I built an iOS real estate app while working retail and maintaining a 4.0 GPA. 8.8% conversion, but MRR is stuck — what am I missing?
Hey everyone,
I’m an online student at ASU, currently maintaining a 4.0 GPA while working about 25 hours a week at Target. Outside of school and work, I taught myself app development and built and published Property Deal AI on the iOS App Store.
I recently released Version 2.0, which uses a freemium model with a $49.99/month California Pro tier. Property Deal AI is designed to help residential real estate investors analyze potential deals by calculating metrics such as estimated profit, ROI, rehab costs, and maximum allowable offers.
Here’s where I’m stuck.
App Store Connect is currently showing a page conversion rate of 8.8%, which initially seemed encouraging to me. The problem is that my overall impressions are still low, and I haven't been able to turn that visibility into the level of paid subscriptions I'm looking for.
That has me wondering whether I have two separate problems: distribution and positioning.
I’ve spent most of my time actually building and improving the product. Marketing is the part I’m now trying to learn. I also kept some of the App Store screenshot presentation from an earlier version of the app, and I’m questioning whether the listing communicates enough value to justify a $49.99/month professional tier.
Until recently, I was also building largely on my own without much of a tech or founder network. That's actually one of the reasons I joined Indie Hackers. I want to get outside of my own perspective and learn from people who have already solved some of these problems.
I’d really appreciate direct feedback on two things:
- If you saw my App Store listing for the first time, would the screenshots and positioning communicate enough value for a $49.99/month real estate tool? What would you change?
- For founders who have marketed niche professional apps, what actually worked for getting the product in front of high-intent users without relying heavily on paid advertising?
Feel free to tear the presentation apart. I’d rather find out what isn't working and improve it than keep guessing.
Thanks!
8.8% conversion means positioning works on people who show up. Someone lands, gets it, pays. That's the hard part and you have it. A positioning problem looks like people landing and leaving so it's distribution. MRR stuck with conversion that healthy means the top of the funnel is flat, not leaky. That's a better problem and a more boring fix: get more of the same people.
Thanks — this is really helpful because I’ve been wondering whether I was looking at the wrong problem.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the App Store presentation and whether I needed to completely redesign the screenshots, but your point about the top of the funnel makes sense. If the people who actually reach the page are converting, then increasing qualified traffic may be a much higher priority than continually changing the listing.
Distribution is definitely the part I’m learning now. I’m starting to connect with more people in real estate and proptech, participate in founder communities, and think more intentionally about how to reach investors who are actively analyzing deals rather than just generating broad traffic.
I appreciate the feedback. “Get more of the same people” is actually a really useful way of looking at it.