BlueThrone · B2C · app acquirer
Stack category downloads over time to see if new apps grow the market
Screen time market grew with each new entrant; buying a non-leader looked OK
Unknownmarket-selection
What they did
In Sensor Tower, stack downloads (and revenue) by app over time for a category. If each new entrant grows the total rather than taking share from the leader, there are untapped users, so a non-leader can still be worth buying.
What happened
For screen time apps, every new entrant grew total downloads and revenue without taking share from Opal.
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · Buying vs. Building: Scaling Beyond a Single App — Josh Peleg, BlueThrone“what you can see is that if you cross section it by downloads, every time a new app enters the market, the whole market grows.”
Related topics
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from BlueThrone
All 8 BlueThrone tacticsMore from this episode
- BlueThrone: Buy about 100 small utility apps valued mostly on profitMany had been pumped before sale and died; shallow products didn't last
- BlueThrone: Buy only a few apps with strong organic traffic and invest in their teamsPortfolio cut to 5 apps, each a category leader or on its way; guest says it works
- BlueThrone: After buying a music app, hire a GM from Spotify and triple the teamMAU grew from 200K to almost 6M; still near the top of its category
- BlueThrone: Build an in-house team making cheap UGC TikTok videos for the appsFirst viral video took 6 months and several people; gets faster with practice
- Plarium: Sell mugs, t-shirts and hoodies to a game's biggest spenders
- Soundmap: Sell power-ups on top of the subscription, like 2x more songs nearbyGuest says it captures what each user is willing to spend; no numbers
- Build solo without VC money, then sell the app within 18 monthsSold for over $4M; deal closed in 3 months with no investors involved
- Opal: Charge $120 a year and pitch it as paying for itself in work timeGuest says it unlocked very high LTV; no figures beyond price
- Cal AI: Launch a rough app, prove people pay, then build the real techHost says it's now a genuinely great app; no numbers
- Push the lifetime plan on the paywall right before selling the appKnocks down negotiations; the buyer can't monetize those users again
- Cut ad spend from $50K to $10K a month to look profitable before sellingDownloads eventually follow the drop; guest calls it riskier than pushing revenue
- Add in-app coins that people earn from ads or buy in packsApps that crack consumables reach deeper LTVs, per talks with hundreds of founders
- BlueThrone: Before buying an app, compare its return per dollar with more ad spend
- Strava: Keep a bought app separate and sell one subscription for both apps