EWA: Learn English · B2C · English learning app
Run paid ads from the start alongside organic growth
Organic-only apps plateau; paid added late often ate into organic
Mixedpaid-socialorganic-social
What they did
Apps with huge organic (Replika, Solid Starts) eventually saturate their niche; organic stagnates and adding paid later largely cannibalizes it. Start performance marketing early: every ad also feeds organic (EWA's Instagram grew to ~7-10M partly from ad-driven followers).
What happened
Organic-only apps hit a ceiling; late paid cannibalized (~'50% of the time'); EWA's paid-fed Instagram grew to millions.
- Stage
- Scale (launch to scale)
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · Make Ugly Ads to Grow Your App – Yuliya Lennox (Solid Starts)“And you will see that your organic stagnates.”
“50% of the time it will be cannibalization and you will not know what to do with it.”
“So what you need to do is when you start a brand, start with performance marketing as well, because it'll definitely help you grow your organic as well.”
Related topics
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More from this episode
- BetterMe: Keep testing new ads until one sharply cuts costs, even if current ads work
- BetterMe: Run ugly ads that show the product and the pain in the first secondOne ran for years; called 'the best ad ever'; no numbers
- Solid Starts: Run a trendy AI 'fruit babies' ad for a doctor-backed baby feeding brandBacklash: parents questioned whether to trust the brand
- EWA: Learn English: Have the founder join every marketing meeting and write the ads himselfApp reached #2 after Duolingo; link to this is loose
- EWA: Learn English: Win your home market first, then add languages one by oneLiked locally, then expanded; later #2 after Duolingo
- Test new ads at $10/day in Indonesia, not $1,000/day in the USSame test signal at ~1% of the cost
- Replika: Fully translate and adapt an app for Japan with a Japanese speakerDidn't work at all; harder than expected
- Palta: Share test results across apps and with a weekly peer group
- Make the paywall's continue button blinkRaised conversion, secondhand; no numbers
- Ladder: Sign a celebrity like Hilary Duff for brand adsBig influx almost at once, secondhand; ROI hard to measure
- Solid Starts: Hire people obsessed with the problemCredited for product quality; no numbers
- Higgsfield: Have the core team work ~17-hour days, six days a weekSaid to lead the field now; no numbers
- Translate the app into many languages with AI and test nearby marketsHer biggest win of the year; Turkey converts well; no numbers
- Sell a $1 plan after a 60-question quiz, then stack add-ons to ~$350Buyer got half back after demanding a refund; invites regulation
- Run three apps at once with one teamBiggest fail of the year: attention spread too thin