Podcast App · B2C · podcast player app
Try your own shows, curated playlists and a WhatsApp listening club
Didn't pan out as a growth leap
Failedfeature-developmentcommunitycontent
What they did
Over several years, to find the next leap in growth beyond core podcast playback, Podcast App ran experiments around education: creating its own content, thematic playlists by editors and curators, and a social podcast learning club like a book club run over WhatsApp.
What happened
The experiments did not pan out as meaningful differentiation; one side effect was spotting the sleep use case.
- Effort
- Multiple experiments over a few years
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · VC Funding vs. Bootstrapping for Subscription Apps — Martín Siniawski, Podcast App“There's a back story of lots of experiments that we did within Podcast App that didn't necessarily pan out in terms of like, where can we meaningfully differentiate beyond like the essence of podcasts?”
“And we tried like experiments around education, from creating our own content to like creating thematic playlists with editors and curators, to creating like a social podcasting learning club, kind of like a book club, you know, over WhatsApp.”
Related topics
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- Podcast App: Switch from ads to a subscription you actually promoteCompany grew 3-4x; subscriptions now most revenue, ~130K paid subscribers
- Podcast App: Name your app after what people search for: 'The Podcast App'Cohost calls it the perfect search name; no numbers given
- Rest: Promote your new sleep app to your podcast users at night
- Rest: Notice people use your app to fall asleep, then build a sleep appRest launched; no results yet
- RevenueCat: Email batchmates, then install your SDK in their app yourself at a coffee shopLanded early customers like Podcast App; no numbers
- Podcast App: After a YC rejection, raise from insiders, get traction, and reapplyGot into YC a year later; raised only ~$1.5M in total
- Podcast App: Size your market from the old medium's ad spend and subscribers neededMath showed a $100M/year business needed only millions of subscribers
- Luminary: Raise $100M and launch a paid app with 50 exclusive podcastsNever managed to scale
- Elevate: Email your previous app's users when you launch a new oneA small but meaningful early boost, per the cohost