Mantra

I have built and shipped various new features for the last few weeks: Widgets, collections, watch support, voice recordings, practicing, etc. As a result; ratings and reviews got better, the average time spent in the app is increased, people decided to share more affirmations to their social media and more like these.

Though, free-to-paid conversion rate has not increased as I thought... TBH, it's not increased at all.

Then, I decided to change the onboarding process. I wasn't adding any value but just improving the overall experience when a user first time opens the app. What I did was: Instead of hitting the user with a paywall and locked content, I let them choose their goals freely, made them aware of some of the cool features (like widgets and reminders) before using the app. Afterward, I simply presented a paywall and offered a free trial.

Boom! 💣

Free to paid conversion rate increased 63%. 🚀 It was a surprise for me because, as said, I wasn't adding any value, just improving the experience. Apparently, it's not always about what you're selling but how you're selling it.

Nowadays, I spend a lot of time running A/B tests to improve the experience. Testing different paywalls, different onboarding pages, different pricing, and so on.

Let's see what happens. 👋

Mantra app was originally built on the idea of presenting ONE special affirmation each day. The logic was simple: by spending at most 10 seconds a day; you can affirm yourself, give yourself a boost for the day, increase your self-esteem, and so on.

But it seems one affirmation isn't enough for most people. Whenever I check the analytics, it always catches my eye that the event count of the people refreshing their daily affirmations is huge. I need to change the logic of the app but it's a risky move since the majority of my current users still likes the current version.

"Good is the enemy of the great" - J. Collins

The current version needs to change for the 'great' version. Because the things that can be done are so limited. I'll be taking risks and change the logic of the app a little. I have great plans. I studied the topic in detail. I've drawn my roadmap, completed the new designs. My goal is to publish it this November.

I'm so excited. 🙂

Optimized the conversion rates along the way. Both within the app and on the store side. The growth was totally organic and didn't spend a single dime on paid marketing.

I have a confession to make. I wasn't believing that Mantra can be a big hit. So I haven't spent my time, energy, and money on it. Just added some content from time to time. I believed that I needed to create something different, something that has much more potential. Therefore focused on creating different applications. If you're curious, they're also growing pretty well. You can see them at my company page. I have no regrets but I admit that it was wrong to assume that Mantra couldn't go bigger. It sure can! My mindset is so different now. So much can be added to Mantra.

Let's start to work! ☀️

Mantra was a free application that had a very little revenue thanks to banner ads. But since the launch, it had around 200K installs, so, I decided to add some extra content like customizable themes, categories, background music, etc. Started offering these extra features and content under a subscription model. My purpose was to test in-app purchases and subscriptions. But, it literally blew my mind. Because I was thinking that it's very hard to make a revenue out of subscriptions.

In its first month, it earned ~3500 USD.

My girlfriend who I lived with at that moment was using an affirmation application each morning. Then I thought I could create one and started designing Mantra.

My purpose was to practice my coding and designing skills. It's going to be the first app I built by myself.