How a Full-Time Teacher Built a Nearly $1M App Business

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0:17What is up app nation? It is Steve P. Young and this is the YouTube live stream that you want to tune in every Friday because we bring on amazing guests to share their success stories. And unlike other shows, we get into the nitty-gritty details so that you can fully take this like a workshop and execute on your own. And today we're going to go fast because we're on a time limit. But we've got an amazing guest. I am back from Raga the Revenue Cat app growth annual. I got to meet this person in person. In reality, he's built a nearly $1 million business all on the

0:54side because his true passion is being a teacher. He's a full-time teacher turned app developer as well. And he's going to show you how he's been able to get build his Golf GPS app using some ugly ads and the payw wall experiments he's been able to run. So, we're going to do dive into

1:12all that right now.

1:21[music] My man Eric Dofit is right here. Mr. Dofit is here. How you doing, Eric? Doing great. Thanks for having me. Uh, it's it's lunch break. I'm I'm at school right now. My students just walked out of the classroom. We're going to do it live. We got 45 minutes. They'll be back. Um, we'll we'll see if they get to

1:43say hi at the end. Um, but here we go. Is it like uh is it's a high school student, so you get new students every period, right? Uh, yeah. So, actually, we have a a block schedule, so they have 40 minutes of class. They go eat lunch, they come back for the last 40 minutes, so it'll be the same students I just said goodbye

2:00to. Sick, dude. All right. Well, let's not wait any longer. Let's get into this right now. So, Eric, I'm going to let you lead. I'll kind of move the sides along, but yeah. Uh let's let's get into it. Yeah, let's roll. So go ahead. Uh yeah, this is the story. So I guess uh one thing that I wanted to start with was uh basically what's for me overnight success has really looked like. I started building apps in 2015 was when I started learning to code. Um I was selftaught initially. I went to this amazing boot camp called Mobile Makers that actually teaches high school

2:34teachers how to teach app development. So, I attended that in uh 2016 and that was the year I launched the app store and you can see what the the sales looked like. It it was seven straight years of nothing. Uh and then lots of learning, lots of struggling and and honestly giving up and then I had a an idea for a new app. that app is shot pattern and you can see um that almost exactly 10 years later uh it turned in I hit a million dollars in sales and then uh this year it just continues to go forward and now it's uh closer to a

3:12million dollars a year. Wow, congrats man. So you've been doing this since 2016. Is this when it all started? That's that was when the first app hit the app store June of 2016. Um that's amazing. So lots of lots of learning along the way. And so I think yeah, just in in today's day and age there there have been some amazing success story of like Cali did this and other people did that and it seems like if you're not if you're not making it in the first few months like you're a failure. Um but it's taken me a really long time to figure out all the aspects of app

3:39development uh that a person needs to do well if they're going to be on their own and and so I want to make sure other people see that and understand that um it's okay for it to take a while to figure out. I love this slide. I appreciate that. So, thank you for believing this in

3:52there. Yeah. Um, so part of what I didn't have the first time around was product market fit. Um, so this time around I wasn't going to uh spend a ton of time and effort and money like basically putting life on hold to build something. So I launched three weeks after development uh again 2023. I used chat GBT to like copy paste back and forth between the code. But again, I know how to write code, but it was helping me do a few things I wouldn't have figured out on my own. Um, and it the app basically was built with just two features and focused on two features

4:27that nobody else in the else in the golf space had. Um, and that and and basically none of the features that anybody would expect stepping into a golf app. And yet, uh, almost right away it found an audience. And if you go to the next slide, we're going to get into those features. And just so you guys know, Eric is a a

4:46golfer. He does love golf. Yeah, I think yeah, it's a it's a key piece for me. Um, so I guess I'll I'll talk about it here. Um, so one thing that I had struggled with early on was I was building a meditation app for high school athletes. I was a boys golf coach, a girls basketball coach. I coached several future division one players and I watched many of them uh struggle for the first time in their sports which led to this like identity crisis of of am I good enough? um comparing themselves with their peers, tons of pressure from coaches and parents and just like such big

5:25expectations for for who they were supposed to be. Um and I was like I I know that there are tools out there that can help you manage these moments and to be a bit more resilient uh and take ownership. So I I saw the problems firsthand. I'm like this is what entrepreneurship is supposed to be. like you see a problem we're solving that people will pay for and like I am building something that solves a real problem. Well, it took me four or five years to realize that uh high school students didn't see that problem in the same way. Uh essentially they're they're too immature for them to realize that

5:59those problems showing up in their lives are actually mostly their responsibility. And at this stage of life they they mostly see the things that are happening that that are not going their way as as uh the fault of other people. And so they were never looking for a way to fix this challenge in their life. And as I know now too like young people just don't pay for stuff at nearly the same clip as older people. So um it took a long time to figure out like oh uh not like I was not showing up with something that they're ready for. I was going to have to change their behavior

6:37and then convince them that my app was the right one for that behavior. So if you jump back to the slide yeah I will with uh shop pattern for 10 15 plus years this group of thought leaders were already basically inventing the moneyball approach to golf. Um like sports analytics has changed dramatically over the last 20 years and it's changed in golf too. And so between these three people, we basically changed the way we look at statistics. We changed the way we look at golf strategy. Um, and they they kind of invented this game theory optimal way of playing golf. I I imagine that most of the audience is probably more

7:16familiar with board games and you like if you play settle sellers of katan enough, you start to figure out like, oh, these are the right moves to make in order to win the game. Same thing happened in golf. And so they did all the math behind that. And then that um Scott Faucet was basically saying, "Hey, you should go on Google Maps and you should use the measure tool and you should um drag and drop and you should make this plan on Google Maps, Google Earth in order to basically think about how you should uh strategically attack a golf hole." I started doing that and um

7:51I thought it was really cool and fun and addicting, but then because I'm ADHD, I would get to the golf course and like, "Oh, I didn't write any notes. I forget all the things. Something changed. Uh I need to bring that tool with me to the course. Uh so that's that's basically what I built. I built a way for when I'm on the golf course to kind of measure sideways so that I could see strategy in real time and understand basically the best place to aim uh while while golfing. Um and it was like I said super rudimentary, so bare bones. Um, I don't think I could launch that in 2026 and

8:29get the same sort of like traction just because expectations have risen so much. But, um, that's what it was at the start. I love it. And I love that you it just kind of makes sense, right? It's like one of those things that like why go to Google like I love the idea, but there's got to be a better way to do this versus going on Google Maps, remembering how to do it, maybe even printing it out. Like, you know what I mean? And back in the day, Eric, I used to print out Map Quest like directions. And so it's like, yeah, it makes sense. Like, we're already

8:58doing it. So to kind of make it into an app form is perfect. Yeah. And I didn't I honestly I didn't think that there was a big market for this. I thought it was such a small TAM that this would never go anywhere. So this wasn't like brilliant foresight on my part. Um, but now that it like things have taken off, I can see like, oh, this was the predecessor to why this audience was so hungry and ready and I had no convincing to do that this app was different and better for

9:25for the solution they wanted. Lesson learned from the kids meditation app. I love it, dude. Um, so when I first launched, my second kid was on the way. I had just decided to stop coaching basketball because I needed to be home more. Um, and then because I am who I am, like I immediately like like oo another another way to fill my time. Um, and my goal was to make $1,000 that summer to pay for some golf so I could let go of the guilt of like having this expensive hobby. Um, and given my previous experience, that was a a pretty lofty goal. And sure enough, by like the end of June, it was

10:02at $1,000 in revenue. I was like, "Oh, like this is like I can this is different than anything that's come before." Like I I I can feel the resonance. I can tell that people want this. All I'm doing is basically sending out tweets and jumping in conversations on Twitter. And when people see it, they're like happy to sign up. And then I'm getting these direct messages, some of which I posted on the screen, um, about how much they really love it and and basically encouraging me to build more on top of what was there. And, uh, my wife is like shaking her head and like, ah, not this again. Like, really,

10:39are we doing this again? Um, and she was kind of like, be serious with yourself. Is this a hobby or is this a business? Uh because for seven years there was like this promise that one day all of this effort and sacrifice and time away from her, time away from family was going to pay off in some way. Um and it just looked like I was like taking time away to do something I liked but but didn't have

11:04any real bones to it. Um so I yeah, obviously I I said, you know what, this is a business and here's why. And and I attribute a lot of that to I'm seeing the signs that this is worth my time. Uh I'm not working overly hard to get a little bit of revenue. People are downloading. They're paying. Um this is

11:27working. So let's let's push it further. I love it. And so I in order to take the the next step, I had to pay $5,000 upfront to buy some golf course data uh to purchase an API. And that that was like uh an unfathomable amount of money. Again, I just wanted to make a little bit um so I could justify playing golf. And then I turn around and like, "Oh, great. Now I'm four grand in the hole just because I wouldn't pay a hundred bucks for 18 birdies or somebody else's app." I'm like, "You you truly are a fool. Like just just do the easy thing." Um so I

12:03buy that golf course data. I I start using it for my first intended purpose and I look through the documentation of all that it provides and I discovered that it provided um functionality that allow me to take it even further. Um and so uh basically I started building this feature when I was halfway through and building it. I decided to throw this teaser out on X as a tweet and uh again it wasn't necessarily an advertisement but it it took off like an ad like hey I'm I'm like almost build in public

12:41although I don't really do much of that. It was like here's a feature that's coming like I try to be a little bit uh risque with saying like hey this would be highly illegal uh if you try to use it during play. Um, but it like thinking back to Mark Brody in a book that he wrote in the '9s, he's like, "The way we figure out the game theory optimal way to play golf is to basically imagine hitting a thousand shots on a golf course and then do the math about what each one of them are worth." Well, I realized that I could do that inside the

13:15app. Um, and and so again, people were already warmed up to like this is the right way to think about it. And then I showed up with an app experience that did exactly that. Not based on some generic data, but based on that golfer's specific data plus the course that they were traveling to. So you hit on something there. Yeah. Go

13:35ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Um and yeah, and so it resonated. It took off. It was like my first tweet with any sort of virality. Um that's sick. And it it it landed in in a handful of the the right hands to fuel the next steps. Yeah. And so much so that you got an offer. Yeah. So that's my daughter on the day she was born. Um the reason why she's in that picture is because Yeah. somebody

14:01found the app because of that tweet. They used it. They won a professional golf tournament and then they reached out pretty quickly thereafter and said, "Hey, we love it. Um we we just put your features on our road map and then we saw that we what you've built um is pretty good. So rather than build it ourselves,

14:19uh we just like to buy yours. And we went back and forth, back and forth, and I had like um I was so humbled that they were interested. It was more money than I thought I would ever make from this project. Um so on one hand, it seemed like, well, of course, I should do this because um like this is just an easy locked in win. At this point, I think I had done about two grand in lifetime revenue. Um, so lifetime profits are are negative. Um, but there are there Yeah, I guess there's just a little bit of sales behind this. And I was pretty sure that

14:59I was going to take this step and and say yes to the offer. interesting. But they asked me to kind of put together a deck of the the tech stack and any other like uh user metrics and other things that they could I could share with them so that they could understand exactly what they were buying. Um and I have a finance background so I was already familiar with like usually if you're going to like have an acquisition it's the main way to think about it is a multiple of profits. Um, and maybe if you don't have profit yet, a multiple of revenue. It's like, well, I like multiplying my

15:35revenue and profit times anything is going to lead to like such a low valuation that I've got to find a different way to spin what this is worth. Um, so I I had just listened to the podcast with Revenue Cat's state of subscription maps report. I go to the report, I look at the benchmarks, I look at my numbers in Revenue Cat, and I'm

15:55like, trial start rate 99th percentile. trial conversion rate 99 percentile like download to paid. I'm like it was like this love it or list it moment where I'm like oh like I know the dollar amounts are small right now but this is something this is converting like crazy. Um there's probably a lot more to this than than I can really uh understand right now. And so, uh, they initially, our first phone call was supposed to be

16:28on like the hour my daughter was born. So, I had to email them at midnight the night before our first conversation, like, "Hey, I'm going to be busy tomorrow. Let's, uh, let's push it back if we could, please." Yeah. Um, and so eventually I said no uh to the 75K. I was riding high for for a little bit and then if you flip the slide um I I like it got cold outside, my monthlies are cancelling. I'm doing my taxes and I'm realizing like, oh my goodness, like I had a great year for me and I made some money. Um, but I made $1,000 in

17:05profit and I turned down 75,000. And at this rate, it's going to take me 75 years to recoup the money that I said no to. Yeah. Um, and not only that, but they basically said, "If you don't sell it to us, we're just going to build it." So, and then they kind of let the silence hang like, "If you don't sell it, we're going to come steamroll you." And like, "We're coming. So, don't be on the

17:31tracks when the train's coming through. Um, and so I had this sense of like dread and panic that I had basically six months to get that 75 grand before I was out of business. Um, did they ever launch? So, they um, basically no, they've never built what they said they were going to build. It didn't turn out to be true. So, which is so interesting. Um, but anyway, like

17:59at that point I was at $39.99 a year. Um, I knew that I had to like be able to run paid ads. I had learned somewhere along the lines that, hey, paid ads really only work if you're charging at least 75 a year. And so I was like, my thought process was, how can I add so much value to my users? What feature or features can I add that a $75 price point is truly

18:25fair? and they're like happy to pay it. Um, golfers have money and they're they're like the the category is popular. So, it was really just trying to understand um the value prop and I have such limited time. I have a newborn. I have a job. I need to focus and go all in on not on the fun and interesting but the truly valuable to my target market. Um, so I built some some shot tracking features um that for me were the obvious next step. Um, I was up at 4:30 in the morning before the baby was awake. I took some videos looking just haggarded and tired. Um,

19:01yeah, Eric, this is not for you, okay? This is for this is for your daughter, okay? This that comment [laughter] was not was not for this slide. Okay. Oh, yeah. No, the the the Q the key with the heart that is not for me. No, no. Um, so again, I guess this is here to like I was deeply thinking about my audience and who the app was for and trying to make sure I really understood them. Um, and so I I built the next feature and then I I get to a point like, "All right, the features live. I got to run some paid ads because again,

19:31I have this number in my head that I have to get to to like make sure I don't have this regret of not selling." Um, so if you go to the next slide, I will. Eric, I want to take a second here because I think there's a couple of things I want to hit on too and I want to make sure we're good on time, but one, you saw signals. Like I think through the years of failing, like we go back all the way to this slide. Through the years of failing, for me, it was the same thing like signals. You start seeing signals because before you don't

19:59have signals, you just have optimism. And so now you have signals that something is here, right here for this, like people are already talking about it. I'm making my app easier. You're starting to get traction. So here, while you're still unprofitable, you're starting to see signals that ultimately led to an offer. And then the other thing is that nothing motivates you more than having kids, man, because you just want to spend more time with them. My son's off in college now, and all I want is just more time with him. But that is such a great motivator. And so why did you end up going with Oh, shoot. I lost

20:32my camera, but I'll come back. You guys can still hear me. Why did you decide ads versus like what indies, some indies will do when they want to go with ASO? as an example. Yeah. Um, wrong. So, I, um, just so you know, I remember like holding my daughter, feeding her a bottle. I'm listening to the AppMasters podcast, like soaking it all in. Um, like early early days. Uh, didn't know that this world exists. like, oh, I should have been learning this the whole time and I would have saved myself so much heartache and headache of not knowing the business of apps and and all of these things that I should have been

21:08thinking about and measuring and testing. Um, so thank you. Uh, you played a role in this uh passively and and happy to finally meet. Um but ASO didn't work because some of the oldest highest revenue genating revenue generating apps uh in the the entire app store are golf GPS apps. Uh I think Golf Shot has been around for 10 plus years. I I think they were there year one like when you could put an app in. Uh I probably bought Golf Shot in the first two years that it was on the store. And so um just they're so

21:45entrenched. There's so much money. they're doing so well that I still haven't figured out how to get ASO to work. Um, and the other piece was um those people that are going to the app store to search for a some generic term, there's not enough of them thinking like, oh, I need an app for this, those people exist in a different forum, in a different place. And so, um, it ju it just wasn't a good match of where is my audience? How how am I going to make sure my audience knows that I'm here

22:15with a solution that they really want? Love it. Love it. All right. Here are the ads. Yeah. So, um I know that I need some to make some video ads. I tried uh some static ads first. It didn't go anywhere. And then I'm like, "All right, like making creative videos is not my strong suit. Let's be let's be real about what I can and can't do." Uh my wife gave me a little like, "Are you sure that should be you?" I'm like, "Oh, I see what you're like, "All right, somebody else on camera." Um, so I I found this creator that I liked, uh, said, "Hey,

22:49would love to get an app." So that the first one on the left, creator UGC, he does this like play this hole with me style. Um, like plays the hole, does a screen overlay, all good. Uh, I found this guy on Tik Tok. Uh, his name is Speed Golf Rob. He like he doesn't look like a golfer and part of maybe that's why he goes viral on Tik Tok. He had been featured in Golf Digest. his videos were like getting served to me over and over again on on TikTok again. Lots of engagement, lots of views. He has this like just super unique and like eye-catching style. And so I had reached

23:25out to him and we went back and forth and he's like, "Hey, if you if you pay for me to go play in this golf tournament, I will make an ad about how I'm using your app to prepare to play in the golf tournament." Um and again his shtick is looking a a bit homeless and but then like talking about golf in this certain way. Um but he he had hundreds of thousands of followers. Uh has he again tons of engagement on a typical video and like I thought for sure spreading the word through him was going to be like the ticket. Uh but then I

23:59only had two videos. I'm like, "Well, I've heard that you got to have at least three creatives in the ad set to give it a chance to run." So, I went to my basement. I spent like 30 60 minutes um putting together this like screenshot voice over. You can see I didn't even like do it on QuickTime to get the

24:16screen recording tool out of the top. You can see the red dot there. Um I there's a there's a mistake there in terms of I say the wrong number, but again, I'm in a hurry. I just want to get it out there. I publish anyway. And um I do you remember how much I guess you're going to send you're going to show us how much we spend but how much did you

24:35put on per day? What do you remember? Yeah, I think 300 a day because I had heard that basically if you don't spend 10 grand a month um then it's just not going to get to the right like it's not going to get out of learning. So I was willing to basically spend the few thousand I had to to take a crack at this and I because but because I knew that people were converting. I knew that the trial start rate, the trial conversion rate, the conversion paid, like all of that was working really well. So, it was ready to try to put fuel on the fire. I

25:06don't think you can just jump to paid ads of like, oh, this is going to be my secret to success. I already had the data that said it's converting, get more people to see it. I love it. Clip that up. H, remember that. All right, let's get So, yeah. So, here's the results. Uh again, if you've run meta ads, you know that uh it basically picks a favorite and dedicates most of the spend to that. And so um 80 90% of the spend went to the one that I made in my basement that to me looked like a piece of garbage and I had no

25:39idea. Wow. Uh again, in the end it was $157 an install. I know early days it was under a dollar. Um, and I was just like rubbing my eyes in disbelief, like checking my dashboard in the morning like, "Wait a second, what?" And it's it's that one. Um, and you can see the one that I thought was my home run winner because this guy was a person with influence did nothing. It wouldn't serve it to anybody. Um, it just it

26:06didn't resonate in the same way. And um, yeah, it just was a it just blew my mind. So, go ahead. Was it just an insult campaign? Is that why you have the insults in there? Yeah, so it was just an install campaign. I didn't even have things set up to like send trial start signals back. I was struggling to get like that part of the integration going. Um, so I just said optimize on

26:28installs and and let's go. And I remember you telling me, you know, stop me. But you did tell me that it worked, right? Like the people were buying just with an install campaign. Yes. And I I think I have a slide here. Uh, okay. So, I mean, yeah. I don't know if if you want to let this run, but I put the like actual video in there. You can let it

26:49run for five or 10 seconds. Hey, shake your head up and down if you can hear the audio. Okay. I feel like most golfers could use a little help understanding strokes gained. And so, I want to show you how you can use shot pattern in order to better understand what kinds of shots gain strokes and lose strokes and how much. So, I've got a 430 yard par4 here uh for a scratch player that'll play to a scoring average about of about 4.5 strokes. You can see that in the top right corner. But even more than that, you can see that a 270 yard drive down the middle will gain you about a quarter

27:20of a stroke. A shot hit into the rough uh of that distance still gains some strokes. However, if you hit it into the bunker, you're going to be losing strokes to scratch. It says about 0.5 strokes, which is the same as only hitting your T-shot about 230 yards. So, if you want to make better decisions and learn about riskreward, try out shot pattern so you can see strokes gained

27:46before you hit the shot. That's brilliant. You know, Eric, when you were talking, I was like looking up here and I was trying to find where you were talking about with the gains. And then I think that's why the ad works really well because you're obviously showing off everything that the app does, but then for me, I was just like, where is this shock gain stuff? And it

28:02was like literally right in the center. So, it got me engaged. It kept me engaged. Um, yeah. And again, it's just like essentially I'm it's a tutorial for how the app works. Um, again the hook at the beginning is here's a concept that maybe some people find confusing or or those who know it want to validate that they are knowledgeable about golf and then really um I think the thing that made a difference was like uh it was an intriguing concept that again my core audience they saw the the line going side to side. They they saw the ability to measure what a better decision looks like in

28:40real time. So, it was just like showing them the things that they were already thinking about and wanting to do. And um I was trying to hit play again. Whoops. This is what happens when you just share everything. But yeah, it's it's very nerdy, too. Like it is where is definitely. [laughter] Yeah. Um so yeah, nothing special. Again, you can hear like thumps and clicks in the background. Like so many amateur things

29:08of that ad. I love it. That's why it works. All right. All right. How are you in time? Because it's we got 15 minutes before your kids come back. So, yeah, I think we're we're right on pace. Okay. Good. Yeah, we're right on pace with uh some of the slides here and couple concepts.

29:22So, I think we're I think we're good. Again, uh I would hope that I can do my lesson plan and time it out and just be really thoughtful given that's my main job. That's true. [laughter] My bad. Go away then. So, um, I think, yeah, again, I think most of your audience probably already understands this math, but when I first started listening, I didn't I didn't know these terms. I didn't know this this ratio that's kind of like the golden ratio of is is paid ads going to work for you? And um, paid ads works and becomes this magic money machine when you can spend a

29:56dollar and make more than a dollar. And so, here I am. I see like, oh, my cost to acquire a customer is about $1.50. I know that within 30 days, those customers are going to spend four or five dollars. Like, oh, wait a second. Um, how many dollars do I want to spend on this on this math problem? I guess I want to spend infinity dollars until it stops being true. So, my wife is sitting on the couch one night. I go to her like, "Honey, uh, just so you know, like tomorrow I'm gonna go to the bank and I'm gonna get a line of credit." She's

30:26like, "You're gonna do what?" Like, "No, no, no, no." Like, let me explain this to you. When I spend $1, $4 comes back within eight days. And I just I need to keep that alive and keep that going for as long as possible. I can see that I'm about to run out of money uh here pretty soon. Uh so, I need to just like have some some like cushion until I get paid by Apple because this is working. It's not a it's not a gamble. Like, I can watch it work. I can turn it off the stop the second it stops working. Um so, I spent as much as I could. I got a I

30:58end up getting a like a interest free credit card and spent it up. It was the end of golf season as I figured this out. And so I I had like a hit it hard in July and August and then turned it off and and walked away with um in like net income $100,000 that summer and like like weightlifted like holy cow. I did it like even if they crush me next year like it's still a win. Um I that's your kids they're outside the door. [laughter] Uh and so from there I just have tried to continue like thinking about what works, why does this work, how can I

31:41keep leaning on these lessons I've learned? And so I tried a number of different things marketing and I think they all come together to to like help me build a successful app. I advertise on podcasts. I I play pay creators and influencers to share about the app. Um, a lot of it gets cross-osted on my page. I have a YouTuber that I uh like gave the app to and now I pay him to embed content. Uh but in the end the stuff that comes to performance marketing where I want to spend money on meta, I want to push it to people and I want to get installs and d and trials and

32:20conversions have been ugly ads. Uh a lot of and I'll share this on the next slide. Uh you can see 1.8 million views, 1.3 million views. Uh that's not organic virality. That is me putting in the adset saying spend $500 a day. uh and meta finding that that these are the ones that are converting best with my audience. Um so there's two things that have really been what I see as the reason why these are working. Um number one, it comes back to I'm in the audience. I know my audience really well and I I everything I do inside the app is for them. It's in

33:01service of them. It's often things that they're just asking me for. I'm like, "Yeah, that does match with with what I want this to be and who it's for. Um, I'll build that now for you." And so I I build the everything is centered around like trying to deeply understand that intended customer profile, ICP. And um so then I just grab one of those features that I recently built. I I often just do the first thing that comes to mind um and then just like clip it up and and go. And so, um, and and very purposefully make something that is designed not to be like look

33:41like the other ads that they're seeing, some sort of other variation on a style and something um to hopefully get their attention and that combination has worked for me. Love it. Clip that up. H, that's great. Okay, so um 10 minutes here to talk about some payw wall surprises and experiment surprises and onboarding surprises. Um should have just enough time. And so um over the summer I hired a contractor who had extensive experience uh as like working in the golf industry and running uh product management elsewhere, not in the app

34:22space but in other spaces within golf. And so he helped me develop uh more of a experimental mindset around where are the places where we might be able to pick up some easy gains. So we started running paywall experiments and it and basically these three experiments that we ran together is like shorter shorter shorter. Uh so the payw wall was stripped down to what felt like to me almost nothing. Um I tend to to overdo it but and so he's like you got to you got to get rid of all these words. You

34:53got to make it simpler. make it simpler. And every time we made it simpler, the trial start rate went up and up and up and up. But if you advance to the next slide, [laughter] my bad. Um, that's all right. Um, I was looking at the other metrics in there. I'm like, oh, well, like, yeah, the the winning payw wall did have a higher trial start rate, but the trial conversion rate was lower. The LTVs were lower. Uh, are we sure that um that we're defining winning

35:27in the right way so you can advance it? Uh, so we're on we're on Slack going back and forth like hey like I'm seeing this. I think we're optimizing for the wrong thing and and he comes back if you advance like you know I don't think we're like anybody is thinking about the payw wall when they decide to cancel the trial or not cancel the trial. It's like

35:47that actually okay that makes sense. like I know I care about the payw wall, but they're probably not thinking about it. But I still couldn't get out of my head that um I feel like part of what made the payw wall work in the beginning was like I just like made it so long. I littered it with features. I wanted to like Oh, not not that one. Like that's

36:08the the short one. This is So this is the new one. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. where I got back to like what had worked in the beginning where it was just like list and list and list of features. I wanted a person to feel like there was so much there that they were like if I see the one feature I want and then there's all this other stuff too like that feels like a great deal. Um so I added back the image, the feature description, the the like an extra line of social proof, a six-month package option for for uh like some price anchoring. And my contractor was like,

36:40"Hey, like I saw you made this payw wall. I'm pretty sure it just like goes right in the face of everything that we've learned in the last three experiments. I'm like, "Yeah, well, it's my company. I want to do it." So, we ran it. And if you go to the next slide, trial start rate dropped. Uh we saw So, we saw this 12% drop from 21 to 18. Um, and but when measuring the thing that I actually care about, which is like does it turn into dollars, the uh variant D is the one you're looking at, the longer pay wall was significantly better than that first one I showed, the one that had

37:20become our winning variant where shorter was better. Uh, this one that at the purchase decision, I think, again, I'm just guessing. I've not interviewed my users, but I think um the it just feels more thorough. It feels higher quality. It feels like there's more that a person is purchasing or maybe it reassures them

37:43better. Yeah. Um, and again, I think it's available on YouTube now, but at Raga, the ex uh CPO of Tinder was like there's this equation of like time to value and trust and like how much do you need to build a person up of like reassuring them about their purchase and I think that's what this is

38:01hitting on. Love it. Okay, so last experiment and then we can uh maybe have a question or two. Um, so again I was looking at my onboarding like ah my onboarding is so so bad and amateur I need to make it better. So I went through I looked at a whole bunch of app screens. It's like this is what everybody else is doing in their onboarding. I built this onboarding just like all the other apps with social proof and ask for the AT prompt and ask for permissions and like like drop in these hints about features and like personalized setup all this stuff. Um, and as I look at the numbers, like every

38:36screen just had a little bit little bit little bit of drop off. Um, and it was like creating a situation where in the end I was getting a lower install to just like sign up rate than ever before. And so if we go ahead one, um, my contractor again, we're working together on this and he's like, I think it's too long. Um, and again I every day I I sit in front of people like, well, is it too

39:04long or is it too boring? And and so maybe it's not the number of screens, maybe we need to just like have a different approach to onboarding than what is commonplace. And so rather than screen screen screen, I um was finally able to build this onboarding I pictured like from years ago where it's more of an immersive experience of like this is how the app works. You're going to interact with the onboarding. You're going to learn how to to use the app and think in the way that you need to think to

39:39uh to make this app worth it for you. And sure enough, 8% bump in uh signups, 19% in trial starts and but then so now uh so that so if you just go back one um this is the new onboarding instead of like screen screen to screen it is like interactive tutorial all the way through. Uh, and it just basically teaches you like, all right, this is how you're going to use the app once you're in there. And right away there is a

40:09lift. Uh, but still like there's a certain point in this where I'm noticing like big drop off at this particular point in time. If you go one uh forward one more, did I go back? Yeah, you went backwards. So like I'm noticing right at this point when I like basically you did tutorial part one. Now we need to show you a different situation. Here's tutorial part two. Um, I ran I'm running a new experiment and it turns out that you're good. Um, that trying to shorten it and eliminate like the part two where I was seeing this big drop off, you can go to the results

40:48[clears throat] now. Uh, really hasn't made a significant difference in the trial conversion. So, a little bit of bump in signup rate. we go from 70 to 74 like people make it through the onboarding and actually create an account but as we get further down the funnel um while there is a small difference there um uh the Firebase tool is saying hey the difference you're seeing is not at statistical significance yet so like don't make any decisions based on these numbers we we got to let it run for longer so even after 9,000 users going through this experiment it's basically a wash uh that point of drop off. Just getting

41:29rid of that situation didn't fix the the problem of getting more conversions. So, again, uh I feel like lessons on both sides and um it's it's been super helpful to just build in this this way of experimenting now that I have enough users coming through the top of the funnel that there's data to get

41:48from it. Well, congratulations, Eric. Thank you. There it is. It is shot pattern in the app store on your Google Play in beta in beta and then available on the app store as well. Congratulations. And you already started implementing this header photo as well. All right, Jennifer, got to meet her. How did you calculate

42:10the 75 annual number? Um, yeah, it was really just a like I looked at the market. I looked at what everybody else was charging. I saw that the top of the market was 99. I knew I still had a lot to build in order to like have the app feel more finished. So, I went for a number um that basically was kind of middle of the top of the market, but I had basically been told in the sub club chat like, "Hey, if you're not charging 75 a year, uh at least this amount, then paid marketing will never work. So, you have to get to this

42:43number." And um that's part of why I picked it. Like, all right, that's the number. I will figure out how to put enough value that I can charge that number. Okay. All right. What can be the reason for these drop offs? What do you think? Um, one it like depending on when a person downloads the app, uh, if they download it on the first tee, uh, they're looking to like immediately start using something and so it's not set up for them to like just grab and go. Um, but also like my app is intentionally not for all golfers. And so if a person starts getting into it

43:19and like, oh, like, whoa, this is this is probably more advanced than I am as a golfer, they're not my audience. And I, right, I want to continue to let that person walk away because by making it not for them, I am very much making it for my people, for my audience. And as a side hustler like business of one, I can afford to have a small TAM. Uh I know you like to say riches are in the niches and and so I'm like I am so focused on just serving my competitive audience as well as I can. I'm not willing to sacrifice that to try to grab a more

43:58casual golfer. I love it. All right, Eric's got to go. So let's get into the dad joke because he has a slide for that. I'm going to hit that and then we're going to let him do his thing. [music] All right, Eric, I'm gonna let you. There you go. Uh, all right, Steve. Uh, by the way, I love this segment. And my kids got me a coffee mug that has a scannable QR code with uh dad jokes on it. So, I I get to look at that every day. Uh, but these these two I think are my own. If I stole them from somewhere,

44:29then I apologize for thinking my own. This is clearly your own, my friend. [laughter] Um, so what is a pirates's favorite app metric? R. Oh [laughter] there it is. I love it. Eric, I got a golf joke for you. Here it is. Eric, why are golfers terrible at keeping secrets? Because they always spill the tea. There it is. All right. Put Eric E if you thought Eric's joke was better. put

45:01s if you thought my joke was better. Eric thinks he confidently thinks he won this and I should have paid him for the drinks at Raga. But Eric, I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy day to do this. Your students should be so fortunate and

45:15lucky to have you as a teacher. Congratulations on all your success, my friend. It looks like you did win. There's a lot of ease coming in. [laughter] So great way to start off post lunch. Thanks for skipping your lunch for us and then sharing all this insights with these beautiful slides. And yes, we will say you were cute as well, Eric. Okay. [laughter] No, that's for my daughter. She's the cute one. Um, yeah, Steve, thank you. It was amazing to meet you at Raga and loved uh having a chance to chat and I just appreciate all you do for the the app community. I mean, there's there's

45:51hopefully people like me um out there listening that are going to figure out how to take all the lessons you learn and the guests you have on and build something uh life-changing. So, thanks for all you do. Uh I love listening. Um I I'm always listening and yeah, so thank you. I appreciate you, man. All right, man. Have a great rest of the day. I'll see

46:12you next week. Sounds good. Bye. [laughter] All right, that is it with Eric. I'm going to go into the app audit side of it, but I do want to take a quick little break to thank our sponsor, Web Two Wave. One Webb to apply building a single building a single web services.

46:43You can use no code yourself payment integration payment integrations creative creative generation built either way you launch faster more of your revenue go

47:07the number two wave.com that guy is so good like literally oh my god All right, guys. We've got this app here from Oh, Denise. This is Denise's app. Denise is somebody that was formerly in our app founders community. She wants the help on the subscription and signup flow. And so, Eric, I'm going to get into the app as well, but Eric gave some advice for you, Denise, and I'll kind of pull that up first. So, super competitive category app needs to be positioned more clearly against alternatives. Why is this app over Why this app over the 100 options? Love that the fonts are so small, so spacing is

47:45off. Use more of the white space. And this is what he's talking about during the onboarding. I'll kind of go through the onboarding as well. Fillable fields aren't set up to prompt me for my stored information like name and email. You might, and this is what Robbie said at the Raga, if you guys caught his live stream presentation, but he was really talking about how email fields like

48:06password fields are a barrier to entry. And so what he was saying is like there's no reason to ask people for password anymore. If you for Tinder, they just ask for email or phone number and then if they have the right phone number, you can input this little, you know, text code that they could put in. And so they saw way better results and dates when they remove the need to set up a sign up a not a sign up, but like a password field. And then every box is checked on the payw wall confusing how to select a pan and start a plan. So right here, this is you might want to

48:41clean that up as well, Denise. This plan and just like Eric did. I mean, golf was super competitive, right? I would for this type of thing. Look, my philosophy, and this is what Eric said as well, is he knew his numbers before he started running paid ads. So he felt confident that he could spend $300 a day and be like, I'm good. I'm good. And so I don't agree with him on the 75 number. I know he got that from the sub club, maybe the Slack club, the Slack channel, but because I've heard from other, like look, I've talked to a lot of founders that charge like $20 a year and been

49:14able to succeed just fine. So I don't think you need to be at that $75 an annual plan, but obviously the LTV matters a lot more. And so just do the math on that. And I'll kind of put up pull up a spreadsheet that I like to run. And I like what Eric said where Denise he took a like a pretty competitive category of golf and took his own spin on it. And so what is this meditation spin that is your or in meditation space as your spin on it? You know what is your unique? What makes this app unique above all the other meditation apps besides just trying to

49:51relieve stress? Okay. App category is way too competitive right now for this to go to eight months without an update. needs constant improvement and I know she's having problems with her developers. Well, I don't know actually I shouldn't have said that but anyways the so think about updating the app a little bit more but this is a very very competitive space Denise and I do have the app installed and just when I have

50:13the app done I kind of went with that. Okay. Jeez Louise. Let's just go with Eric's stuff. So I kind of agree with everything that Eric said and then let's move on to V Vignish's comments as well. All right, let's see. Reverb. What's the reverb? Did I have a We still love yeast. Okay, thank you.

50:39All right. Uh, this is not working, man. Some I need a I need a better way of showing my phone. There it is. Okay. I think those are that's great feedback and I will kind of just move on to the next app from Vic Nish. So, that was Denise's app called Relax. Now, this is your moment to pause. And maybe Denise, you know, you want to target women and you want to target women in a specific age group and that's who it's really meant for versus just trying to be meditation for everybody, right? And I know you went after EFT, Reiki, Keong. And so like maybe lean in on one of these

51:19segments, the Reiki segment, the Keong Keong, if I'm saying that right, segment a little bit more than just trying to be like relax now. Like maybe be the Reiki now versus relax now. That would be sort of the examples I would use, too. Okay. You played the sponsor ad twice, so there was an echo. Did I? H, did you

51:38hear that, too? Oh, maybe it was coming through my computer because I was sharing my computer screen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see. My bad on that, guys. Thanks, Joe. Sorry. Well, it's like a cool effect. Okay, Joe. All right, Vignish, it says overall user experience for his screenshot capture app. Now, for this screenshot capture app, I actually use an app called forgot what it's called, but I love this app and it was just a one-time paid app, and I really wanted to buy it because I was like, you can probably charge a subscription on this because I truly love this app. Oh, fudge, I forgot. Oh, yeah. It's called I'll

52:17figure out what it's called, but it's a very interesting category. It's very niche category that I like. And maybe the per the founder is like, hey, I have tried subscription doesn't work and lifetime offer works better, but I'm going to download your app as well and I'll kind of give you feedback on Eric's feedback as well. Scapture,

52:37let's see if my app works. Oh, it's Pix Sue, I think. Pick you. Pick. It's like stitching pictures together. Picture Stitch. Dang, I don't know what this app ranks for. Okay, let's get into this app. Not a big deal. I can't give up on it. Okay, Eric said, "Oh, he had a different dad joke." Okay, I'll give him this sec. Why did the Butter app struggle to scale? Why did the butter apps struggle to scale? Too

53:23much churn. Dang it. Uh, all right. Great joke. Website looks great. Lots of polish. Solid de product demos. Had great expectations after seeing it. I don't understand why of why I need to create screenshots. Maybe I'm not the ICP, but I want the answer to so that to create and capture beautiful screenshots effortlessly. I might. I mean I think people know screenshots so I think that's good but now I mean it's a visual app Vignish and then you need to really get on the visuals if this is the onboarding process like it's a little it's lacking in the the design element of it especially for a you know a design

54:11type of app. So really focus on the design of it. reminders on the second screen as has no context doesn't seem necessary. How do I benefit? Yeah, asking for reminders might just be like too much and too early. So, and I wouldn't ask it this way. I would just say like, "Hey, pop it up. Our app wants

54:30to stay free to support the ads." Okay. I don't think you need to rely on ads. I think again, think about a lifetime plan that you can get people there. again. I Oh, it's on probably this phone that I use it a lot on. What is this app that I love so much? Oh, yeah. Here it is. Okay, I'll I'll show you guys. Seeing the ad pop up at the bottom during onboarding and then as soon as I start creating feels very cheap. Agreed with you. The product demo on the website overall the Yeah. So, everything looks good. I'll go into the app itself, but I would try to do uh a

55:06lifetime plan versus trying to, you know, just do ads. So, this is the app that I love, Pixu, and I've already paid for them, but this allows me to stitch photos very easily. And then I did buy the app as well, so check it out. I think it's super well done, by the way. And it allows you to just stitch different photos, like longer photos together. So, super niche, but I absolutely love the app. And I'll kind of pull it up for you

55:36guys and give them a a free plug. Go screenshot stitching again. Look again. Beautiful visuals. App of the day. Look at this. Come on, Vignish. Like, this is just beautiful. So, you kind of get what the app does. Whereas if I'm going to pull up yours real quick it like I like this but then once you're in the app like it looks not as great as

56:10these screenshots. This is just I get it you know I get it right away. So all right let's get into your app. Enough plugging the other apps. Like Steve, what the hell? Get started. Yeah. See, again, this is a I agree with Eric. This is a design app. What are you hitting me with this for? What? You

56:36don't need this, bro. Don't allow. Again, I don't care about you staying free. Show me a payw wall first and then hit me with this like after a couple of times of going through this. So, honestly, like I would hit him with the payw wall. I don't like this. Try a lifetime plan and a yearly plan and that's it. You know, I used to say that three plans were better than two. I think this is fine, but I wouldn't do monthly. I would just do weekly, but I would just lean in on maybe yearly and

57:05lifetime or just one time use, right? Like, hey, one time use, cool, done, right? I would play around with that a little bit more than what you have. I think weekly will do better. You want to do three-day, weekly, and then yearly, and then lifetime. And lifetime, I would just make it 1999. And I would show this payw wall. And only after I start stitching here, I'm just going

57:29to start stitching. I don't even know. I don't what what is this for? Like, is this for app developers to create screenshots? If that's the case, I think it's just too niche for you to go after this market. So, Vignesh, if this is truly for app developers, this is where I would love to be like, "Hey, we're going to do this. We want to keep this free, so we're going to show you an ad." I'm

57:52like, "Fine, I'll watch it or upgrade." Like, allow me to do that versus just saying, "Hey, we want to keep this free. I'm going to show you ads." No, allow me to do that. Do you want to upgrade or do you want to watch this ad? Might be a good way to sort to do this.

58:06Oh, okay. I see what you're saying. Yeah. I don't What's the point of this? I don't know what the point is. screenshots of what is it just import is it like JPEG to PDF like I don't I don't you need to figure out like why you created this app a little bit more and explain it better because create beautiful screenshots is not that interesting to me okay H that is it did I miss anything besides playing the audio twice you know what it is because I shared my screen and my screen is sharing the audio audible so that I can share Eric's stuff too. And what I loved about what Eric's

58:48presentation was the he was talking about the longer pay walls. And this is something that I was really gung-ho about in 2019, but I'm so glad he said that longer play walls did work better for him. Pull it back up right here. Back to stage. And it is something depending on your audience, something you should be testing. again, he's giving me more inspiration to do that. And if you think about the elements, right, the pictures that show off the app as almost like a demo, some all of it. And what I love what Eric said was, "Hey, I want somebody to see the one thing that they

59:24wanted and to see that they get so much more after that to justify the $75." And so maybe he went up to 99 a year. But he picked a category, a golf category where you can charge a lot to make ads work. All right, I am back from Raga. I was super tired, but I got a great night to sleep and so I'm back stronger than

59:47ever. We've got next week we got Stalon. So, if you want to create those ugly ads and you don't want to do it yourself or you want to create polish ads because that's what your audience needs, well, you're going to join us next week where we bring on Stav who's gonna who is the founder of Max Fusion and you're going to figure out how to use MaxFusion. It's super easy to create ads that win that generate results. So, join us every Friday 9:00 am Pacific. I want to say hi at the very end to everybody. Luis, good to be good to see you here. Kev, always

1:00:23good to see you. Joe, Joe's going to be on a little bit later, too, you know. Uh, Jennifer, I would love to have you on, Jennifer. It's great meeting you at Raga as well. Congratulations on the success of your app. Really great. And then Mr. Zog, dude, I kind of butchered that. And Art, good to see you, my friend, as well. All right, guys. That is it for me. I went two minutes over time. Have a great weekend. If you were at Raga and I missed you or if I saw you at Raga, it's good to see everybody in person back in California. Anyways, I'm blabbering. H,

1:00:55you're going to have to cut me off. All right, guys. Have a great weekend. I'll see you guys. Bye.