Subversive · Aug 21How onX Built a Portfolio of Apps to Grow ARR by 10x
Grew by solving one hard problem for hunters, then spun off separate apps per activity because only about 13 million hunting tags are bought a year. A horizontal growth team of about four serves four businesses, raised experiment velocity, pushed paywall view rate toward 100% of new users, and found copy tests on CTAs consistently win. It raised an $87 million Series B in 2022 and leans on trials with a thin free tier.
Tips
- Require every team member to submit one-page experiment ideas, not just PMs▶ 10:11onX borrowed the process from Pinterest and made it an expectation for the whole growth team.
- Fix experiment velocity first, then tune for win rate and impact▶ 25:58onX's growth team is now in the tuning stage, after spending the last year on velocity and A/B testing infrastructure.
- Get the paywall seen by 100% of new users▶ 30:40onX saw a lot of traction from paywall work, with view rate pushed toward 100% of new users.
- Run small copy experiments, especially on the CTA, alongside big swings▶ 31:18Copy changes around the CTA were repeatedly successful at onX; Pinterest ran millions of copy iterations with a copy tuning tool.
- Watch real users go through onboarding even if you are the customer▶ 29:55The onX lead signed up in 2014 and found today's new users are completely different; he wishes the team had started the research sooner.
- Optimize the first 30 seconds of a new user, not the first 30 days▶ 33:40Host cites RevenueCat data that more than 80% of trial starts for premium subscription apps happen in the first 24 hours.
- Organize a horizontal growth team around the customer journey▶ 20:55A team of about four supports four businesses, prioritized by impact and where learning is fastest.
- Replace roadmap asks with an agreed problem and metric to move▶ 22:32onX's growth team gained freedom across areas as wins accumulated.
- Build vertical-specific apps on a shared platform to launch faster▶ 15:55The new fishing app launched this year with CarPlay and Android Auto out of the box, features that would have taken years to build from scratch.
- Expand into adjacent verticals when your core market has a TAM cap▶ 12:3613 million hunting tags bought a year, a cap that pushed expansion into off-road, backcountry and fish.
- Combine paid influencers and ambassadors with organic hobbyists for word of mouth▶ 10:35onX's hunting brand sits among the largest in the space, largely thanks to ambassadors and word of mouth.
- Set paywall and free tier aggressiveness by the size of your TAM▶ 43:20AllTrails has about 90% of its user base on free; onX leans toward a trial orientation.
- Target the objective-oriented user rather than the casual user▶ 40:00
- Ship features that serve a specific segment's real workflow▶ 37:50The dispersed camping layer required working with land agencies and drove a lot of excitement this summer.
- Do not rely on AI alone for safety-critical data▶ 56:06
- Define an activation metric for products with a lag before the core experience▶ 38:45
