A health and fitness app · B2C · guest's recent acquisition
Buy apps that already get organic downloads but earn too little or skip a channel
Best buys fit this; one $18K purchase without it flopped
Mixedexit-maportfolio
What they did
Criteria: distribution (preferably organic, not paid) already built in, plus room to grow via monetization or new channels. Recent ~$500K/year buy: more keywords to target and no Meta yet for an older audience. Avoid apps that depend on paid ads ('a money-eating machine').
What happened
Speaker says his best purchases fit these criteria; an $18K purchase flopped.
- Stage
- Exit (acquisition)
Related topics
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More from this episode
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- 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
- 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
- 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
- Green Noise App: 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
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- 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
- App Masters: Launch a good-enough app, and only finish it if downloads show upSpeaker's standing process; no numbers
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- Build just the viral feature as a TestFlight and let creators film it