A niche subscription app · B2C · App Masters client
Name your new app after a keyword with ~30 searches that nobody uses in their title
#1 in week one, 100 downloads a day, $1,600 first month, ~$20K MRR years later
What they did
What happened
- Stage
- launch
In their words
Steve Young - Beginners Guide to Buying & Selling Apps 2026
Steve Young… stuff, which this is your unique advantage, right? And for me, yeah, that's the article that I was like, "Hey, I love this," and I kind of took inspiration off of that into the slide that I put. And I gave you credit, bro. But I it was a great article, dude. Like you you did an amazing job of that. And for me, it's just different, right? Like I use a different tool. You use SpyTok, I use Appfollow, that was a great tool, right now ASO Mobile.
Steve YoungSo when I see an app like this, like Migraine Tracker or Migraine Buddy, and I'm like, "Oh, [laughter] shit, let me go into ASO Mobile, see put that key put that app in there." And then ASO Mobile, unlike other ASO tools, will give me all the keywords that it indexes for. And I can just see, okay, great, it's indexing for these keywords. Okay, how much volume does it have? So I'm looking for keyword volume, the search volume, for around 30-ish and up. So that's where I feel like one of the clients we launched with, we used this exact approach and I was like, "Dude, do you want to call your app this?" Because I found a keyword that I felt like I could rank for, and it was search traffic around 30, two keywords. Think Superwall one word and Superwall two words. And I was like, "Do you want to call your app that?" He's like, "Okay, let's do it."
Steve YoungAnd so we did, and we were able to get to number one within the first week. And then after that, you know, we brought in $1,600 within the first month. It's now close to 20k MRR a few years later. And now he's starting to do, but we were able to get it to about 12, 15 with just ASO, with just like a couple of keywords, and that was it. If you're trying to build a six-figure business, you can do that with ASO. To get to like a seven-figure, it's a little bit harder. I think for me, I feel like, okay, I use ASO to just sort of figure out and that it something's here. Joseph, this is what I wanted to riff with you on, cuz I think a lot of people talk about Meta and ads, and not enough about like the economics behind it. Cuz I talk to a lot of people, and a lot of people are just like break-even.
Steve YoungSo a lot of people, they can share their MRR, but like what is their profit? Like I almost feel like people share their MRR and their ROAS at the same time. I get it, but I've heard really from people who are doing amazing MRR, but their ROAS is just like 100%, which is break-even for those who aren't math nerds. So I've heard from those, or just slightly under at 90%, but you know, they're so proud of their MRR and they're sharing it on social …
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More from this episode
- Buy an app that ranks #1 but charges $2, then add a $60/year hard paywallRevenue up from $1-2K to $8-10K a month with the same downloads
- Remove the X from the paywall so users must start a trialTrial starts doubled from 6% to 13%; trial-to-paid unchanged; some one-star reviews
- Pick keywords where the top 3 apps have few reviews and lack the keyword in their titleUsed to launch and buy apps that reached #1; no pooled numbers
- Name the app after the keyword and use the App Store autocomplete phrase as subtitleReached #1 for 'green noise'; still #3 with little upkeep
- Target 24 more versions of the keyword you already rank #1 for, and cut Apple Ads
- Buy a profitable app with a 10-year loan and pay it back from the app's profitMoney back in 3-4 months on one purchase; example leaves ~$5K a month after loan payments
- Buy apps that already get organic downloads but earn too little or skip a channelBest buys fit this; one $18K purchase without it flopped
- Try Meta ads on a small organic app, including a hard paywallOnly ~$1 revenue per install; economics didn't work
- Send Meta sign-up, paywall-view and checkout events while still optimizing for purchasesGuest says the ad account got smarter; no numbers
- Show paid Instagram and Facebook users a paywall with no X; let organic users close itReported to perform a lot better; no numbers shared
- Switch from a closable paywall with no trial to a hard paywall with a free trialPerformed a little better; no numbers
- Launch a good-enough app, and only finish it if downloads show upSpeaker's standing process; no numbers
- Rank for a niche keyword first, then climb to broader onesOutranked Canva on a keyword
- Build just the viral feature as a TestFlight and let creators film it
Tags: app-store, keyword-in-title, keyword-first, app-naming