Flycricket
Hosted websites and screenshots for your mobile app.
Over the years, I've built a handful of apps with 1M+ users, which is cool, but I always thought I'd rather have a SaaS-y business with 1,000 users. You know, to actually make some money. Well, today Flycricket crossed 25,000 registered users, and I couldn't be more frustrated.
I built Flycricket to solve my own problem (good), validated that it was something other people wanted (also good) and iterated to find something people definitely wanted (super good). And it took off like a rocket.
But nobody's paying. Well, people are paying, but wayyyy fewer than my most conservative estimates when I launched. So what gives?
I think it comes down to a couple main issues:
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Over 80% of users end up creating something using Flycricket, which is incredible engagement imo. However, my primary marketing channels are people looking specifically for free tools. And I lead with 'free' to get folks in the door. Then they camp out and are happy as clams in the free area. If I apply pressure to pay, or restrict features too tightly, they leave. It's a commoditized service at the end of the day and it feels like I'm back in the consumer app biz.
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The product is geared toward indie app developers. Not dev shops or game studios that have budgets, but indie devs like you and me that pinch every penny because we know how hard they are to come by. The perceived (or actual) value of the product must not be high enough to justify the price for DIY'ers.
So Indie Hackers, I'm going to take some time off this project to try and figure out what to do next. Because I'm stumped. There has to be value here, I just haven't figured out how to unlock it yet. That, or I painted myself in a low-revenue corner.
The good thing is the service runs itself, and it's extremely low-cost to operate. So I'm not planning to shut it down, but need to figure out a way to kick revenue into gear and at least recoup my dev time.
What would you do if you had lots of interest in a project but very few willing to pay for it? Have you run into a similar problem? How did you get over the hump to the next level?
tl;dr: Flycricket has officially taken off but I can't quit my day job. Ever, at this rate :(
After lots of customer feedback and a few surveys, I created a new section in Flycricket to create those snazzy-looking App Store screenshots in just a few clicks.
Whenever I update my mobile apps I'd spend an afternoon in Photoshop tweaking colors, creating mockups, etc. This creator solves that problem in a matter of minutes! The screens look good and can be exported to multiple device sizes. Plus you can come back and tweak them later without having to dig up old psd files every version update.
I did a quiet launch to survey responders, but no email blast or anything to general users. This will let me see how people use it, make some changes, and fix any bugs before I really launch it.
Over the weekend 58 people have exported 140 screenshots - an encouraging start!
The last couple of months have been wild! Flycricket went from 50 registered users in its first 6 months to over 7,000 in the next 2 months.
App websites created on our platform have been visited over 330,000 times(!!!!) and we've facilitated tens of thousands of app downloads for our users.
The increase in signups is due to a partner integration I set up with a service in a similar space. Flycricket directly solves their user's need for a website at the right time, so it has been a beneficial partnership for both us and their users.
From this channel, users are recommending to friends and colleagues, plus we have Flycricket badges on free sites - so growth is becoming more organic.
With this many people signing up (~100/day) I have lots of opportunities to talk to users and get feedback (thanks to surveymonkey + close.io).
One major issue has been the language barrier. I'm seeing a large # of users from India, Vietnam, etc, and notice a big difference in engagement with non-English countries. I don't think the value is high enough to bring in a bilingual support person (or two) yet, but I'm considering it.
I'm also seeing lots of dropped payments in Stripe from India-based users, where banks seem to frequently reject the charge. It's a bit frustrating to see how much MRR I've missed out on, so I'm looking at alternative payment options.
The vast majority of users are still on the free tier, but I'm adding and testing more upsell points + features to get the conversion rate higher.
I plan to expand to new partnerships and marketing channels this month to continue growth and target some higher-spending customers like development studios and freelancers. Many of the indie makers using the service now aren't pulling enough revenue from their app to justify a subscription service yet.
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What has worked best in attracting new users?
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I still haven't done much traditional marketing, it's primarily been the partner integration that drives users. This was a huge win, because they already had established traffic, and their users were actively needing a solution like Flycricket. We made a 1-click integration so it is very easy to sign up, and the users have been flowing in.
I'll do more outbound marketing later this month once I have the onboarding and features stabilized. That will include some content marketing (blogging, guest posting, etc), additional partner outreach to set up more channels, and direct outreach to potential high value customers.
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Thanks for sharing your experience and congrats!
A couple of questions though :)
When did you start this business?
Besides the partnership, how you promoted it?The increase in signups is due to a partner integration I set up with a service in a similar space. Flycricket directly solves their user's need for a website at the right time, so it has been a beneficial partnership for both us and their users.
Can you give more details on it?Thanks!
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Flycricket technically began early last year, but it was a very different product. Last fall was the first landing page generator in a private beta, but I didn't do any promotion until March of this year. It started with ads and some brief forum outreach, but then I had the partnership idea and was able to execute that by end of April. From there, things have really come together.
This is one of a few side projects I work on, so I only spend a few hours a week on it - hence the slow timeline.
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This comment was deleted 7 years ago
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Thanks! That's a new addition to help people walk through the process. I saw a lot of drop-off when users got in - they'd use one feature but never even click on the others. This flow has helped a lot.
And I did write it from scratch, it's been a very iterative process over the last year or so to get to this point. It's amazing to look back and remember how basic it was when I started. The dynamic editor you see now was just released about a month ago.
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I've been working on continuous improvements to the Flycricket landing page and introduction flow to help users get a website up and running for their mobile apps.
Hotjar has been super helpful to see where people are lingering and getting confused, and I'm happy to say that signup rate has tripled since the last round of testing.
Traffic has been driven mostly by ads so far, since it's controlled and easy to test messaging/graphics. A few people have even started paying, which is very motivating to continue down this path. I don't think the LTV of users will pay for the ads just yet, but with a few more iterations I hope to get to that point.
The initial product idea was very focused - smarter App Store links to increase downloads by sending visitors to the right place based on their device type.
It's a problem I had as an app dev, but it's a targeted one. Marketing this was going to be (more of) an uphill battle than I could handle part-time. I needed a hook, something to help me market it that appeals to a broader set of app developers.
After 2 rounds of feedback, I realized that there was opportunity to take a step back and provide something simpler -- a landing page for your app. And it could have the smarter app links built in.
It was simpler, solved a broader problem, and still fit into 'something I need as an app developer'.
So I built an automatic website generator that pulls in metadata from the app stores and creates a site for any mobile app in less than 60 seconds. No code, no hosting, no fiddling with bootstrap templates - just type in your app name and Flycricket does the rest.
So far, the results have been much stronger. 15 new users within a few days of targeted outreach + $50 worth of ads to try out some copy.
This has also expanded the feedback base. Developers I don't know are starting to use it, so the quality of feedback is increasing. The questions have shifted from "what does X mean" to "can i do Y".
Nobody's paying yet, but I'm finally feeling good about the product. Next step is to work on some sales automation to pull some more people into the top of the funnel.
After 6 slow-going months (and another separate product launch), I slowly built Flycricket up to where I wanted it to be.
A ton of time was spent on the landing page, messaging, and pricing to make sure the idea was conveyed clearly. Some new features were added, and overall design was greatly improved for a more professional feel.
Now, it's time for round 2. I'm confident enough in the product to send it to a wider audience, but feedback will still be key.
I'm excited to have my first users on board!
Within a month, I had a very rough beta available. Looking back, the website was gross, the features were light, and the pricing was ???
However, it was enough to start talking to some fellow IndieHackers. I reached out individually and got some great feedback on the concept, what features they might like to see, etc.
After a couple weeks of this, I realized I wasn't ready, and went back to the development board.
I recently released an iOS app, and was driving some traffic to my website landing page. However, I noticed the download numbers didn't really budge. So I took a deeper look at the analytics.
Over 70% of my traffic was coming from the desktop, and I realized there was no Call-To-Action for any desktop visitors, and they were bouncing.
I realized I needed a way to allow users to easily download from any device, so I started working on Flycricket.
6 Comments
What about trying one time payments? I mean, if I am a mobile dev, I would like the help with the store images, but I might be discourage with monthly payments for my free app.
The store images are actually totally free (as of yesterday). So give it a try :)
Before, screenshots were "pay for what you use", so you could make a bunch for v1 of your app and not have to pay again until you needed to make updates later on. There was a free limit to try before you buy.
I went that route because I agree - paying monthly for something you don't need often is annoying. The only monthly/recurring charges are for web hosting.
I think in the future I'll charge to be able to keep your screens saved in the system. Meaning, you can use/create for free, but if you want to keep them stored for quick updates in 6 months, pay $N per year or something.
Still facing the problem of too many other free options and people doing all kinds of crazy things to get around the paid restrictions, instead of just paying $10 for the convenience.
Good to hear that. I don't have a mobile app as of now, so nothing to try it with. I am sure I would use a tool like yours when I do. Good luck!
How are you different from rest of the landing page builders out in the market ?
It's not about differentiation, as I'm having no issue bringing users in. However, the simplicity and mobile-first approach is a big draw.
There are so many options that it's really "what do I find first that does the job". People are finding Flycricket first in a lot of cases, and getting the job done. It's just not solving enough of a pain to be worth parting with $$
That's right. It's not solving enough pain point. Or it's solving any the problem that any other free service would do.
So people don't see your product to be to pressing need. Unless you don't create a differentation such a way that they find other products features / implement short by their use case.
Then they would decide to go for paid plan with you.