Test when and how often the paywall shows before testing its wording

Peter… was really bad. We weren't active on Twitter back then. We didn't really know any other founders. We kind of just stumbled upon, "Let's build a workout app," and we really didn't know what we were doing. In terms of monetization, we didn't have best principles put in place. And our LTV per user was super low. Over time, we've used tools, you know, such as Superwall, for example, to be able to A/B test and actually optimize our LTV per user.

PeterAnd at the end of the day, your category defines what your macro limit is in terms of LTV per download. Like we are a workout tracker. Our value prop is against a pen and paper. You know, if it was a workout planner, our value prop would be against personal trainer, you can charge more. I think by A/B testing, we've been able to improve monetization a lot to the point where, in terms of workout trackers, we're probably one of the best at monetizing per user.

HostOkay, so then now we just added more stuff to the to the agenda. I want to go into paywalls, uh viral TikToks. But first, let's like what what is the app? What is Stronger?

HostGotcha. That's That's really interesting. I want to learn more about how this makes money. Do you have paywall screens or um screenshots or or anything that you could that we could look at?

PeterYeah, I could, probably. Let me Let me just check. I'm not sure how much I can go into on it, but, probably not the dashboard of it, but I could show a couple of paywalls. What I would say about our paywall strategy is we don't do anything that fancy. Over time, we've got a lot better at monetization, but I think the main variable that's changed is how often we show a paywall, and also how hard that paywall is.

PeterI think it's quite easy to get bogged down in, "Oh, what if I change, you know, the word from 'get stronger faster' to, you know, 'log your workout faster'?" And people think that's going to make a meaningful difference. It's just not. I think it's much more important to spend time looking at the macro level, you know, one, how many times do people actually see this paywall, which features is it attached to? Does it line up with the feature …

Peter… like that, it's going to take like a couple of months. I think people do like run the experiment for, you know, a week, and they're like, "Oh, this one had, you know, 2% difference." And they don't realize that's just standard deviations, that you actually need to have an awful lot more volume coming through for that to be statistically significant, which is why I think, particularly in the early days, just focus on the macro things.

PeterWhich is what Superwall is great at doing. You know, you can test a video one, you can test a multi-stage paywall, you can test, you know, something which has more of like your app-based stuff in it. And I think that's the way we approach it. We try to do more macro-based changes, and then once you find a macro winner, then you can kind of narrow in and start doing some of those micro copy changes. But I think people are too quick to go onto the micro level.

HostWhat's the biggest macro change you made that you feel like big difference?