Crossword Chef

Build in public update: Scaling an iOS app its first $1,000 For context, we now have hundreds of daily players on the Crossword Chef iOS app. In order to scale sustainably, we're looking at ways to start making recurring revenue to continue growing the app. Over the last few weeks, Sid and I did a deep dive on monetization and what a paid offering could look like. Here's all the questions we asked from a design-first lens: 1. Why 🤔 The main question: why would someone pay for Crossword Chef? Why *our app* over other alternatives? Is this differentiator obvious to the users? These questions forced us to boil things down to the basics. 2. How ⚒️ Then, we asked: How might we add more value for power users of our app? Today, all users get 1 new, free mini crossword everyday. If we introduced a paid tier, how does that translate to value? Does it mean more mini crosswords per day? Or larger crosswords? Or does it unlock entirely new word games? 3. What 🎱 Lastly, we explored various pricing models. We looked at ads ($ per X views), subscriptions (providing ongoing value each month), one-time payments (eg: to buy a crossword pack), and even in-app coin systems (like Duolingo). We didn't want to run ads – it ruins the user experience, is counter to our current goal (to build the most beautiful crossword experience on iOS), and doesn't align with our ethos at the moment. The goal was to pick a simple but scalable solution, so here's where we landed. ↪ Crossword Chef 'Pro' Tier We added a 'Pro' subscription to the app, which gives power users an additional, larger crossword (7x7 Midi) to solve daily. It can be purchased monthly or annually. It was easy enough for us to launch right away, but powerful enough to capture a clear value-add: twice the number of puzzles daily. Since launching this, we now have a bunch of paid users on the app and are already making our initial recurring revenue 🥺 We've set a goal to hit $1K MRR in the next 30 days. Will we get there? -- Follow along if you're curious to see how this scales. If you were scaling Crossword Chef, what's an idea you'd look into? #buildinpublic #ios #founder

Day 42 of building an iOS app from idea to revenue: We crossed 1,000+ crosswords solved on Crossword Chef 🎉 Here's what we've learned so far: 1. Small but extremely engaged community of daily users so far 2. Our retention is multiples above iOS 30-day averages 3. Our north star metric is daily crosswords solved, i.e. whether people play and finish the day's crossword. Impressions, downloads, and installs don't matter to us if we're unable to help users experience the core value prop. 4. As a new app, our free to paid conversion rate needs lots of work. We've been quietly shipping tiny improvements every day. No magic bullets. Just crafting an intentional experience and listening to feedback. What we’re doubling down on next: 👉 Better App Store discovery 👉 Helping players share the game with friends & family 👉 A paid experience for power users Our next goal is 10,000 crosswords solved on Crossword Chef, and to start building some initial revenue along the way. I know that small steps will lead to growth slowly, then suddenly. Appreciate all the support so far! 🙌