Runify · B2C · ranked running app
Email your waitlist two updates, then a launch video with a half-price code
Discount codes brought most launch-day revenue; 32% of emails hit spam, 20% opened
What they did
What happened
- Stage
- launch
In their words
Caleb Dean - I speedran an ai app from 0 to $100k exit in 26 days
Joseph ChoiDid you actually do that? Like what did you send to these people who signed up the email?
Caleb DeanYeah, so when we actually launched the app, we sent them um oh actually throughout the the process of building the app, um we were sending kind of updates of where we're at. So I think we sent like kind of two update emails, and then we sent like a launch video which then came with like a referral like discount code, and when they applied that, they could get the the subscription for like half-price.
Joseph ChoiDid that work? Did did people actually go through with the discount codes?
Joseph ChoiOh, wow. On launch day. Interesting. That first like 3,000 in revenue that you did in that first month, that was mostly from just the waitlist itself?
Caleb DeanSorry, I should have specified. That was the majority of income we did on launch day.
Joseph ChoiOn launch day? Okay. Cool. Yeah.
Caleb Dean… knew my core user like probably wouldn't be on X, like it might get a couple like founders who are runners, but at the end of the day, like any sort of traffic's good. And then we sent out our email to all our email subscribers. I personally messaged every single early adopter, cuz that's one thing we had to do is like as part of the early adopter $5 payment that they gave us is they had a lifetime subscription, so we had to like make sure they
Caleb Deanmake an account, sign up, and then we actually like give them that lifetime subscription. So there was a little bit of like support on that end. And, yeah, pretty much we clicked release on the app, and we had like 3,000 people just They didn't even download it. It just downloaded to the their device. They got an email, and like that's why I think I think it's like super valuable. Like why I think waitlists are stupid. Like with our waitlist, yeah, we had 2k subscribers, but we had like 32% of our emails go to spam folder,
Caleb Deanand I think we had like 20% of people open them, which apparently is actually decent like for an email that's not warmed up.
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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
- Charge $5 for early access on a one-page site before writing any code2,000 waitlist emails and 90+ paid $5 in about 2 weeks
- 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
- 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: waitlist, launch-discount, half-price