchpaid-social
What they did
Host's weather app spent 5 months on one big innovative feature, hoping it would get press coverage and work well in marketing (TikTok videos, Meta ads). No dollar ROI estimate and no validation (e.g. mockup tests on TikTok) was done beforehand.
- Effort
- 5 months of development
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 this episode
- Codecademy: Rewrite checkout payment errors to tell buyers exactly how to fix themAbout 1% more checkout conversion (guest's conservative guess) from 2 days of work
- Codecademy: When people cancel, offer a pause, a 3-month half-price deal, or support10-20% drop in churn across a couple of companies
- Codecademy: Set different price levels by country, not just currencyWorked to raise total cash, but left 10 price packages to maintain forever
- Spend 2 days rewriting the emails sent when a payment failsModest but real uplift; matters more as churn falls
- Track how often you collect after someone clicks pay; add local payment providersRecovers failed payments from the highest-intent buyers; no numbers
- Right after purchase, ask one open question about what was confusingYields 2-5 useful issues a week to fix in the funnel
- When someone closes the payment sheet, offer 7 free days that don't renewNot much success so far; no numbers
- When someone closes the payment sheet, offer a discount right awayHost says it can be very effective; Apple has pushed back on some apps
- Zoom: When people cancel, offer a cheaper, limited plan instead of losing themGuest was offered $7/month instead of $15; no outcome data
- Uber Eats: Sell a monthly membership mainly to stop customers switching to rivalsGuest says members are way less likely to use a rival; no numbers