Maxed AI · B2C · AI lifting and fitness coach app
Put the whole app behind a hard paywall instead of selling ads
Now ~$14-15K/month and 1,000 active subscribers
Workedpaywall
What they did
He planned to launch a free app and make money selling ad slots. A more experienced app builder he met on Instagram told him apps need a hard paywall, so the hard paywall was step one, before any marketing. Payments run through RevenueCat.
What happened
App reached ~$14-15K/month and 1,000 active subscribers; no paywall conversion rate given.
- Stage
- launch
“I thought I was going to launch a free app and somehow make money from, you know, monetizing off like selling ad slots.”
“you need to hard paywall your app. So, hard paywall was step number one.”
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 this episode
- Maxed AI: Charge one low yearly price upfront, about $2 a monthMRR looks low, but ~$14K came in over the last 28 days
- Maxed AI: Film 5-10 short videos of yourself every day instead of paying creatorsFounder says founder-led content brought 'so many subscribers'; no per-video numbers
- Maxed AI: Run your best-performing organic videos as Meta ads, raising budget slowlyScaled to ~$250/day; he finds Meta buyers higher-intent than TikTok's
- Maxed AI: Hire a few creators to post videos like yours every day
- Maxed AI: Share your app's journey openly on X, including what isn't workingAbout a third of revenue comes from people on X, he estimates
- Maxed AI: Add a leaderboard and social feed so users keep each other accountableFounder says it keeps users accountable and competitive; no numbers