Clear 30 · B2C · app to quit or cut down weed
Keep the slow 'what do you want to achieve?' questions in onboarding
Users spend 20-30 seconds on them with almost no drop-off
What they did
What happened
In their words
Asher Herbstman & Thatcher Clough - I Built a $30k/mo App That Helps You Quit Smoking
Asher Hirschman… get you to feeling all this great things, having all your problems solved, it's going to be quick, or you're at least going to get wins off the jump and very early, and it's not going to be very difficult, we're going to help you in lots of ways. And then if we can communicate all of these things very well, it can show very clear value to the user. So Thatcher and I think about value through each of these slides and how we can communicate that.
Thatcher Clough… the two. The second that we get these two information, it's not like, oh, we don't jump to the next question. We're really like, okay, cool, we see that you want to gain mental clarity and reduce dependency and explore life without cannabis and, you know, use lesser differently afterwards. This is sort of the breakdown of like, you know, why are we choosing to show these things, is like not only do we want to make it seem like we see you, but we also want to tie social proof to it as well. So we saw 81% of users saw improved mental clarity, like, oh, you said you want to improve mental clarity? That's awesome, not only do we see you, we've helped a whole bunch of people just like you. Friction isn't necessarily bad. Having good friction where sitting on this question for 30 seconds thinking about damn, what do I want to achieve? Really having them sit down and do that is commitment not only to your product, but also it's like to themselves. Like what it is that they want to do. That's something that we saw like with two of our biggest questions, we have questions on break reason, so this one right here of like what do they want to achieve, and then also their triggers later on, and like people spend the most time on this question. If 6 months ago we were to go look at this chart, we would say, "Oh, we need to reduce these questions to make them less important," or something like that, but almost no drop-off for people completing these questions. They're really sitting down for 30 seconds, 20 seconds, you know, 25 seconds, really thinking about, damn, what do I want to achieve? What is triggering me to smoke weed?
HostThat's actually such an insane metric that you can see how long people are spending on the question and then that the drop-off was like what, less than 5%? Yeah, that's crazy. That's like, it shows like people are actually are doing exactly what you designed the paywall to do.
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More from this episode
- Grow with paid Meta and TikTok ads once the app converts wellBecame the growth engine; founders say they 'cracked paid ads' and are scaling
- Try organic posts, influencers, Reddit and SEO to get first usersUseful for early feedback, but hard to convert; the first $1K was the hardest
- Film your own funny ads that call out a very specific momentSpecific callouts grab attention; calm ads with an older speaker convert best
- Check which ages and quit reasons pay most, then aim ads at them26-30 year olds convert at almost double the 18-20 rate
- Ask users where they found the app, and also run proper ad trackingShows cost per trial by platform to rebalance spend daily; founders call it very helpful
- Track users from the first screen, not only after they sign inRevealed drop-offs; intro screen passes 85-90%
- Make onboarding a conversation: use their name, echo goals, show proof and quick winsPart of the 2-month push that took revenue from $10K to $30K a month
- Give users a free personal report on their habits before asking them to payFounders call it a big point of value; no numbers
- Ask new users which features they'd use, to show them off and learn
- Say up front the app costs money, next to what the habit costs themOnboarding conversion up about 3%; fewer 'it's paid' complaints
- Ask for a star rating during onboarding, right before showing reviewsReviews went from ~50 to almost 1,000 and keep climbing
- Sign users up by phone number and text them funny, personal messagesNo results given; founders cite ~95% of texts read within 5 minutes
- Open the paywall with a day-by-day plan for the first 7 days, not featuresPaywall conversion rose from ~20% to 30% with only this change
- Tell users 'no payment due now' and remind them 2 days before the trial endsMost users choose the yearly plan with the 3-day trial; no conversion numbers
- Test $30, $40 and $50 yearly pricesSettled on $30/year; no test numbers shared
- Run ads inviting people to take a quiz about their weed habitDidn't work; tried half-heartedly while onboarding was weaker
- Study which ads Meta and TikTok spend most on, and reuse their hooksAd with a woman beat one with a man; camera-shot look beat polished
- Offer the app to universities and addiction services, and add paid extras
Tags: good-friction, commitment, reflective-questions