Solve a single problem

and make a million dollars 💰

Jacob Rushfinn

Dec 15, 2024

Waterllama does $90-100k per month

That’s right about $1M per year (according to Appfigures).

Waterllama tracks your water intake.

It’s a pretty simple app, but they do a lot of things rather well:

Beautiful design and UI
Show the value of the app before the paywall
Simple personalization that makes the app feel more valuable for you
No account creation before the paywall (or maybe at all?)
Loading screen to increase the perceived value
Kick ass paywall

Let’s take a look:

So first off, it’s a very clean and simple app with flashes of color and fun design.

Often, more is less in terms of design.

I love apps that show the core action or dynamic during their onboarding flow before the paywall.

Waterllama does this and shows me how simple the app is to use.

And fun!

My water glass fills up, I add that water, and then I see the water go into the llama.

This uses the psychology tactic of a “goal gradient”

The idea is that as one becomes closer to reaching the end of the goal, one becomes more motivated to finish.

This is commonly seen in progress bars. The progress bar shows you how long you have left, you see it filling up, making you want to complete it more.

Or at Starbucks. You get more stars in your app, and the closer you get to the reward, the more likely you are to purchase to get your reward faster.

Waterllama uses this same goal gradient principle by visualizing your water drinking progress for the day. Once you get started and see that you’re getting close to finishing, you’re more motivated to hit your goal.

A small thing, but they do their push prompt well.

It’s directly connected to the value, and they explain the value.

They also prompt you right after you track water for the first time, and they assume you feel good about this progress making it more likely you opt in.

You may be thinking, water tracking is pretty simple, why do I need an app?

Waterllama knows that so they try to show extra value by personalizing your recommendation.

They ask some personal info like weight, activity level, and climate to adjust the recommendation.

I now feel more confident that Waterllama is providing me valuable guidance.

They also use a simple loading screen to hammer home that personalization value prop before the paywall

Now on to the paywall! It’s a good one!

We’ve got a lot going on here:

Animation as the hero image that cycles through benefits/features
A lifetime and annual offer
- Annual is discounted to guide you to this plan
Price anchoring with lifetime to make annual seem like a good deal
- $10 is super affordable - aligns with a simple app like this
Social proof: Awards, press, ratings
Very friendly education on how easy it is to cancel to build trust
Floating CTA button once you scroll further down

🧪 Beta tester?

I’m working on a new venture building some tools for subscription apps.

Right now I’m looking for a few app founders that would be interested in being beta testers.

Interested in learning more? ➡️ Click here to leave your info and I’ll follow up.

But wait, there’s more!

I love the trial toggle tactic.

If you can increase a small percentage of users who pay immediately instead of starting a trial, that can be a large jump in ARPU
I’ve also seen the trial toggle increase the trial conversion rate of users who start the trial
Waterllama does a nice job of adding extra info that you’d normally see on a trial timeline view like the date the trial ends and that they’ll send you a reminder notification

The paywall also includes:

Visual representations of their different awards that you can swipe through
A nice list of the other benefits, features, and reasons why premium makes sense
- They make the long list of bullets easily readable using iconography, making the titles of the bullets different colors, and having plenty of space between each
Then we end on a few nice swipeable cards of testimonials

Lifetime offers are a much underutilized tactic.

Most users aren’t going to pay for your app, and the ones who do, most of them won’t renew or churn after a few months.

Generally, you should try to push most users to annual plans, but if they don’t go for it, lifetime can be a great tactic to try to get more revenue up front.

(it can also be an effective price anchor to make your annual plan seem affordable)

When you close the first paywall, a 2nd offer appears

It’s a heavily discounted lifetime deal that’s actually cheaper than the original annual subscription offer.

And they have a timer on it to drive more urgency.

I actually waited 44 minutes and verified it does indeed expire and disappear.

That kind of makes me happy, because I’m tired of apps lying about their “limited time offer”

By actually having limited time offers expire, it gives you the ability to show another limited time offer later on and actually have people pay attention. They missed it once and don’t want to miss it again!

And this is exactly what Waterllama does!

I let the lifetime offer expire and then I got a push notification that I have one last chance to grab the deal.

Since the first offer actually expired and disappeared, now I know they’re for real.

Last piece I really enjoyed from Waterllama: their push notifications each had a different real benefit of drinking water and actually felt pretty motivating.

Who doesn’t want their kidneys to act normally??

Waterllama found a niche they could excel in, created a simple, but well-made product, and monetized users effectively using a mix of attractive offers and some psychology tactics.

All in a fun, colorful, exciting package. 👏