Developer confession: How I got 2.3 million app downloads without spending a penny

This is the story of an App Store experiment, where iOS developer and AppbotX founder Stuart Hall developed a fitness app called "7 Minute Workout" in just six hours, which resulted in 2.3 million downloads and huge revenue, and was successfully acquired by Wahoo 18 months later. The following is the translation:

Develop a story

Back in May 2013, I co-founded music app startup Discovr in my hometown of Perth, Australia. Through our unremitting efforts, we achieved a record of 4 million downloads, raised more than 1 million US dollars, and became a local "fame" (unfortunately, we ultimately failed).

I’m often asked what the secret to an app’s success is. To be honest, our success is a bit confusing. The things we developed are somehow quite popular, but can this success be replicated?

The Fortune Cookie Principle by Bernadette Jiwa was an eye-opener for me and changed my understanding of stories and products. The "One More Thing" rally taught me a lot about writing press releases. If the press release is well written, would you still be afraid that your product will remain unknown?

Brewing an idea

My plan was to keep it a secret, develop the app in one night, test it to see if it worked, and maybe get a few thousand downloads and make a few hundred dollars.

I want to go beyond my area of ​​expertise and look for new ideas. For a developer who spends all day at his computer, there is no better idea than a fitness app. At that time, the concept of 7 Minute Workout had already been hotly discussed in The New York Times and Hacker News, which was equivalent to preparing a large number of potential users for me in advance.

Before developing the app, I set a few criteria:

• It includes explanations of 12 fitness programs (at that time, I didn’t even understand what a plank was, so I Googled a lot of information).
• Add real-person voice to remind users when to do the next exercise and what the next exercise is.

Other features I envisioned:

• iPad support
• Set your own fitness time
• Randomly select fitness items
• Repeatable/self-defined fitness programs
• Fitness log
• Social network sharing

However, due to limited time, we have to temporarily abandon the above content.

The prototype is emerging

Five hours later, I had opened several screens filled with dynamic data and text-to-speech. I'm not a designer by background, so I don't have any professional graphics, they're just flat views.

Version 1.0

After careful inspection, I spent another hour to hastily piece together an icon. Design capabilities are limited, so the icon is just a flat colored square with the number 7 on it. After taking a few screenshots, I wrote a simple product description.

I didn’t expect that the name “7 Minute Workout” had never been used. I guessed there were other similar apps waiting for review, and it turned out to be true.

The development was completed within 6 hours, and after submission, the long wait began.

Pass the review

After waiting for 6 days and a few minutes of review, the application was finally approved. No one knew about it except me, not even my wife. Considering that there were other 7-minute fitness products in the App Store at the time, the app was simply released in the first week without any announcement or promotion.

I didn't have high expectations at first, but I was surprised to see the downloads increase and the ranking remain stable. It’s not an earth-shattering achievement, but it’s pretty impressive considering the app was created solely by users searching the App Store.

Version 1.1 - Marketing Strategy

After the release of version 1.1, it all depended on marketing strategy. I added social network sharing capabilities so that users can share each completed workout to Twitter, Facebook, and email, and once they complete three they are prompted to review the app.

I wrote a press release following the perfect guide for the “One More Thing” rally and sent it to the ten largest app review sites (plus included 4 promo codes in each email). The result was no news, no response at all. One of the sites gave out 4 promo codes on Twitter - the same 4 promo codes I gave out, but it seemed like no one used the promo codes to download my app.

So the sales volume was basically flat in the following week.

I wasted 3 hours writing emails! This lesson once again confirms my previous point: stories are essential to make your app attract the attention of your target group.

Version 1.2——Exploring the market

The next step in the experiment is to support iPad to expand the user base. The iPad version features simple visuals, and this step took only 2 hours, with an additional 30 minutes for screenshots and submitting app updates.

However, sales volume has not improved much, and has even declined a bit.

Free Strategy

It's time to adopt a free strategy. When it comes to the impact of price changes on applications, I have a deep understanding of this and know that this trick is very useful. One night (I was in Australia), while it was still daytime in the US, I changed the app to free and went to bed. Things are getting more and more interesting!

The charts speak for themselves.

I was stunned - in just three days, the number of downloads reached 216,718! Compared with the previous paid version, the average daily downloads increased from 28 to 72,000 times, a full 2,500 times! My app is the most popular iPad fitness app in 68 countries and the most popular iPhone fitness app in 49 countries. It reached the top 10 in 12 countries and even the top 5 in the Netherlands.

It also ranked among the top 25 most popular iPad apps in the United States, the largest source of downloads. After becoming free, the app received rave reviews. I received emails from a number of “Daily Free App Recommendation” sites, as well as companies interested in selling paid installation services. A colleague also brought some great feedback.

So far, four people have known about the experiment and have promised to keep it secret for me. But now that things have come to this, there is no way to remain silent.

I stared at the comments, my mind going blank. I didn’t expect the app to be so popular after becoming free. This is by no means solely the result of my personal efforts or the media's publicity.

Publish a blog

The first part of the blog update has officially begun, and I will tell you everything that has happened so far. The story received good results after it was published, with nearly 20,000 views, more than 220 tweets, and 50 Facebook shares, and it was also on the second front page of Hacker News. Everyone knows that getting on the front page of Hacker News is a win for any app, right?

Ups and downs

When the download volume turned from increasing to decreasing, the entire curve fell smoothly. It seems that the front page of Hacker News did not have much impact.

In-App Purchases

I have a love-hate relationship with IAP (in-app purchases). However, given the situation at the time, IAP was worth a try. To be honest, IAP has been abused by developers to a great extent, and children's games are often the worst affected area. Many people have told me that they want more flexible time and settings for fitness programs in the app, and I realized this was a great opportunity to launch a paid upgrade. It's simple: let users pay for additional features.

How does IAP (In App Purchase) beat paid apps? For my app, IAP nearly tripled my daily revenue from $22 to around $65, while increasing daily downloads by 2-3%.

Translation of application description

More than 50% of downloads come from the United States, while downloads in Canada, the Netherlands, the Philippines and the United Kingdom are only 1/10 of that in the United States. It is not difficult to translate the app description in the local App Store into other languages.

After consulting some advice, I spent about $100 to translate the English introduction into Portuguese, Japanese, Italian, German, French, and Simplified Chinese. However, this move did not have much impact on downloads in these countries and was a complete failure.

User Communication

Many users commented that they would like to see a fitness log added to the app, so I later included this in the IAP.

As a result, the average daily income rose to $75:

Flat Design

Flat design is interesting, but there are two main “touch options” issues:

• The first has been solved: every row in the interface has "touch options" - small right arrows that can be clicked to display other content.
• The second issue is the workout log button. Many people don’t realize that this log button can actually be clicked (which is understandable).

Download volume changes

The rest of 2013 saw less downloads than initially anticipated:

But if you think about it, the initial boom was really unusual. Currently, downloads are still strong and stable, averaging about 2,500 per day.

Either it’s due to the App Store’s Discover feature or the app’s reputation is so good, there’s no other reason.

Sales volume changes

Once downloads stabilize, it would be natural to expect sales to stabilize as well, right?

Sales have been steadily declining in 2013, more clearly seen in the cumulative graph, but almost 70% of the revenue came from the United States.

Impact of IAP Price

During the experiment, I priced the product at $0.99, $1.99, and $2.99, each for one week. But looking at the revenue chart, app sales have not changed much. An increase or decrease in price is offset by a change in the quantity purchased.

Subsequently, my app was recommended on the homepage of the Australian App Store. The Australian App Store is not the largest, but being on their recommendation list did stimulate sales and downloads, and even won the second place in the "most popular free app", only after Apple's 12 Days of Gifts.

By Christmas, downloads exceeded one million and sales hit an all-time high. The New Year ushered in a record high! Earnings were stable in November and December, remaining roughly at an average of $50 per day. In the first half of January, average daily revenue rose to $200, four times the previous level. People's New Year resolutions have made fitness apps extremely popular.

Added IAP option

The app was updated again, mainly adding more IAP fitness series, including the special edition 7 Minute Workout and the Pilates version of 7 Minute Workout. The new IAP options had little impact on the previous paid upgrades (average daily revenue of $50-60), but the average daily revenue increased to $70-80. With the same number of downloads, total revenue increased by 40% compared to last year.

Comments & Feedback

After each update, the previous comments disappear and I have to start all over again, which is really a headache. Recently I launched AppbotX to help developers better obtain app reviews and communicate with users.

It also includes services such as FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions), feedback, notifications and comment prompts. After the FAQ was established, the number of general support requests dropped from twice a day to once a week. After a positive interaction with the user, the app will remind the user to write a review on the App Store. Usually it's when they finish exercising.

If you like the app, you are encouraged to write a review, if not, leave feedback. It has been proven to be quite effective. Most of the feedback was great, and 80% of it can be boiled down to two things:

Many people asked to add abdominal muscle training

They hope the instructions for the fitness programs will be simpler and clearer.

All The Things——IAP Bundle

The next step to increase revenue is to add IAP “All The Things”, which allows users to purchase all the content of the paid upgrade and other versions at a one-time fixed price.

After completion, the overall revenue increased and became the main source of revenue. This experiment was very successful and it is highly recommended to bundle IAP purchase options in the app.

Connecting to HealthKit

As Apple describes it: "HealthKit (Apple's health mobile application platform) provides a platform for data sharing between health, fitness services and health applications. The user's health information is stored in a secure data center and can only be uploaded to the application with the user's consent." Sounds very suitable for "7 Minute Workout".

In order to achieve compatibility before Apple released HealthKit, I added iOS 8, HealthKit, iPhone 6 and 6 Plus support before publishing and submitting to the App Store.

It was night time in Australia when iOS 8 was released. Later I received a notification that the app had been removed:

There was a call from an American number but I didn't answer it. Later, I Googled some maddening news, with titles like "Apple discovers major problems with HealthKit service" and "Apple removes HealthKit-related apps."

Tsk tsk, at least I'm not the only one who's unlucky.

Moreover, Apple was very responsible throughout the whole process and kept calling to update us on the progress of the issue. Within 36 hours, the app was re-reviewed and launched on the App Store, and its ranking and search popularity remained unchanged.

Preview App

When iOS 8 was released, HealthKit’s issues had not yet been resolved. But I have already launched the App Preview in advance and it has been included in the recommended list of the Australian App Store.

HealthKit is back!

HealthKit was finally released after iOS 8.0.2. I was thousands of miles away in Melbourne for a meeting, and had been traveling with my family for the next two weeks when 7 Minutes Workout was listed as a “Featured Health App” on the US App Store homepage.

The subsequent sales chart is as follows:

Ushering in an unprecedented sales peak! Even more downloads than during the New Year period! Media coverage also continues to heat up.

Included in the recommended list

You may not believe it, but Apple is also actively looking for apps worth recommending. By making HealthKit compatible early and launching App Preview, etc., they are creating opportunities for themselves and attracting Apple's attention.

Besides this, is there a better way to get on the App Store recommended list? A friendly reminder: Is your app compatible with Apple Watch?

Acquired by Wahoo

Wahoo Fitness makes a premium sensor that connects to a mobile app and debuted it at the 2014 WWDC keynote. The company's new TICKR X sensor can monitor heart rate and track repetitive exercise.

Mike is one of the leaders of Wahoo. He mentioned 7 Minute Workout in an email in May and said that this app can be used for their supporting products. I was interested.

We communicated several times in the following two months. But on the one hand, I was reluctant to sell my own products like this; on the other hand, their equipment was still insufficient, so the communication ended in vain.

Things took a turn for the better in November. At that time, I was busy running Appbot and had no time to take care of 7 Minute Workout. Wahoo found me again and expressed its willingness to buy the app. The timing was right, and I believed Wahoo was a better home, so the two sides hit it off.

It was a pleasure to communicate with Wahoo. In the early stages, we negotiated with Chip and Mike, and later on, JP, Dave and Ben were in charge of the product handover phase. I appreciate their help.

After Wahoo bought the app, it also planned to do something big: in addition to multiple customized fitness programs, there are also advertisements for new films, compatibility with TICKR X, etc.

These plans will be officially implemented next year, and I can’t wait.

Final statistics:

• 2.3 million downloads
• 7.7 million updates
• $72,000 in revenue