How to Make a Highly Successful Mobile App ($0 to $3k in 45 days)
The product ain't special, but it's important.
I've scaled my mobile app to just under $3k MRR in 45 days.
And just under $4k/m in actual revenue!
There's a lot of sauce here that's not been shared.
These tactics are all legit, and will print $$$.
This is everything I know on the mechanics of a successful app.
The First Mechanic: App Store Page.
This is the first impression a user has. And first impressions matter a lot.
Your page has 4 elements.
In order of importance, these are:
1. App Screenshots.
2. Reviews.
3. Name & Subtitle.
4. App Icon.
What makes a good app screenshot? 1. Contrast & Engagement - All examples of high conversion screenshots, you'll notice a "3d effect". - Elements "pop out" from the phone: a chip, a slider, a dialog box. - The user needs to understand your app by glancing at the first image.
2. Good design. - This is subjective, but there are general patterns you can follow! - I covered this in another article. - A great tip is to use AI to enhance your mockups.
3. Colour & Vibrancy. - Humans like pretty things!
Reviews.
Reviews are, in my opinion, the 2nd most important signal.
I often get asked if no reviews is bad. No!
Reviews are just one signal for deciding whether to download an app.
A lack of reviews is not inherently a bad thing.
Only bad reviews are bad.
If your app has below ~4 stars, I'd consider a resetting in an update.
Name & Subtitle.
- This is less important for the product.
- No one really cares what your name is.
- They care about the impact on their life.
However: Your name and subtitle are critical for ASO!
These are the biggest dating apps in the world.
And they ALL use the same keywords:
- Dating, App, Chat, Singles, People, Meet.
Note: There are no repeated words in title & subtitle!
App Icon.
This honestly doesn't matter much, I think.
In the above example, the only good one is Tinder.
The rest are generic & wouldn't be understood alone.
What does a big H mean? or a beehive symbol?
It's more for longer term "brand recognition".
Don't spend too much time on this at first.
The Second Mechanic: Onboarding
Your onboarding should do two things:
1. Convince the user that they have a problem.
2. Convince them that your app is the solution.
Patterns of Success:
This is highly dependent on your niche.
So, the best advice is to do some research!
1. Do not copy the competitor 1:1.
2. Follow their general ideas & improve on them.
3. Roughly 12-13 screens.
- More screens can improve conversion.
- Less reach paywall, but ones that do have higher intent.
- This is a balance and why it's important to measure it.
4. Social proof (if you have it).
5. Include a quiz, but make it frictionless.
6. Use images instead of text.
7. Quiz should not be more than 3/4 screens.
8. Measure the entire funnel with PostHog.
9. You should aim for 75%+ to reach your paywall.
Every screen needs to fight for it's life.
- There should be no fluff.
- Sell the outcome NOT the product.
- This is the most common issue with the founders I work with.
The most creative & magical onboardings worth studying:
1. PrayerLock: A true masterclass of conversion.
2. CalAI: A data driven miracle.
3. Glowly: Looksmaxxing moneymaxxing sauce.
4. Feeld & Hinge: For necessary friction done well.
5. Trading212 & Monzo: Complex apps at scale.
The Third Mechanic: Paywall.
This is where we cash in the persuasion of our onboarding. We have convinced the user they have a problem! And that it can be solved for 7.99 a week (or, 49.99 a year).
This is the anatomy of a high converting paywall.
1. Social proof: Typically at the top. - This convinces the user that they're in good hands. - Others love and use the app, so I will too!
2. Big Title: selling outcome, IMPACT (not the product).
- This is classic lifestyle advertising.
- With B2C, people generally don't care about products!
- They care about how it makes them feel.
3. A "features" area.
- Here, we explain the outcomes of using app.
- Looksmaxxing: "Get face rating" -> "Become a Chad"
4. Pricing.
This will vary on your niche.
Always default to what big competitors are doing.
They have the data, ran the AB tests.
Some general guidelines.
For a hard paywall: - Annual: 49.99, Monthly: 14.99, Weekly: 7.99 - Personally, I would not push yearly above 49.99. - This increases the likelihood of refund requests. - If you have high pricing like this, it's a good idea to localise it. - If your app doesn't deliver, people will be unhappy & refund! - In Europe, there's a 14 day "Right of withdrawal". - This means all refunds are approved, unless you run a usage based app.
For Trials.
A good default can be:
- 49.99/year on a 7 day trial.
- And weekly 7.99, no trial.
You should aim for AT LEAST 3% download to conversion.
This will vary a lot by niche. Healthier is ~5%. Excellent is 10%+.
BONUS: 1. Utilise RevenueCat paywalls. - You can update your paywall without needing app approval. - Change pricing, design, run AB tests to experiment, etc. - However: DO NOT use a non-compliant paywall.
2. Measure your onboarding with PostHog. - This is extremely useful to see where users are dropping off. - This alone will massively increase conversion. - If you're not collecting data to optimise you're missing out.
Fourth Mechanic: The App itself
If you care about longevity, your app should deliver on the promises made. You can moneymaxx, and I personally won't judge you, but in the long run, this is not sustainable and you'll probably feel a little bit bad. You should aim to deliver an excellent user experience, and, in the age of AI, there's really no reason not to: Spend a week building the app, not a weekend.
Some general guidelines:
1. Selling to a core human desire.
- This is spoken about constantly, but it's very important.
- People assume selling to a need = slop app.
- But look at Hinge, it's a beautiful app, and sells intimacy.
- There's no reason your health app can't be beautiful.
- E.g: Delivering value through science-based skin care routines.
- Motivational features, value add, smooth user experience.
- DO NOT copy an app 1:1. Apple will just reject it.
- It's a total waste of time, AND it's not that hard to improve on existing ideas.
Some core human needs:
- health
- addictions
- appearance
- religion
- mental health
- money
- calorie
- intimacy
- learning
2. Utilise the beauty of iOS.
- Liquid glass components look amazing out of the box.
- We can make stunning UIs with little effort.
- Frameworks like Expo are good, but the development experience, and the feeling of native SwiftUI, in my opinion, is unmatched.
- Agents understand SwiftUI quite well, especially OpenAI models.
3. Build iOS only at the start.
- Once your app gains traction, you can make android.
- At the start, you don't know whether your app is going to do well.
- So, your effort is best spent marketing.
- iOS spends massively more, so it's the natural choice,
- But, if you start making 10k/m it's worth spending a week developing an android version, even if it brings in 15% compared to iOS.
4. Don't abandon the product.
- Continue to iteratively improve it.
- Features can improve retention, and retention is money.
- Use logging throughout the app to measure friction.
- Think of cool new ideas that give value to the user.
5. Use an exit offer.
- This is not an abandon checkout offer.
- Although these are potentially allowed in some cases!
- If you implement one: be extremely clear in your app review.
- Let apple decide. I've seen a lot of big apps utilising them.
For the exit offer, specifically:
- This is your "manage subscription" button within the app.
- When the user presses the button:
- Show a questionnaire screen with preset options:
- "Too Expensive", "didn't use", etc & a text input for detailed responses.
- Show them a discounted retention offer.
- 24.99/year can be good.
- Potentially a lifetime offer for the subscription averse.
- Note: lifetime can be tricky in the event of an acquisition!
- If they say no, redirect to the app store as usual.
This has huge ROI, I added this in the past few days and it's retained a bunch of users already! One caveat: if you do 24.99 a year, only give this to users not already on the yearly plan, otherwise you're basically giving them a discount. The other side is this could potentially decrease yearly plan refunds!
6. Send notifications to engaged Users.
If a user has a weekly sub, and they haven't opened the app in 2 months, you're not financially incentivised to remind them of it.
However, that doesn't mean you can't keep engaged users engaged!
So, send notifications based on user activity metadata.
BONUS - App Store Approvals
1. Include videos of your updates.
2. Request a call from apple.
3. Always be VERY CLEAR about what your app does.
4. Never mislead or trick the user.
Apple only cares about the user being happy. If your app misleads, it'll be rejected. It's that simple.
5. Don't try and fight or disagree with them. It won't change anything.
6. Request expedited reviews under exceptional circumstances.
TLDR:
1. Make cracked App Store Page.
2. Optimise & tighten onboarding.
3. Utilise a high converting paywall.
4. Provide value in your app.
