Indie developer Jordan Morgan joins the show to talk about indie careers and the future of Launched. They discuss juggling creative projects, app branding, boosting Instagram posts for app marketing, and their goals and plans for the future of the podcast.
The Elite Hoops app solves a specific problem for basketball coaches by allowing them to record and share plays with their teams, highlighting the value proposition and differentiation from existing solutions.
Defining a target customer and understanding their pain points are crucial in creating a successful app, as seen through the comparison between Spin Stack and Elite Hoops.
Investing in paid marketing, leveraging Instagram, and utilizing email marketing have been effective strategies for customer acquisition and building a mailing list for Elite Hoops.
Deep dives
The Journey of Elite Hoops App
Jordan Morgan discusses his experience with developing and launching the Elite Hoops app. He explains that the app solves a specific problem for basketball coaches by allowing them to record and share plays with their teams. Jordan highlights the value proposition of the app and how it differentiates from existing solutions in the market. He also emphasizes the importance of charging a higher price for the app, which allows for a more sustainable business model. Jordan shares his marketing approach, including using Instagram and building a mailing list to generate interest and drive downloads. Overall, he describes the app as a culmination of his experience as an indie developer and his desire to create an app that provides value to a specific target audience.
The Lessons Learned from Spin Stack
Jordan reflects on his previous app, Spin Stack, and compares the lessons learned from that experience to the development of Elite Hoops. He highlights the importance of defining a target customer and understanding their pain points to create a successful app. Jordan notes that Spin Stack lacked a clear target customer and value proposition, which hindered its success. In contrast, Elite Hoops was built with a clear purpose and target audience in mind, which has contributed to its early success.
Investing in Marketing and Customer Acquisition
Jordan discusses his marketing strategies for Elite Hoops, including investing in paid marketing and leveraging Instagram to build a mailing list. He shares his goal of reaching 500 signups before the app's launch and how he used boosted Instagram posts to achieve this. Jordan also explains how he incorporated the mailing list into the onboarding process to encourage more signups. He highlights the value of email marketing and the impact it has had on customer acquisition for the app.
Using Instagram and TikTok for Marketing
The podcast episode discusses the speaker's use of Instagram and TikTok for marketing purposes. They mention using paid Instagram posts with targeted keywords related to basketball and coaching. They also boost posts with short videos showcasing the app and its features. The speaker spends at least $30 to boost each Instagram post, leveraging the vast basketball community on the platform. They also mention some success with TikTok, despite not fully understanding how to utilize it effectively.
Switching to Subscriptions and Paywall Experiments
In this section, the podcast delves into the speaker's experience with switching their app to a subscription model. They mention using revenue cat for managing subscriptions and paywall experiments. The speaker highlights the benefits of subscriptions, such as having more levers for revenue generation and the ability to run experiments to optimize the paywall. They discuss experimenting with different trial durations and varying subscription plans. Overall, they emphasize the importance of valuing one's work and not being afraid to charge for it.
