Buy an app that ranks #1 but charges $2, then add a $60/year hard paywall

Joseph ChoiI was just about to ask you about the math of ASO. You said like 30 search volume, what what does the what does that number mean? Is it 30 searches per day?

Steve YoungDude, I have no clue, [laughter] and honestly, it's because we the reason why I came up with that 30 was, we bought an app in 2022 range, and it was getting about 100 downloads, 100 to 150 downloads a day. And it was ranking number one for two keywords that had a search traffic of 30-ish. Like one's 28, one was like 34, right? So it's like 30-ish for both keywords, right? And we bought it. We did a hard paywall. We increased the price. It was just charging a one-time fee of like $2, $3. No paywall on onboarding, no nothing. It was just very much undermonetized. So I found this keyword because, Joseph, I was trying to go after this keyword for another client, and I just couldn't beat this app.

Steve YoungSo I downloaded the app and I was just like, "Oh, this is super undermonetized." And I knew how well the client was doing. The client was doing about a mil ARR, and they had a web product, too, that was doing much bigger. But they were doing about a mil, so I was like, okay, and they were charging $60 a year. So I was like, okay, I think we could purchase this app and then charge $60 a year and there So we ended up purchasing it, and we did. So hard paywall, increasing $60 a year, it went from $1,000 to $2,000 a month to $8,000 to $10,000 a month with just 100 to 150 downloads.

Steve YoungSo that's the number I came up with. And then when my client came up with me and said, "Hey, I got this new app idea," I was like, "Okay, well, fine, but do you want to call your app that?" I was like, "I don't know anything right now, but I know my app does this and it's number one for these type of keywords with this type of volume. Do you want to call your app that?" And so that's why I feel like more confident saying like, okay, that 30 …