WeWard · B2C · walking rewards app
Pay a PR agency $3-5K a month instead of buying ads
300K downloads in 5 minutes from one TV spot; four years with zero ad spend
Workedpr-launch
What they did
With no money for user acquisition, Yves went to a French PR agency he had worked with at his previous company and asked for its retainer (about 3-5K per month) with the first six months' fees deferred until after six months; the agency agreed on trust. The pitch was easy for mass-market media: an app that pays you just for walking. Seven or eight months after launch WeWard appeared on one of France's biggest prime-time TV shows. WeWard kept the agency for at least five years and spent nothing on Meta or Google for its first four years, growing only on press and organic.
What happened
One prime-time TV segment brought 300,000 downloads in under five minutes (the app crashed). Press months ranged from zero to half a million downloads; the founder says one such month pays the agency for 10 years.
- Stage
- Growth (launch to growth)
- Effort
- 3-5K/month retainer for at least five years
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · How WeWard Hit 20M Users Without Paid Ads — Yves Benchimol, WeWard“Okay, give me for six months and I will pay you the rest, all the bill after six months.”
“Only organic and press, but press is quite free press because basically you spend 5,000 per month, but some months you have zero, but some months you have half a million downloads.”
“it was one of the biggest show in France on prime time. I think it was in less than five minutes, we got 300,000 downloads.”
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More from this episode
- WeWard: Take the PR playbook that worked in France to Italy, Spain and the USWorked in Italy and Spain; flopped in the US despite a top agency
- WeWard: Add in-app ads once you see retention hold after a big traffic spikeAds work well thanks to the large audience; says they pay at ~100K daily users
- WeWard: Promote brands like Nike and Expedia in the app for a cut of salesWorks well; Nike, Adidas, Expedia, Booking.com and Amazon signed on
- WeWard: Add a paid plan that removes ads, after ads and affiliate already workStill a small share of revenue but growing fast
- WeWard: A/B test every feature on steps walked, and don't track time in app
- WeWard: Lock TikTok and Instagram until users hit their walking goalUsers of the feature walk 10% more
- WeWard: Give a famous athlete shares to be the app's face and press voiceHelped press, hiring, CAC and retention; founder says hard to quantify
- WeWard: Put the celebrity's face in ads and onboarding so the app feels localFounder says better ad conversion, lower CAC and higher retention; no numbers
- WeWard: Rebuild onboarding to get users to commit and feel somethingBiggest win of the year: retention and LTV up a lot; unlocked more paid UA
- WeWard: Sell companies step challenges for staff, with charity donationsBiggest fail of the year; couldn't make it work
- WeWard: Keep one app everywhere; swap only the rewards and partner brands per countryLive in 29 countries without local teams
- WeWard: Ask users if blockchain matters; switch to plain points when they shrugUsers happier, engineers relieved; scaling and lag problems gone
- WeWard: Add card collecting with your own characters to keep walkers coming backFounder says retention is the highest it has ever been; no numbers
- WeWard: Move the founder to New York to crack the USSlow first two years; now 'becoming a significant app' in the US