Boost App Social · B2C · Instagram growth app
Rebuild your web tool as an iPhone app when people use it on their phone
Guest calls it the right move; led to $100K MRR
What they did
What happened
In their words
Alex Vech - Copy This Facebook Ads Strategy, It'll Blow Up Your SaaS
JosephLet's go back to the beginning. How did you how did you get started? How did you get to 100k MRR?
AlexThe start was a a web-based tool, and then we uh we moved that to an an iOS subscription app, because we we we thought there was a a much a much better match with the usability, simply people researching hashtag on a mobile phone, on an iPhone, and then immediately immediately pasting them on Instagram, rather than going from the uh web to the to the mobile experience. That was that was a much more clunky UX. And so, we just went all-in on the iOS app, and it uh proved to be a right move.
AlexAnd the 100k MRR was a mix between adding interesting features that might help other than the hashtags themselves, so that people would see more value and would stick more, and would be willing to pay more, rather than the 40 bucks a year, maybe 100 bucks a year, and paired with uh a lot of Facebook ads, Instagram ads.
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More from this episode
- Cold-email creators from 1,000 Gmail accounts, 10-30 emails each per day10-20% replied; fed a pipeline of ~300 UGC creatives
- Move creators to a Telegram group and send $100 upfront to prove you're realCreators installed Telegram and delivered; only one or two ran off with the money
- Buy lifetime rights to every creator video, including the right to edit itNo renegotiating when ads won; ~300 creatives and contracts transferred in the sale
- Give creators a one-page list of hooks that work, then let them improviseFounder says it balanced freedom and quality; low-effort hooks were rejected
- Caption every ad and film the creator over a green-screen demo of the appDistilled from ~$1.5M of spend; the format behind $100K MRR
- Open ads with one exact frustration, like 'stuck on 1,000 views'Among the final best ads; smaller reach but works really well
- Cut each creator's 5 videos into about 15 ads, mixing screen and in-hand shotsMore variety to feed Meta's algorithm; founder says don't overdo it
- Test many UGC ads on Meta, knowing about 1 in 85 will get the spendScaled to $10K/day and $100K MRR; ~$800K of ~$1.5-1.8M spend wasted
- Fight every Meta ad account ban until you win it backRecovered from 6-8 bans, including permanent ones; later got a Meta rep
- Add features beyond the core tool so people stay and pay moreFounder credits it, with Meta ads, for $100K MRR; no split given
- Sell to an unknown buyer through escrow, with a strong lawyer and seller referencesClosed a seven-figure sale after a 4-5 month negotiation
Tags: ios, web-to-mobile, pivot, competitor-research