Here’s how I got +11,000 downloads & 631 sales for my study app

First and fore most the app is freemium so that’s why only 631 sales ($7.99/mo or $39.99/year. I have yet to figure out proper monetization and better ways to get the free users to actually pay but students are notoriously broke lol

Im a young female founder so I’m aware there’s lots of things I should be doing that I’m not 🙂 any advice is welcome. Oh also sorry for any tangents I have severe adhd so yeah.

Here is what DIDN’T work:

X. Agencies. Maybe it’s just me but 3 out of 4 totally screwed me. Seems their business model is broken or idek. It seems it’s mostly just management fees and then outsourcing my work overseas for pennies on the dollar. Only one agency produced a profit for me but even then it wasn’t substantial enough for me to continue at this stage as it was barely above breaking even.

X. Newsletter sponsorships. I know it all depends on the newsletter and their audience. But even with ones that specifically had student audiences, the conversion rate of clicks to paying subscribers was abysmal. Makes me question if newsletter people don’t also throw in some bot traffic to inflate their numbers. Again, I’m sure some are great I just never encountered them lol

X. SEO. To be honest I still think everyone should do this but make it a small 20 mins a week sort of thing and don’t expect results unless you have a big budget. When you’re a startup you need to focus on quick wins and SEO is definitely not one of them for me. I did 3 months worth of daily blog posts with no significant increase in Google traffic. (Also probably best to work with someone who knows SEO but I blew through my budget so it’s best I can do now)

Here is what DID work:

1) Running ads on the App Store. They’re crazy expensive BUT if you A/B test you will find that one version of your app screens & messaging that does much better than others and then you can get get really low cost downloads and sales. So when students search for specific keywords on the App Store my app shows up. Start with a SMALL BUDGET because it will just eat your money. Only bump it slowly if things are working. You won’t get anything by throwing in $100 on your first day. I wasted money like that x_x

2) Mass posting of viral TikToks and YouTube shorts. Like two months ago there was a viral Reddit post here about VUBO which people were using to make brain rot videos as a side hustle. That gave me an idea so shoutout to the op. I used the texting stories template also with those Minecraft running videos in the background. All my videos start with a fake iMessage conversation between two people. Something like “oh my god I got a 52% in Mr. Armstrong’s class” and an unhinged convo ensues lol. Then I mention my study app by name in the texting conversation. All those people search the App Store and find us. Took some trial and error before I made videos that crossed even 5K views but now I have an absolute banger which is gaining like 10-15k views daily for 3 weeks now. Just from 1 single TikTok that the algorithm decided to push. I’m still posting daily and trying to hire someone to help take over.

3) Posting in Facebook groups where students buy and resell textbooks. Either I just flat out post about my study app or I will message people who are there and give them discounts to try my app. This one is super tedious and labor intensive and doesn’t really scale. Tbh I mostly stopped doing this as it feels spammy. And it has minimal returns. but if I was just starting over with 0 paying subscribers I would definitely go hard at this to get the ball rolling.

4) Cold DMing the new followers of frat & sorority chapters on Instagram. This one is also kinda spammy and I stopped doing it lately but it did work to bring at least 10-20 paying subscribers after about two weeks of manual effort. I ended up getting temporarily banned on Instagram from doing it too much so probably just try it if it’s early on and you need first traction but maybe not the best idea long term.

If someone has any advice on what else I could try please let me know I will be super grateful. Thank you. I will also answer questions if someone has one.