Prayerlock · B2C · phone blocker that prompts prayer
Run paid ads optimized for downloads instead of free trials
Completely failed; blamed on the download goal and a bad onboarding
Failedpaid-social
What they did
First paid-ads attempt optimized campaigns for downloads rather than trial starts, while the onboarding was short (5 minutes) and weak.
What happened
Completely failed; he fixed the onboarding and switched to trial optimization
- Stage
- growth
“When I tried them, I completely failed. I optimized for downloads instead of trials. I had a, yes, a very bad onboarding. It was trash.”
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
- Prayerlock: Find an app already earning in your niche and build a better versionEnded 3 months of apps nobody wanted; reached $21K/month in 6 months
- Prayerlock: Collect the best onboarding screens from other apps and copy the best ones
- Prayerlock: Skip sign-up and keep all user data on the phoneFounder says less friction and lower costs; no numbers
- Prayerlock: Post about 40 videos a day across 12 accounts to find a format that worksFound the reaction-plus-demo format that got the first sales
- Prayerlock: Have your partner film reaction videos with an app demo, posted twice a day10K views a day, 200-300 downloads a day; first $1K/month
- Prayerlock: Hire a second creator to post the winning video format on her own accountTook 14 days to get a 20K-view video; revenue $1.5K (Jul) to $2.4K (Aug)
- Prayerlock: Pay an influencer to promote the appFlopped; one influencer tried, no details
- Prayerlock: Stretch the onboarding from 5 to 15 minutes, telling a storyOrganic conversion more than tripled, before any paid ads
- Prayerlock: Restart Meta ads at $20 a day, optimizing for free trials$10 per trial; 'respectable', later beaten by TikTok
- Prayerlock: Run broad US-only TikTok ads using your best reaction videos$4 per trial vs $10 on Meta; $4K of savings took revenue to $10K/month
- Prayerlock: Turn a hired teen creator's 10K-view TikToks into ads and raise spend weekly$3 per trial, then $1.88; revenue $10K to $21K/month in two months