Amir Bois

I study winning apps, so you don't have to.
Weekly teardowns of the world’s top apps.
Founder @thescreenomics

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

App founders, you're going to want to hear this — because it's counterintuitive. https://t.co/7N6kupO5SA

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

If you have no audience and no ad budget, start with founder-led content.

Nobody can explain why your app exists better than the person who built it.

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

@fordsmith True, but sometimes it’s hard to admit that certain features are useless. Some founders can’t let go because they’ve invested so much in the product. I remember trying to convince some of my friends to stop building dead features. That was tough.

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

Killing a feature you spent two months building is one of the hardest things a founder does.

It's also one of the fastest ways to make your app simpler, cheaper to maintain and easier to sell.

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

Talk to 3 churned users every week. They'll tell you more about your retention than any dashboard.

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

If you shipped one paywall or onboarding test every week, you'd have 52 lessons a year from now.

Most founders run 3 or 4 a year, then wonder why nothing compounds.

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

$10K/mo founder: "What if the test makes revenue worse?".

$100K/mo founder: "What will we learn by Friday?"

Same paywall test. Different question.

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

An A/B test that loses a bit of revenue for a week is cheaper than a year of guessing what your users would pay for.

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

Raising your prices is the fastest growth experiment you can run. It takes minutes to set up.

Most founders delay it for months because they're scared of watching conversion dip for a week.

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

If a stranger looks at your calendar from the last 30 days, what would he say you actually want in life?

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

App founders say "the app isn't ready yet."
It's usually ready enough.
What isn't ready is the founder, for the possibility of being judged.

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

A simple rule for app founders: 3 risky tasks before 12pm. Code after.

Post a video, message a creator, launch a test. Then open the editor.

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

@_alphashark_ X to figma is pretty low. Posting and replying doesn’t take a lot of time. Notion to Figma is 3:1. I spend most of my time creating content and planning.

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

Try this for one week: Install a screen-time tracker on your laptop.

If your X Code and Figma beat your analytics, content tools and inbox, you've found the reason your MRR is flat.

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

@akashsairaja I’ll send you ateardown in the DMs

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

Drop a link to your app.
I'll teardown your onboarding and paywall for free.

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

@heynehasingh I’ve heard about this idea recently. Some guy was making a lot of money. I’ll send you a teardown in the DMs

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

@buttonupd I’ll send you a teardown in the DMs

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

@TheXSami I’ll send you a teardown in the DMs. It’ll take a while to finish it

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

@Yakobeen1 Cool app! I’ll send you a teardown in the DMs as soon as I finish it

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

Refactoring code that already works feels productive. Nobody can watch you fail at it.

That's exactly why it's so attractive when your MRR is flat.

[Amir Bois @theboisov]

Most funders don't procrastinate on unimportant work.
They procrastinate on work that can fail and people can see it.