Ladder · B2C · strength training app
Judge ad spend by how fast you earn it back, not by lifetime value
Payback in low single-digit months, improving as spend grew
Workedanalytics-attributionteam-process
What they did
Treats LTV:CAC as 'fairyland' for a young company. The whole team is anchored on payback period: what was spent, what comes in after Apple, Facebook, RevenueCat and variable commissions (gross basis), how fast it is recouped given retention, and how much burn hitting the gas requires.
What happened
Unit-economics profitable within low single-digit months, consistently; payback improved as TikTok spend grew.
- Stage
- growth
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 Ladder
All 46 Ladder tactics- Offer non-converted trial users their first month for $5, then $29.99About half stay into month two at full price; consistent across cohorts
- Run a big yearly user survey and use AI to read the answers7,500+ responses in a year; led directly to the nutrition feature
- Let users log reps and weights, then suggest next weights and show their progress70-75% of users now log every workout; guest sees it correlate with retention
- Have coaches tell users to log their weights mid-workout, not in a help pageJournal use climbed to 70-75% of workouts; guest calls it 10x more effective than FAQs
- Offer a 7-day free trial without asking for a credit cardUsers who finish one or two workouts convert at a very high rate
- Nudge members to cheer on others so new trial users get lots of cheersCheers received correlated with workout completions and long-term retention
More from this episode
- Ladder: Split every dollar 50/50 with fitness coaches who have 10K-100K loyal followersTook the app to $1M ARR; each coach's signups faded after the first weeks
- Ladder: Give each coach a tracked link-in-bio page that sends fans straight into their programStill the setup for all coaches; lets Ladder track every coach's signups
- Ladder: Ask new visitors 15 fitness questions, then recommend three matching programsA million people have taken it in 18 months; fixed confused cold-traffic users
- Ladder: Check what quiz takers ask for, then recruit a coach for the missing styleNew bodybuilding programs became some of the fastest-growing on the app
- Ladder: Stock $50K of scarce kettlebells and sell them only to people who start a trialGave coaches a timely hook during COVID; no conversion numbers
- Ladder: Let people start the free trial without entering a card
- Ladder: Spend seed money on Facebook ads through an agency right after raisingFailed; unit economics never worked and spend paused after 3 months
- Ladder: Survey 500 users on price and talk to 100 non-payers, then cut $60 to $29.99Clearing price was ~$29 across cohorts; January 2022 became the best month yet
- Ladder: Go back to everyone who said no, with the new lower price, in JanuaryJanuary 2022 was the best growth month to date
- Ladder: Only test growth channels you have a real reason to win, and run them in-houseKilled SEO as too slow; found TikTok as the engine
- Ladder: Try TikTok early with one coach's account before putting money inEngagement was high and link-in-bio trials came once past 1,000 followers
- Ladder: Publish AI-written exercise how-to pages that feature your app's videos3 pages hit Google page one in 60 days, but too slow; shelved
- Ladder: Run a new coach's TikTok for them, using only videos already on their phone250K followers in 45 days, with million-view videos every week
- Ladder: End TikToks with on-screen text like 'We start Monday, link in my profile'Founder says viewers follow explicit instructions; no numbers
- Ladder: Link all coach accounts to your ad account and turn their best posts into ads fastSpark ads were 'explosive' almost immediately; no numbers given
- Ladder: Crack organic TikTok first, then start paid with a small budgetTrials and paid members came far faster than on Facebook
- Ladder: Send every TikTok ad click to a web quiz and track answers that mark ideal usersTargeting tightened within a week; payback in low single-digit months
- Ladder: Check that untracked App Store installs rise with quiz signups, then steer by the quiz3 untracked installs per quiz taker, moving in lockstep; held through 5-8x budget
- Ladder: Double or triple TikTok budgets in a day and adjust several times dailyThe moves worked despite rep advice; founder calls it make-or-break
- Ladder: Sell monthly only until retention is clear, then show an annual option side by sideAnnual went from ~0% to 20% of new paying members
- Ladder: Price the annual plan at $14.99 a month ($179), half the monthly priceAnnual take rate rose from 20% to ~30% of new paying members
- Ladder: Put users in coach-led team chats and get them chatting earlyTop retention on RevenueCat benchmarks; team chats are 'wildly popular'
- Ladder: Run six 6-week themed seasons a year, with a badge for 20 workoutsGives six urgent start moments a year for marketing; no numbers
- Ladder: Read all 16,000 App Store reviews and write ads in customers' own wordsFounder says no one understands this customer better; no numbers