Visible · B2C · wearable for pacing chronic illness
Use a web quiz that tells poor-fit visitors the product isn't for them
Same quiz since launch; guest says it protects retention; untested
What they did
What happened
- Stage
- monetization
In their words
$10M ARR Without Ever Testing A Paywall — Luke Martin-Fuller, Visible
David BarnardSo we've been talking about all the content and the paid marketing, but we hadn't talked much. You kind of alluded to it earlier, but that you send most traffic or all traffic to the web. What does that look like?
Luke Martin-FullerYeah, so again, it's not an area we've tested very much and I think there's a heap of optimization to be done. But yeah, all of our traffic currently just goes to the landing page. And we've had one quiz that I think went up when we went live in October of '23 and it hasn't changed since, but it's a classic web funnel and I think it does a couple of things well. So it helps understand a bit more about you and whether you are a fit. And the truth is that our product isn't for everyone. And it would be inconsistent with what we're trying to do in the world to just make people buy it. We have to ask some questions about your experience and whether or not pacing in particular, but also Visible as a product is the right fit for you.
David BarnardI want to interrupt there and just say, another kind of counterintuitive thing that a lot of people in this podcast can be like, "What the heck are you talking about, David?" But I genuinely think more people should do this kind of qualification. And again, if you're just trying to get your app to 40K in MRR and flip it and make a quick buck, go ahead and stop listening. This isn't that podcast episode for you. But if you're trying to build an …
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More from this episode
- Put up a site with a 3D mock-up and a waitlist before building anything5,000 waitlist signups in about a week
- Start with a free app and 100 waitlist users in a Facebook groupFree app grew to ~50K users by word of mouth before any wearable
- Send 100 free wearables to users and iterate before charging anyoneCharged only after over a year; then $1M to $10M ARR in two years
- Let users opt in to share anonymized data with university researchersPapers in Nature and with Mount Sinai; builds trust when buyers research; no revenue number
- Buy Polar's heart-rate sensors retail, then wholesale, then co-design a custom bandReal-time data other wearables couldn't give; guest calls it a productive partnership
- Sell the band at cost (~$80) and charge $20 a month for the appLowers the barrier to buy; host thought $80 looked too cheap to be good
- Run only Meta ads with customer videos, and earn back each dollar the same day$1M to $10M ARR in two years, cash-flow positive; ~50% of customers from paid
- Recruit members to film ad videos; pay a flat cash fee per video usedMain source of Meta ad creative; run by a team of two
- Test each member video with a small ad budget; scale only the winnersOnly 1-2 videos a week ever get scaled spend
- Hire a chronic-illness creator you paid for a video as social media managerKickstarted outreach to the right creators; founder says it helped, no numbers
- Sell on the web so buyers can pay with HSA or FSA moneyAdds payment options, better ad signals and no 30% app store fee
- Offer a free app without the wearable so people can try before buyingA big chunk of acquisition, all word of mouth; barely promoted
- Move the web funnel off a flaky no-code tool so you can test itGuest's biggest win of the year; test results still to come
- Launch an AI feature that explains your health data in plain languageEarly-access users hated it; back to the drawing board
- Test new features with an early-access group, then explain changes with resultsKept a failed feature away from most users; eases resistance to change
- Stay cash-flow positive to $7M revenue, then raise a small, quiet Series ARaised at ~$7M revenue from an aligned investor; funds data science and product
Tags: web-quiz, qualification, screen-out