TalkingParents · B2C · co-parenting communication app
Use your consulting firm's income to pay for building your own app
Took ~6 years and ~$1M before subscriptions worked; lean times along the way
Mixedfinancing
What they did
Bit-Wizards, a custom software consultancy, co-founded TalkingParents and used professional services to support the app while rebuilding it. From 2009 to 2015 they rebuilt the web app and 'dabbled'; when services revenue got lean, Vince told his co-founder he couldn't keep paying him a salary, forcing monetization to become a priority.
What happened
App eventually reached ~$10M ARR, but monetization was delayed for years and burned close to $1M.
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · From Consultancy to $10M in ARR — Vince Mayfield, TalkingParents“And so we came together and started to figure out how do we use the professional services to mutually support the app, and then build the app up and take it from there.”
“I said, "Hey, I can't continue to pay you a salary right now. Times are lean in the professional services realm. So monetization has to be a strategy and it has to be something important that we're doing."”
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
- TalkingParents: Stop relying on ads and courts; charge the parents who use the appBecame the base of a ~$10M ARR subscription business
- TalkingParents: Fly a co-founder around the country to pitch judges and court clerksAbout 60% of users are now ordered onto the app by a court
- TalkingParents: Keep the website free and charge a monthly fee for the mobile appsStarted at $4.99/month; founder now thinks it was priced too low
- TalkingParents: Ask customers what they'd pay for, then build those features into paid plansEvery price rise bundled features customers had asked for
- TalkingParents: Double the price for current subscribers, but add a feature they asked forLost about a quarter of subscribers vs. half expected; some came back
- TalkingParents: Add a $24.99 plan with video calls and a set bundle of minutesAttracted less price-sensitive customers, mostly on iPhone; some couples both pay $24.99
- TalkingParents: Charge each co-parent separately, so one's video calls nudge the other to upgrade
- TalkingParents: Sell free users copies of their records for court, digital or printed and bound
- TalkingParents: Track each visitor from first site visit to paying, using your own dataFounder says it's 'paying dividends' after two years; no numbers
- TalkingParents: Host regular webinars with outside experts who also take over your social and blog
- TalkingParents: Reply to every app review with a real, caring answer, even off-topic rantsFounder says people feel heard and stay subscribed; no numbers
- TalkingParents: Swap a cheap startup transcription vendor for one that scales and bills per callCut transcription cost in half and gained features
- TalkingParents: Run your main calling feature on a small startup vendor instead of TwilioStartup couldn't scale; flagship feature broke and they moved to Twilio