MySwimPro · B2C · swim coaching app
Answer the questions users email you in a weekly whiteboard video
Early videos got 75-4,000 views; years later some have millions
Workedcontentfounder-brandcustomer-support
What they did
The founder's phone number was in every automated email, so users sent the same questions by email and WhatsApp daily. Instead of copy-pasting answers, he explained swimming terms on a whiteboard on camera, then made it a weekly 15-minute series, 'Whiteboard Wednesday'. Every Wednesday at a WeWork: pick a topic, draft, film, edit and publish the same day, then write the blog post and email from what he said. Treats YouTube as the second-biggest search engine.
What happened
First videos got 75, 300, 4,000 views; a flip turn video hit 75,000; some whiteboard videos now have millions of views. Took years; did not suddenly spike app usage.
- Stage
- early
- Effort
- Weekly since 2015, one founder-day per video
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · Building a Content Marketing Flywheel — Fares Ksebati, MySwimPro“we actually had my phone number in every automated email that came from us, so I was getting WhatsApp messages at all hours of the day”
“So, I got up a whiteboard and I just explained swimming terminology. And then I started doing this on a weekly basis, and it became known as the Whiteboard Wednesday.”
“I would draft it up, film it, edit it, and ship it all in the same day. Try and keep it as simple as possible. Write the email, write the blog based on what I said in the video.”
“So, in the very beginning, yeah, I mean, it was 75 views, 300 views, 4,000.”
Related topics
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More from this episode
- MySwimPro: Send swimmers found on Twitter to a mockup page that collects emails200 email sign-ups in a couple of weeks for an app that didn't exist
- MySwimPro: Write one article a week answering common swimming questions people search forHundreds of articles over 3 years; traction compounded slowly, no sudden spike
- MySwimPro: Cut each long video into short clips and post them everywhere~500K Instagram and 300K+ TikTok followers; TikTok hits didn't drive many downloads
- MySwimPro: Earn from your YouTube videos with ads and sponsor shout-outsContent pays for itself even ignoring app installs; funds two full-time editors
- MySwimPro: Hand off blog, email, then editing so the founder only films5-person in-house team now; paid for by ad and sponsor income
- MySwimPro: Film yourself training with the app on screen instead of pitching it~30% of videos feature the app for 60+ seconds; no conversion numbers
- MySwimPro: Post videos of customers' big swimming wins on the company channel
- MySwimPro: Give each social channel its own App Store link to track revenueCan now tie revenue to each channel; only set up in the last few months
- MySwimPro: Try paid ads before you can track what the spend producedFirst two rounds failed; third round in progress with better analytics
- MySwimPro: Host in-person swim camps to reach new swimmersWorks but doesn't scale; limited by how many people can attend
- MySwimPro: Keep raising the yearly price, from $100 to $180, while conversion holdsConversion barely changed at each step (the app kept improving too)
- MySwimPro: Ask free and paying users four price questions to find what they'd payAverage matched current price (~$100-120/year); a segment would pay $200-300/year
- MySwimPro: Move free features behind the paywall as the app shifts to paidBuilt user entitlement and complaint reviews; guest would package it differently
- MySwimPro: Join a university startup accelerator for first funding and pitch practiceRaised $50K; learned customer discovery, built a network and a tight pitch
- MySwimPro: Raise money from your community through equity crowdfunding roundsAbout $1.2M raised in total, mostly from crowdfunding
- MySwimPro: Test in-app invites with rewards for your most active usersStill being tested; no results yet