On the podcast: How Mojo grew to over $1M in MRR, the most impactful pricing and paywall experiments, and why it’s important to choose complexity instead of just letting it happen.
Key Takeaways:
💪Bravery to pivot leads to long-term success. Early popularity can be deceiving. Without strong retention, it's time to pivot. Build features users love to evolve from a gimmick to a sustainable business.
🧱Make your paywall more prominent. Show your paywall during onboarding. Then, iterate on messaging, design, and pricing, focusing on one element at a time.
💲Pricing will always annoy someone. If no one complains, you’re underpricing. Be strategic about who you upset and how many people.
🤝Viral loops reduce the need for ads. Heavy ad spend can hide a lack of product-market fit. Build sharing and virality into your app first, then consider paid acquisition.
📈Choose complexity based on impact. Focus on your team’s strengths. Growth can be product-led or through, for example, paid acquisition, depending on what suits your team and app best.
About Guest
👨💻 CEO and co-founder of the video editing app Mojo.
🎬 Former GoPro employee and graduate of the Y Combinator accelerator program, Francescu and his team have built one of the top mobile apps for creating and editing social video content.
👋 LinkedIn
Resources
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Episode Highlights
[4:27] AI + Mobile = ❤️: Why AI is probably the next mobile revolution.
[6:16] Going Pro: How Francescu got his start building mobile subscription apps.
[7:44] Pivot… PIVOT: Despite early success with their augmented reality app, Francescu and his team had to shut it down and pivot to a new idea.
[15:12] Pricing and paywalls and packaging, oh my: Why you need to show your paywall during onboarding (and other monetization lessons Francescu learned building Mojo).
[27:42] Viral moments: Building social sharing features into your app could save you time and money on user acquisition.
[36:19] The product-led growth trap: Developing new product features isn’t always the key to growth.
[41:15] Priced to annoy: If no one is mad about the cost of your app, your prices are probably too low.
