Runify · B2C · ranked running app
Charge $5 for early access on a one-page site before writing any code
2,000 waitlist emails and 90+ paid $5 in about 2 weeks
What they did
What happened
- Stage
- pre-launch validation
In their words
Caleb Dean - I speedran an ai app from 0 to $100k exit in 26 days
Caleb Dean… one of their sort of formats, which I'm sure I think you've had the the founder of Strongr on the podcast, he had one of the formats where it was like the body graph of like a gym workout, and like we weren't really able to replicate that for Runify cuz we didn't have like an a graph like that, but then I came across, yeah, this video right here, where it just has their rankings, and we're like, "Oh cool, like I can just do this for running."
Caleb DeanSo if you like legit look at the other video that we made, I think this one got 2 million views, so it's pretty much like a copy, and like those icons are just like ChatGPT generated. Pretty much like my thought process was, let's just make a couple of these, and then like post them, and then see like how the the audience responds. And we ended up like just posting nine of these videos per day like throughout a week, and through that, like we had millions of views. But what I think was super valuable is like with that traffic we are we're actually getting, we sent them to
Caleb Deana website which I just like used ChatGPT to make like a I think it was still there, it's runify.xyz. And pretty much that was like a Stripe link with a landing page on it. So it's like we're actually doing something with this traffic. You can see it's such a shit website, but gives like an idea of what Runify might look like, and you can become an early adopter and pay $5, or you can join the waitlist and, yeah, put your email in. And we had, I think it was in 2 weeks, posted less than 50 videos of this copied format,
Caleb Deanand we had like, in the end, 2,000 waitlist signups and I think it was like 90-plus people buy this like early adopter fee. And this is like before the app was even live, so that was like clear validation for actually going and building out this app. There was like There was clearly some desire for this product.
Joseph ChoiThat is very good validation. Several thousand waitlist signups is great with just email, and then 90 people paid the $5, that's kind of insane to think about. Like because you did like
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More from this episode
- Copy a proven app's viral Reels format for your niche before buildingMillions of views; one copy hit 2M; ~50 videos drove the whole waitlist
- Post 9 Reels a day on Instagram instead of flooding TikTokInstagram held 5-10K avg views, 1 in 10 over 500K; TikTok views fell to ~5
- Build a tool that turns one video template into thousands of versions10,000 variations in a minute; fed ~5M views in month one
- Put your app up for pre-order so thousands download it on launch day3,000 pre-orders in ~2 weeks; leaderboard hit its 1,000 cap in an hour
- Rewrite onboarding to promise a result (becoming a better runner), not just ranksChanged because first onboarding converted poorly; no after numbers given
- Email your waitlist two updates, then a launch video with a half-price codeDiscount codes brought most launch-day revenue; 32% of emails hit spam, 20% opened
- Message every paying early adopter yourself and make them your beta testers~20 testers on WhatsApp; founder says their feedback was invaluable
- Ask your Instagram followers in Story polls which features to buildTracking answers split evenly across Garmin, Apple Watch and Strava, so they built all three
- On launch day, tease on Instagram Stories, post on Reddit, and tweet a demo videoFounder's X demo got ~50K views; mostly exposure, not core users
- Tweet openly and confidently about your app's goals, even from a tiny accountCold acquisition DM 1-2 weeks after launch, from a ~200-follower account
- Sell a month-old app at ~5x yearly revenue but keep 30% of itSix-figure sale ~26 days after launch, plus 6-month earn-out and cash bonus
- Design every screen and button in Figma before developers startCore design done in 3 days; CTO built it in about 6 weeks
- Rank in App Store search for a rare condition's name (shy bladder)Most users and revenue came from search; 30%+ conversion; $5-10K lifetime
- Pick a space where 1-3 apps already make $100K+ a month, then twist the ideaLiftoff at $200-300K/month led to Runify; sold within a month of launch
Tags: instagram, stripe, fake-door, pre-sale, waitlist, early-adopter, lifetime-plan