Welcome to week número dos of documenting the evolution of my education business, StoryLearning.
I’m making the biggest move in 13 years by building a consumer app.
And trying to do so without:
- losing the shirt off my back
- cannibalising the main business
- selling out 🙂
You can read background about the project here, including results from the soft-launch of the app.
The week in numbers:
• Active users: 656 (351)
• MRR: $6,260($3,408)
• What metrics would you like to see?
Launch webinar
Last week, I wrote about how we had gathered a very small interest list and done an under-the-radar launch to them.
We sold 315, out of an interest list of around 1,250, a roughly 25% conversion.
Since then, we’ve been working towards launching to the wider list, which we did this week.
Now, right now, we’re mid-launch, so I’ll wait till next week to report on that.
However, I did run a small webinar on Tuesday evening to kick things off, and I thought it would be interesting to report on that.
In terms of the webinar itself, I literally just did a live demo of the app and showed how it works.
There was no fancy sales psychology or anything… literally just a walkthrough.
You know, after trying all kinds of guru-inspired webinar formats over the years, I’ve honestly found that the best approach for me has just been to show the thing and let people decide if they want it.
Probably won’t work for everyone.
But it’s worth considering trying this if you don’t enjoy webinars, because it also makes for a very fun, low-pressure experience for you as the host.
Results:
Tldr:
- 362 attendees
- 101 sales
- =28% conversion
Now…
Let me be clear…
I have never in my life had 28% conversion on anything.
Even 1/3 of that number (9%) would be regarded as fantastic.
But to get 28% conversion on webinar attendees is a new experience for me.
What’s even more exciting is that it’s almost exactly the same number as the conversion to the interest list last month (25%).
So, as things stand, things look very promising indeed.
Perhaps from now on, I’ll be known as Olly “Mr. 25%” Richards?
However, I do want to be realistic…
Both the interest list launch and the webinar were to our most engaged subscribers, so I have no doubt that conversion will drop significantly when we go out to the wider list.
But still, I couldn’t have asked for a better early result.
Now the interesting question:
Why is this happening?
Well, I think there are a few possibilities:
- The app is a genuinely good idea. It’s not “app for the sake of an app” – we’re using software and AI to offer something that genuinely improves the language learning experience. And so, in so far as the offer is always king, I think we’re on point here.
- Apps are sexy. I’ve never really understood why, but people just like buying apps. It’s a fundamentally different proposition to coaching or courses and occupies a different space in people’s brains.
- Building on our IP. The premise of the app was to build on our most popular product – our books. In that sense, there’s almost 10 years of validation of the idea here, so we’re swimming with the tide.
Whatever it is, I think what’s interesting is to see how just taking your existing knowledge and applying in a different medium or format can have quite drastically different results.
Something to think about.
Cannibalising the main business
Lots of people have been asking me how I’m thinking about rolling out the app without cannibalising the main business.
The answer is that I am very focused on not disrupting the main business at all.
Fundamentally the existing business has to continue to function and grow in parallel as we build this out.
What that means practically is that, in our content, which is the lifeblood of the business, nothing really changes:
- CTAs
- Lead magnets
- Funnels
Instead, I’m taking an approach using extra capacity to leave breadcrumbs so that interested people can self-select and explore the app.
Mentioning the app at the two-thirds point in a video…
or in the PS of an email…
or in the menu bar of the website.
Nothing that’s going to materially affect our lead gen, but for people who are paying attention, it’s there.
Similarly, we make a lot of our revenue from regular email promotions, so that’s not really going to change.
I’m doing this one big launch right now to kickstart everything, but that’ll be it.
Stepping back a bit, in order to reach our goal of 7,500 active subscribers ($1m ARR) I’m going to have to go out beyond the main list anyway, and I know that’s the real work.
It’s always easy to rely on your existing audience, but one of the main reasons for building this app in the first place is that it’s something I believe can exist outside the confines of our existing audience.
Something that can grow by word of mouth.
Something where reputation can do a lot of the work, much like how books have.
So yes, I’ll use our audience to kick start this and I will mention the app at every opportunity, but otherwise the main business is going to remain untouched.
The only time I really see this changing is at such point that we reach 7-figures of ARR with the app, it’s growing at a good clip and it seems to be on track to become the biggest revenue source in the business.
At that point there will be an interesting decision to be made, but that’s some way down the track.
Or not.
Who knows?
Things can happen very quickly when you roll your sleeves up and try new things.
