Pre launch
Influencer co founder
Recruited a top wrestling influencer as co-founder who hyped the app to their audience and drove a pre-order campaign on the App Store, accumulating 3,000–4,000 pre-orders before launch day.
→ 3,000–4,000 pre-orders; #18 on App Store on launch day
Launch Day (Sep 26)
App store preorder
Set up an App Store pre-order to stack downloads and hit the charts on day one. Co-founder pushed to their audience at launch, flooding the app with downloads at midnight.
→ #19 on App Store; $1,000+ revenue on day one; viral Instagram comments
Month 1–2
Influencer marketing organic
Leveraged co-founder's wrestling influencer audience heavily through organic posts and videos featuring the app's 'gotcha moment' (submitting a match video and seeing the AI breakdown). Generated over 2 million impressions on social media across TikTok/Instagram Reels.
→ 2M+ social impressions; ~17,000 total downloads (cumulative)
Users 17k users
Month 2+
Paid influencer outreach dm
After saturating the co-founder's audience, George took ~$500 and deployed it into paid influencer deals. Process: DM 100 wrestling creators/day leading with 'paid promo?', negotiate on a phone call (not DM), structure deals as 20–50% upfront for 4–5 videos with a minimum view guarantee based on $2–$5 CPM. Offered ~$225 per creator for a 100K view guarantee, paying $50–$100 upfront.
→ Scaled MRR to ~$13K+ that month; ongoing growth engine
MRR $13k
Ongoing
Influencer marketing dm via va
Hired a virtual assistant (VA) to send high-volume DMs to wrestling influencers when just getting started. Once brand recognition grew, George took over personally — scrolling his wrestling-niche For You page for 20 minutes/day, DMing as many creators as possible from the business account, then hopping on calls the next day to close deals.
→ Improved response rate as brand became known in niche; self-sustaining outreach loop
Conversion Optimization
App store onboarding
Designed a high-converting onboarding flow inspired by apps like Opal and Cali: (1) educate user on app value, (2) personalize with guiding questions, (3) create FOMO, (4) show the 'gotcha moment' but withhold results until after the paywall. Attached the free trial to the yearly plan ($59.99/yr) to maximize LTV. Longer onboarding intentionally creates sunk-cost psychology to push users past the paywall.
→ Strong trial-to-paid conversion; majority of revenue accrues from annual subscriptions
Infrastructure / Build
Fiverr contractor
Outsourced paywall and authentication integration to a developer found on Fiverr (~$250, ~1 week of work) rather than attempting to vibe code payment infrastructure. This unblocked the launch path without over-spending.
→ App ready for App Store submission with working payments; total dev cost well under $1,000
Post 5K MRR
Product investment
Once past $5K MRR, started reinvesting all revenue (founder has taken $0 out) into contracted designers and additional developers to improve product quality beyond the MVP — expanding features like calorie tracker with barcode scanner, live coaching mode, training programs, and a weight/calendar journal to build a full wrestling ecosystem.
→ Product expanded significantly; MRR grew toward $17K; targeting $100K MRR before taking distributions
MRR $17k