Tolan · B2C · AI alien companion app
Start with a 7-day free trial, then tune trial length to limit AI costs
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What they did
Tolan launched with a 7-day free trial and has adjusted trial length and its premium/free offering over time, to avoid free users running up compute costs and churning.
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · 12 AI Growth Lessons for Subscription Apps – Phil Carter, Elemental Growth“Tolan is an example of a company that started with a seven-day free trial and has adjusted its free trial length and its premium offering over time.”
Related topics
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More from Tolan
All 13 Tolan tactics- Hire a group of college-age creators to post lots of TikToks on their own accountsAbout 1 in 20 videos takes off; viral days brought 10-15K installs and #1 in category
- Make videos of people using the app while studying, cooking or getting readyStudying ('up at 3am') took off first; a cooking video got ~10M views
- Soft-launch the app for free to see how people really use itSome users talked 30-40 minutes a day right away
- Make the AI companion a friendly, non-romantic alien instead of a human80-90% of users are women aged 15-25 with normal social lives
- Onboard with a fun voice quiz, then have the app bring answers up laterUsers call it a wow moment; part of what lifted early retention
- Put up a paywall 2-3 weeks after launch to cover AI costsGrowth self-funded; renewals give a clearer product signal than free usage
More from this episode
- Tolan: Quiz new users, match them to an AI friend, then start a voice chatAdvisor credits it as a big part of their success; no numbers
- Tolan: Show a shareable card of how the AI character's personality maps to yoursAdvisor calls it a viral artifact people share; no numbers
- Runna: Target serious runners with training plans that adapt after every runWon the race-training niche; later bought by Strava
- Wispr Flow: Put a small always-visible widget or calendar reminder where users already workGuest now uses voice nearly as much as typing; no company numbers
- StudyFetch: Ship many AI study features fast and show each one on TikTok and DiscordNo results shared
- Runna: Use AI tools to go from tens to 400+ ad concepts a month400+ concepts/month; said to lower CAC and speed up learning
- Film a real person once, then use AI for 30 languages and music variantsAdvisor's standing advice to clients; no numbers
- Photoroom: Show the AI background remover in the first 6 seconds of every adLower CAC, higher conversion; opened Mexico, Brazil and Indonesia
- Gamma: Let the decks and sites users make get shared and show up in searchGrew with very little paid acquisition; valued at $2B+
- Gamma: Use cheaper, faster AI models where the output is good enoughProfitable 6 months after launch; faster product and lower compute costs
- Notion: Get early-adopter creators to post tutorials and templates for your new AI featureDrove organic adoption of Notion AI and better new-user retention; no numbers
- Replace the hard paywall with a free plan plus a 7-day trial of the best version+75% LTV per user (other pricing changes made at the same time)
- Switch from a hard paywall to a free planSubscriber conversion fell 50%+; reverted after a couple of weeks
- Duolingo: Keep AI features in a pricier top plan; give basic users a taste