~$1250 MRR 3 months in a row. Struggle to grow. Need advice

Hi guys, we do an international dating SaaS project https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bumpy-dating-chats-friends/id1455336523 and not clearly understand how to grow.
Right now we have these counts from US customers:

ARPU $0.58
ARPPU $11.93
DAU 800
MAU 6000
MRR ~$1250
ROI from $300 Facebook Ads is 50-60% (~$150 is back).
As a result, our MRR builds from organic and good things it's stable right now, but investments in marketing how you can see not so well.

Now we think about how we should invest our time in the project to start growing:

focus on paid engine. Get better ARPU/ARPPU to make better ROI and invest more time in subscription, in-apps, add AdMob.
focus on sticky engine. Make sticky features for ex video call, make email newsletter system, better push notification system. That should make better and better DOU/MAU. Right now it stays at one level.
focus on seeking investments or partners. Are these counts enough to be interesting for investments or partners?

Guys, do you have advice about how we should go to start to grow?

Thanks!

Mark Prutskiy

posted to

Growth

on July 19, 2020

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1. Your ARPU and ARPPU don't seem too far off.
2. On the marketing side
Network effect is crucial for dating apps. I understand you're trying to focus on the international dating market? Are you sure Facebook is the best way to advertise your product? Being very specific helps tremendously with marketing, because you can then focus on a specific segment, and increase the ROI from advertising.

Some quick ideas I can think about:
- Exchange students, or language students, look at forums and places where they congregate, try to understand those communities
- Travel communities, look at the forums...
- Couchsurfing probably has a dating forum of some sort
1. You shouldn't look for investment partners until you've figured out what you want to do, and how much you're going to need in order to achieve this.
Basically, try to make your marketing ROI positive. This will give you a very strong position for getting investment and growing your business.

PS: no idea what DOU stands for, google is not helpful. Do you mean DAU?
benjaminmichel

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6 years ago
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  Thanks, for the advice!
  
  I just used that article https://www.apptamin.com/blog/video-ad-creatives-dating/ to understand where I should focus our marketing, but yeah I agree with you Facebook might be not the best way for us and we also think travel communities should be work for us.
  
  Thanks! Maybe you know which ARPU and ARPPU are average and we should follow that?
  
  As we're technical guys how we should work with marketing? Should we try channels on our own or try to find a specialist/partner which will help us?
  
  Is that possible investment partners might be interested in us right now and share their experience, channels, tips on how to grow, and then invest in us when we start growing?
  
  Oh year, fixed to DAU.
  Thanks again!
  nekromarko
  
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  6 years ago
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  1. 2
    Oh, yeah, don't look at this article. It's talking about really big players, so different rules apply to them. As mentioned, the network effect is crucial in online dating, and the general public will only install the big apps, the ones giving them the widest range of option. If you go into the niches, there is an opportunity for you to dominate a small market segment, then you become the reference for this segment, and this gives you a very solid position.
    An example is Recon.com It's the reference for gay fetish dating, and even if it's mostly unknown outside of its this segment, there are hardly any other competitors. The more generic apps are unable to compete because they don't have the features which cater specifically to this population.
    
    ARPU and ARPPU look fine for a dating app. But that's not my domain. I would imagine there are other important metrics important to you. Since what you're making is basically a social network, your primary metric right now should be the number of users and their engagement. The more users the more engaged, the better.
    
    If it was me, I would figure out the channels that correspond to the niche first, and try to understand how to exploit them as much as possible. Say if the size of your market is 100K people, how can I get to 50% of shares of this market? You could get a bit of support and advise from someone who has the expertise. Indeed this is viable.
    
    Probably, keep in mind that people invest in teams, rather than in ideas. It would be important to develop a good relationship with that person then.
    
    As a sidenote, I think those apps can afford to spend money in brand awareness because they have reached a size where the next step is the general public. Tinder now belongs to Match.com, Bumble was founded by a co-founder of Tinder, and Happn was founded by the co-founder of Dailymotion. Basically all the people starting those companies already had a massive advantage, so it was a lot easier for them to properly get started (not to say it was easy, but definitely easier).
    
    benjaminmichel
    
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    6 years ago
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    1. 1
      
      Oh, that what I looked for! Thanks so much!
      To be sure, for example is that channel https://www.cupidmedia.com/en/advertise might be what we should look at as our marketing channel?
      Thanks!
      
      nekromarko
      
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      6 years ago
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Interesting.

Quick Question: How different is this from Tinder?

Suggestions:
1. Onboarding, Onboarding, Onboarding experience
2. The map on the home-screen shows empty, which gives a negative impression that it's only a few handful of people/users here on the app
3. Too much of bright redness from a UI perspective, everything looks red!
4. Upon sign-up the walk-throughs took a while to load
Pros:
1. Super smooth on-boarding process
2. The app is decently fast (but can be improved to make blazingly fast!)
3. I like the like concept
Cons:
1. Very limited user that i see on map :( sending a impression that there are no users here
2. The scroll roll was lil confusing for me
3. UX can be improved, motion graphics seen missing, lazy loading can be implemented
Growth POV:
1. I believe that you are competing with Tinder?
2. ASO - Is very important, I was searching for your app name and I did not find it
3. ASO => App Store Optimisation
4. Share with online communities like Fb, Reddits etc - So that you onboard more people
5. Engage with influencers on SMs and have them 'promote' your email
6. Connect - Have ability for users to connect their email boxes and contact synch (not sure how many users may want to do that - as its dating and I'd like to keep it discreet)
7. Add more profiles - focus on on-boarding, you app is good, decent tbh you need strategy to add new users, and that can be with Advertisements ($$) or engaging with communities and creates success stories and videos (How A meet with B using our app) etc. If you have good budgets 3-5k, you can built a good strategy, combination of SEO+Ads+Content+Automation => Aka => MarketTech
8. See if you serve the niche markets - Like focus on Expats? or Focus on C-level dating? or may be Engineers to Engineers dating? based on my study, niche market and laser focus approach is very important in your early days.
9. If you have good $$ budgets, you can also sponsor these events, and then be like - Oh hey, you can also date someone here using my app!
10. Make a newsletter - 100% Bro, you gotta engage your existing users, and may be have some referral bonus? - Welcome emails, Notification after 8 hours etc, will add a engagement value
11. Referring to point # 7 => If you can also add a USP - like, AD-FREE Dating side, that would be awesome, but then gotta find the revenue stream
I'm not talking about numbers here like, MAU, DAU, or other stats., The goal here is to provide VALUE to your customers/users and earn VALUE in return i.e ($$ in MRR) your goal should be hitting the $5k MRR and then $10k MRR and then next.

As far as the investment goes, I don't think $1250 MRR is a good number to raise funds, its too early. However, you can approach Angels in your network and demo them. The good thing is that your idea is not a 'idea' anymore, you have a working app, and some revenue, but I'd not go and raise angel before hitting $20k mrr.

Hope this feedback helps you. I actually recorded a loom video with my first hand experience and impression of using BUMPY, but then for some reason, it did not record my voice! :-( and I have to end up writing this comment post. :-D

And here you get a bump, for creating a bumpy!

BUMP! (BUMP => Vote)

Nav 😀
navrajputllc

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6 years ago
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  Oh wow.. how awesome your reply!
  Thank you so much, navrajputllc!
  
  Sorry for the long response.
  
  nekromarko
  
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  5 years ago
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FB ads get hella better if you're spending over $800 per month. This isn't to say just try that. You can infinitely iterate with ads. Offer free boosts, discounts, lead magnets, etc.

If you have any revenue whatsoever, which you do. I'd throw $1k into each ad platform. See which cohort works best to get that money back. Even if you get your money back, re-invest. As long as you keep your ads less than your revenue each month, you'll be able to drive more users and get better LTV each month as some amount stick around.

Be sure to do cohort analysis to see if even a lower number from some ad platform sticks around longer.

kamphey

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6 years ago
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  Yeah, you're totally right.
  
  BTW we start doing that, but I just can't manage campaigns in a good manner, so we've hired a targeting specialist. I hope it will work.
  
  Sorry for the long replay.
  
  nekromarko
  
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  5 years ago
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Your project looks very cool.

One technical question... Did you use an external service for the messaging system?

mihaben89

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6 years ago
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  Thanks, Mihaben89
  
  We have our messaging system and almost all services have been written by scratch.
  Sorry for the long replay.
  
  nekromarko
  
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  5 years ago
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What is your business model here? Do you just offer premium?

kanglelin

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6 years ago
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  Thanks for the question.
  We have a usual business model with subscription and in-apps.
  Right now without any ads inside the app, but we think about it.
  
  nekromarko
  
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  6 years ago
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