My App Made $120K in 24 Hours
Umberto built a yoga app called Floga and generated $120K in 24 hours using a lifetime deal launch strategy. He validated the idea first, built anticipation through a multi-week email sequence that created curiosity without revealing pricing, and offered three lifetime pricing tiers ranging from $109-$349 with limited time and quantity.
Summary
Umberto, who has an economics background and previously failed with a startup, found success after stepping away from tech and later returning with marketing experience. He and his girlfriend first built a successful physical yoga card product on Kickstarter that generated $200K in the first month. This gave him the idea to transform their physical business into a mobile app while maintaining the mindful core values. The app, called Floga, helps yoga teachers and practitioners build sequences and practice mindfully. Umberto's launch strategy centered on a lifetime deal approach rather than traditional subscription models. He spent about five weeks warming up his audience through carefully crafted emails that built storytelling and curiosity without revealing the product details or pricing until launch day. The email sequence started with vague storytelling, gradually revealed more information, and created confusion and anticipation before unveiling the app. He emphasized never showing pricing during the warmup phase, as it would cause people to make decisions based on price rather than features and vision. His pricing strategy included three tiers: basic lifetime access for $109, enhanced features for $199, and full vision access for $349. The launch generated over $120K in 24 hours from 500-600 early customers. The app was built using Flutter, Firebase, Revenue Cat for subscriptions, Vimeo for video hosting, and OneSignal for push notifications, with total hosting costs of only $25/month. Umberto argues that lifetime deals are superior for early-stage products because they convert assumptions into real money, create customer commitment rather than optionality, and provide valuable feedback from invested users. The business now generates $9-10K monthly recurring revenue with about 4,000 active users.
About this episode
Most app founders launch in silence. Umberto made $120K in 24 hours from an app that wasn't even finished. This is his exact launch playbook. *Free Course: Ship your first iOS app in 7 days* https://clickhubspot.com/gfd Follow Umberto: https://www.linkedin.com/in/umberto-mezzadra-a6a77113/ Check out Floga: https://floga.io/ 🔔 Follow the Second Channel: @StarterStoryBuild 🏁 We're hiring: starterstory.com/jobs This video is an educational case study of this founder’s experience. It is not financial advice and does not guarantee any income or results. Every business is different and your results may vary. Chapters: 0:00 - The fastest way to validate your idea 1:19 - What's your story? 1:44 - App breakdown and stats 2:35 - Coming up with the app idea 4:30 - Lifetime Deals Strategy 6:44 - Build your own iOS app 8:18 - The email launch sequence 11:37 - How to have a great launch (playbook) 15:22 - Are lifetime deals bad? 17:44 - Floga app demo 18:48 - Tech stack 19:14 - Stop waiting for perfection 20:08 - Pat and Gus reflections: our takeaways
Key Insights
- Umberto argues that lifetime deals are superior to traditional subscription models for early-stage products because monthly subscribers have optionality to leave easily, while lifetime buyers have commitment and actively help improve the product through detailed feedback and bug reports
- The speaker claims that many people hate subscriptions and are willing to pay three to five times more for lifetime access compared to yearly plans, making lifetime deals mathematically superior for early-stage businesses
- Umberto emphasizes that pricing should never be revealed during the warmup campaign because it causes people to make purchase decisions based on price rather than evaluating the product purely on features and long-term vision
- The author discovered that his most successful email strategy involved creating confusion and curiosity by showing their existing physical products partially obscured, making subscribers suspect either another physical product or something completely different
- Umberto argues that perfection is just fear disguised as preparation, and that real breakthroughs happen when you put unfinished products in front of real people, because you learn faster in public than in private
Topics
Transcript
There's a well-known secret in the app space right now, and it's arguably the fastest way to see whether your idea is good or not. Well, I met a guy who executed this perfectly. I had zero experience with mobile apps, so I wasn't sure it would work. Meet Umberto. He built a really simple mobile app, but instead of launching with a free trial, he did something different. And in 24 hours, he made over $100,000. This is the best way to validate your idea. Most people might tell you this strategy is a bad idea, but Umberto had a playbook and it worked. So I asked him to come on the channel to break it all down for…
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