Wordle · B2C · word puzzle game
Show ads in games people play a lot; charge subscriptions for quick-use tools
Ads worked well for his games; founder says ads don't work for tool apps
Workedpricing
What they did
His early games (Wordle, Grid) were monetized with ads because users spent a lot of time in them. For tool apps like Puff Count, where sessions are short, ads don't work, so he uses in-app purchases and subscriptions.
What happened
Ads worked well for the games
- Stage
- Monetization
“Yeah, so there's there's many different ways to monetize apps, and in my first games, I monetized through ads, because people were on the app all the time, they were playing the game a lot, so the ads worked well for Grid and and Wordle.”
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More from this episode
- Puff Count: Check rival apps' revenue, Google Trends and viral TikToks before buildingPicked quit-vaping; the app now makes ~$40K/month
- Puff Count: Turn pencil sketches into a 99designs contest; pay an Upwork developer per finished appBuilt the MVP for under $5K with no coding or design skills
- Puff Count: Log your niche's most viral TikToks, remake one, end with a 2-second plugOne remake got 8.3M views and tens of thousands of downloads
- Puff Count: Turn the TikToks that already did well into Facebook and TikTok adsFounder says the ad algorithms find buyers when the creative is proven; no numbers
- Puff Count: Skip pricey influencers and pay small, overlooked creators for cheap videosBig influencers cost a lot and didn't care about results; small creators cheaper
- Puff Count: Require a free trial signup after onboarding before any feature worksConversion jumped to 20-25%; founder says it changed the business overnight
- Puff Count: Test prices from $4 to $12; keep the one earning most per user
- Puff Count: Ask many questions in onboarding so users feel their problem before payingFounder says his data shows users convert much better; no numbers