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March 11, 2026

Rebooting the App Store Experiment in 2026

Why Bring It Back

The last App Store Experiment update was on August 2, 2020. The series started on June 20, 2013. That is a long gap.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this experiment over the last few months. Nearly 1 million people read The App Store Experiment from 2013 to 2020. But the App Store has changed a lot. ASO has become much harder. Ad spending on Meta and TikTok has exploded. AI is flooding the store with thousands of apps each week.

I recently shared on LinkedIn some thoughts about AI that seemed to connect with people:

AI is an incredible accelerator for building products.

But the stories about someone “vibe coding” an app on a weekend and hitting $100k MRR a week later? Almost all noise.

For every viral win, there are thousands of posts that say: “I built an app with AI… and nobody downloaded it.”

Version 1 is maybe 2% of the journey, if you’re lucky.

AI has made building easier, but distribution is still very hard. It hasn’t made product intuition or trust any easier.

The hard part is still:

  • Iterating for months
  • Talking to users
  • Improving relentlessly
  • Figuring out distribution

AI has changed V1 build time. It doesn’t change the grind.

I want to see if the same approach to grinding and iterating still applies. I also want to share some of the wins and losses I’ve had since.

If you’re building for the App Store, I’ll share the experiments, the data, and the decisions, plus what moved the needle and what didn’t.

Quick Timeline (The Short Version)

  • June 20, 2013: built a 7 Minute Workout app in a night and launched quietly. (Part 1)
  • Going free in 2013 led to 216,718 downloads in 3 days and a top 25 overall ranking in the US. (Part 1)
  • By August 14, 2013: 520k downloads, ~2k per day, ~$6k revenue, and IAP converting ~2-3% of daily downloads. (Part 2)
  • By 2015 the app had reached 2.3 million downloads and was acquired. (Isolation, COVID-19 and the App Store)
  • December 4, 2019: I re-acquired the app to continue the story. (The Resurrection)
  • August 2, 2020: switching to subscriptions reached $1k MRR in just under 2 months. (Switching To Subscriptions)

Where It’s At

There are no turntables or microphones, but there has been some growth since I last posted.

MRR

When I last shared about switching to subscriptions, 7 Minute Workout had just hit $1k MRR.

As of March 2026, it has grown to about $10k MRR (before Apple’s cut), but the road has been bumpy. Some of that is my lack of effort, and some is the changing market.

7 Minute Workout MRR March 2026

As you can see, it grew nicely for a year until about $4.5k MRR. Then the dreaded churn kicked in. New subscriptions didn’t quite keep up with churn, so it gently fell away.

In June 2024 I went to WWDC, which inspired me into action:

  • Worked on ASO and localisations
  • Doubled the price of the subscriptions
  • Improved the onboarding and added the paywall to it

This kicked off another year of growth. And then, more churn!

Downloads

Downloads are at about 150 to 200 per day, not like the old days, but enough to work with.

7 Minute Workout Downloads

Sales

Sales are better than ever, but not growing. Still, I can’t complain for a side project.

7 Minute Workout Sales

Apple Love

I’ve been lucky enough to be featured by Apple a number of times, especially around the launch of iOS 26. The features were mainly in Australia, so didn’t have the impact that you’d hope for a US feature. But I won’t be complaining.

For example, 7 Minute Workout was chosen in the 26 apps for 2026:

App Store Feature

I’ll share some more specifics in an upcoming post.

Current & Upcoming Tests

I’m prioritizing tests that can move the core funnel, measured by trial starts, paid conversion, churn, and payback period.

  • New screenshot A/B test (in progress)
  • Professionally designed screenshot A/B test
  • Pricing changes based on a country’s ability to pay
  • Custom Product Pages (CPPs)
  • Apple Search Ads
  • Meta Ads
  • Any suggestions? Ping me on one of the socials below.

Future Updates

I am aiming to post at the end of every one or two major experiments, whenever there is something interesting to share. I’m estimating 3-4 times a year.

If you want the results as they happen, subscribe to the newsletter below. I will send each update as I publish them.

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