Practitioner pattern · Steve P. Young (Sells App Masters services, audits, the App Founders community and an academy that he promotes during the answers)
Pay about 70% cash at close, 20% on performance, 10% as a seller loan
Host's usual structure from six- and seven-figure deals; no results given
Unknownexit-ma
What they did
Value on profit (EBITDA, not revenue) at roughly 2-5x. Common structure, illustrated on a $1M deal: $700K (70%) cash at close, $200K earn-out paid if the business keeps growing, and $100K as a seller note (a loan from the seller that the buyer repays with interest).
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
- Grow with App Store search and Apple ads only, skipping other channelsApp makes about $35K a month from mostly store search plus some Apple ads
- Run Apple's Max Conversions campaign with a cost-per-install targetBeating the agency's own Basic Plus setup on $60-70K client accounts; no numbers
- Make the app free for a day through an AppAdvice promotionMixed in with Apple ads that ran at a loss; no separate result
- Cap Apple ads at about $1 per install and keep them running$800 in ads brought $3,000 in revenue; turning ads off later was a mistake
- Watch what big apps advertise, then build for the searches their ads createBuilt a green noise app; host calls it the quickest way to revenue (no numbers)
- Paraphrase AI: Check Google search volume for a keyword, then name the app after itAbout $3,000 a month; the app shows up for its 12K-search keyword
- App Masters: Pick 6-10 keywords for the title and subtitle; revise every two weeksHost says his apps now rank #1 for many keywords he worked on for months
- App Masters: Add Spanish (Mexico) keywords to rank in the US storeBeat Vietnamese, Korean and other extra localizations in their tests
- Use different keywords for the UK, Australia and Canada storesRanks really well in the UK; host gives no numbers
- List a small app on Flippa, price it realistically, and close fastSold for $20K about two weeks after agreeing on price
- App Masters: Cold-email new reporters, opening with a detail about themHost says it gets attention; no coverage results given
- CannaControl: Run an App Store event giving away free lifetime access with an offer code