Super Unlimited · B2C · free VPN app
Compare your ratings country by country and dig into the low ones
Guest says it helped a lot; no numbers
What they did
What happened
In their words
How the World's #1 VPN App Reached 1 Billion Downloads – Tanuj Chatterjee, Super Unlimited
Tanuj ChatterjeeAnd that flywheel took effect. We kept improving service quality. We spent some time on the air, so those things we did, but I'm sure there are companies that are doing a much better job than us on that one. But the thing that it's not important, it's important, and we spent some time on it. Did we do the best we could? At that point, yes. Are there better ways to do it? I'm 100% sure, yes.
Tanuj ChatterjeeSo most of it was product, give the service to anybody who needs it, don't over index on monetization, money will come, all those things that we talked about earlier. And slowly and surely it went up. Talking about ratings. So we also broke down the ratings by different countries, for example. "Okay, this country, the ratings are quite a bit lower than US, let's say. Why is that?" So understanding and digging into the details helped us a lot.
Jacob EitingOne thing I've learned from this is that VPNs are a good inverse hedge against world order. So if Ray Dalio is right, everything's breaking down, I should just buy VPN stocks 'cause apparently that's a good hedge.
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More from this episode
- Read your reviews and rivals' reviews, then fix what people complain aboutCredited as the main driver to #1 for 'VPN'; no single number tied to it
- Let people use the app right away: no login, one tap to connectVisits last ~30 seconds; guest credits it for organic volume and ratings
- Ask for a rating only after the app has done its job2M+ high ratings on the App Store; no before/after given
- Test modern, prettier store screenshots against your plain old onesModern designs lost 80% of tests; winners gave no meaningful lift, so old ones stayed
- Hire an SEO agency that knows your field to publish programmatic pages~1,600 app downloads a month; poor conversion; some AI-search traffic, not top 5
- Give away an unlimited free version, paid for with an ad or twoLow paid conversion, but 1M+ mostly organic downloads a day and very profitable
- Don't show any ads the first time someone opens the app
- Keep the free service running in poor and censored countries, even at a loss15M downloads in 4 days during a Turkey Instagram ban; each spike leaves a higher baseline
- Charge for no ads, faster servers, more locations and use on every deviceCompany growing and very profitable; no conversion numbers
- Show an ad for your new eSIM app to all existing VPN usersDidn't work: no travel intent; now planning timed promos before summer
- Buy search ads in Apple and Google stores only where the return holds upSpend capped by ROAS; some cannibalization of organic installs accepted
- Have the head of support report to the head of productGuest says product hears about problems right away; no numbers
- Walk into elevators with a debug build to test dropped connections
- Launch a new feature in 5 countries behind a switch, then expand
- Start on the cloud, then move heavy traffic to your own rented serversMakes a free tier affordable; cloud still absorbs surges
- Launch a Windows version and promote it to your mobile usersNamed biggest win of the year; people buy on the website directly, no numbers
- Build the product so free users cost almost nothing to supportLets the company keep a generous free tier; no numbers
Tags: app-store, ratings-by-country, review-analysis