BPM · B2C · dating app for sporty singles
Set up Meta ad campaigns to get the most installs
Reached 20K MRR, but founder calls it the worst choice in hindsight
What they did
What happened
- Stage
- months 0-4
In their words
$140K MRR Niche Dating App in Just 6 Months
… on 20 euros per day, but still it was something. But the very beginning was the Run Club and then it was paid ads because I knew I had to have like a steady growth all the way i couldn't allow myself to to make a few 100 views on on this tiktok have a 50k on another one etc etc so yeah i did it after week one in week one was were you just optimizing for and i know we're going to get to this so but like were you just optimizing for the install
oh i was optimizing for for installs for a long time because i didn't know anything about uh growth and especially page UA. So I think I was optimizing for installs for like four months. I would say three months and a half, something like this. And the numbers were okay. You know, we were like, we made 10K MRR from installs campaign, then 20K the second month, et cetera, et cetera. So numbers were running good. But when we started doing the real stuff
on Meta and other networks, I realized that installs campaign were literally the worst we could have done. but yeah it was fun to discover it hey but you did well with just an insult campaign i love that story yeah yeah definitely all right so yeah i don't remember what authority sorry about that uh yeah so that strategy um the strategy on page you wait so basically how i see it is the the the tech the technical setup is definitely a nightmare and it's still a nightmare today
sometimes we like three days ago we had a problem with an event and we had to change it etc etc so it's it's it's it is a nightmare and it's gonna stay a nightmare so you have to be sure that everything works correctly and you have to check like put five euros on a random five dollars on a random campaign and make sure that every event falls back to the right networks that installs work correctly, that your trials or your subscriptions work …
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More from this episode
- Run a singles-only run club to test a dating app ideaDemand confirmed; couples formed; runners became the launch audience
- Make your own Reels and boost a couple of posts to fill an eventGrew to ~500 followers; people signed up for runs
- Build a 3K waitlist before launch and have regulars make profiles early~500 installs on launch weekend
- Launch a dating app in one country only, so users are close together140K MRR in six months from France alone
- Download every competitor app and copy what works in each part
- Launch free, then turn on subscriptions about a month later1K MRR by the next Monday, 10K MRR 30 days later; no before/after comparison
- Start Meta ads at €20/day after week one to keep new users flowingProfitable; main growth driver to 140K MRR
- Test ad tracking with $5, start at $50/day, add ad sets once costs holdStable costs; some ads ran profitably for months
- Make your first video ads from event footage, then test agency videos against themAn agency's videos worked well; no numbers
- Split co-founder equity unevenly so one person has the final say
- Ask everyone you know for a technical co-founder; work together a few weeks first
- Run the company with two founders who both use Claude daily
- Build a dating app only for people who play sport every weekPassed App Review; 140K MRR in six months
- Grow a social app only through a big creator program
- Get a brand deal with a sports event like Hyrox for a dating app
- Show the paywall before asking people to create an account+52% sales
Tags: meta, optimization-event, install-campaigns