Nomorobo · B2C · robocall blocking app
Give landline blocking away free forever to gather data and users for the paid app
Cost up to $120K a month in phone bills; replaced any ad budget
Workedpricingproduct-viralityfeature-development
What they did
Landline blocking has always been free with no paid upgrade. It works as the acquisition channel and data source: every landline user's calls improve the blocklist that powers the paid mobile apps, and every user's email can be cross-sold. Chose to spend on running the free service instead of ads; never did paid acquisition. Aaron frames free/freemium as a user acquisition path, not a revenue model, and says free users must deliver some other value (data here).
What happened
Twilio bill peaked around $120K/month in election seasons; the free side drove data, emails, carrier partnerships and press with no ad spend.
- Stage
- growth
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · From Idea to 8-Figure Exit in 10 Years Flat — Aaron Foss, Nomorobo“So offering the free landline blocking, my Twilio bill peaked at like 120k a month.”
“Free and freemium are user acquisition paths. It's not a revenue model, necessarily.”
“I would rather spend $100,000 a month and block robocalls and then funnel that into something usable on the SEO side rather than $100,000 in an ad budget”
Related topics
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More from this episode
- Nomorobo: Enter a government prize contest with a working prototype, demo video and catchy nameWon and split the $50K prize out of ~800 entries; launched the company
- Nomorobo: Talk to every reporter after a public win and send them to an email waitlist3,000 signups in a few months, 30,000+ emails by launch day
- Nomorobo: Request 5 years of government complaint data to seed your blocklist on day oneMany false positives, but enough to launch and start collecting real data
- Nomorobo: Email your free landline users asking them to try the paid mobile appFounder calls it huge; no numbers
- Nomorobo: Charge $1.99 a month through Apple's in-app subscriptions instead of building billingBecame the business's turning point; Apple's cut was cheaper than self-run billing
- Nomorobo: Give a 2-week free trial so users see it block a robocall firstFounder credits it for the app's success; no numbers
- Nomorobo: Soft launch quietly, fix the bugs, then tell reporters who covered you beforeFounder says the press flywheel kept going; no numbers
- Nomorobo: Publish a page for every robocaller phone number, with the call recording and a block buttonFounder calls it a moat that worked really well; no traffic numbers
- Nomorobo: Pitch local reporters this week's top scams in their city, with call audio2-3 unpaid press mentions a week for 10 years, including NBC Nightly News
- Nomorobo: Let phone carriers turn on your free service in one click from their control panelsAnother huge free channel with no biz dev team; no numbers
- Nomorobo: Build it Apple's privacy-first way, then ask Apple to feature it as App of the DayFeatured by Apple early; founder calls it a competitive advantage
- Nomorobo: Hand off customer support first, using contractors you meet through your networkBuilt the whole team without job posts; the support contractor's brother became product manager
- Nomorobo: Track just one number early on: robocalls blockedFounder recommends it; no measured result
- Nomorobo: Raise small amounts on a rolling note only when you need the next stepAbout $2.25M raised in total; reached profitability and kept a big stake
- Nomorobo: Ask your biggest supplier for 90-day payment terms while waiting for Apple payoutsGot down to $944 in the bank but survived without predatory investor terms
- Nomorobo: When one buyer makes an offer, tell every past suitor to get competing bidsHad a choice of buyers; sold for over eight figures (per host)
- Nomorobo: Add a $5 a month premium tier with call screening and a family plan