Achieving mission & profit with freemium — Podcast with Erin Webster-Shaller and Paul Apollo, Lose It!

Lose It!, a pioneering health and wellness app, has achieved significant growth by focusing on organic user acquisition and offering a high-value free product rather than relying heavily on paid marketing. With 50 million users to date, the app emphasizes authenticity in an industry rife with gimmicks, ensuring that it delivers on its promises without overselling. The company's marketing strategy centers on driving users to its free platform, from which monetization efforts are initiated, supported by effective app store optimization and discount messaging to convert free users to premium subscriptions. Despite experimenting with paid user acquisition, Lose It! found that maintaining an organic growth strategy was more sustainable, as paid marketing efforts yielded low returns on ad spend. The company continues to explore innovative methods to incentivize user engagement and referrals, such as potentially adopting ideas like Headspace's sweepstakes concept, to further enhance user success and sharing.