Navigating App Growth Through Strategic Partnerships and Media Wins — Adam Allore, Wavve Boating

On the podcast: Landing PR for a niche app, negotiating strategic partnerships, and pretending to have an app helped validate that he should build one.

Top Takeaways

🚀 Validate Early and Build Smartly: Start by validating your app idea with minimal investment — even just an image or a spreadsheet. Once validated, focus on creating an MVP that delivers core value to your users, allowing for effective market testing and valuable feedback. (01:06—11:00)

🎯 Mix Up Your Early Marketing: Early on, explore a mix of marketing tactics, both paid and organic, such as Apple Search Ads and targeted PR. Adapt quickly to focus on strategies that drive early user growth and traction. (11:00—14:06)

✍️ Craft Ready-to-Publish Stories for Media Pick-Up: Develop complete, compelling narratives about your app. A story that's ready-made and engaging eases journalists' workloads and increases the likelihood of your app getting featured. (12:34—15:58)

🤝 How to Close Early Partnerships: When approaching potential partnerships as an early app startup, remember that you’re a risk, so highlight your business’s reliability and responsiveness. Be proactive and flexible in negotiations, demonstrating your commitment to deliverables and reducing perceived risk to partners. (17:02—22:55)

🌐 The Broader Impact of Partnerships: Recognize that the value of partnerships extends beyond direct metrics like user acquisition. They are instrumental in building credibility, social proof points, and establishing a presence in your niche, which leads to organic growth and further collaborative opportunities. (34:41—38:13)

About Adam Allore

👨‍💻 Founder and CEO of Wavve Boating, an app that provides a better marine navigation experience that’s easy, collaborative, and fun.

⚓ Adam initially wanted to build a nautical navigation map that he would use, until he organized himself a booth at a boat show that ultimately led to him building the app thanks to overwhelming positive feedback.

💡 “The quantity of emails that we got was one thing, but seeing people light up and get excited by the app and experience that I built was what gave me that confidence to quit my job, pursue this thing full time, and make the beta a reality that I was telling people about.”

👋  LinkedIn

Links & Resources

‣ Connect with Aaron via LinkedIn

‣ Check out Wavve Boating

‣ Adam talking about the Wavve App

‣ Wavve Boating on X, formerly known as Twitter

Episode Highlights

[1:10] Ahoy, sailor: Working as an engineer, Adam realized that people struggled to read nautical navigation maps, which provided the inception point for Wavve Boating.

[4:53] Fake it till you make it: Taking the scrappy route can sometimes be the best path to kickstarting your idea — even if it requires a bit of hustle.

[7:26] Just build the beta: Even the bare MVP can be enough to attract investors and users. Unique product insight is where the margin really comes from.

[11:18] Gaining traction: Adam took a shotgun marketing approach before landing on app-based PR hits with a promising community element.

[17:15] Press power: Aaron assumed the initial press outreach kickoff would drive major user growth — it added value and drove recognition in the space (and yes, some user acquisition).

[20:26] Proactive negotiation: Potential partners (especially large ones) may view small startups as a risk — subscription app developers should aim to mitigate that risk.

[26:14] Basement finance plan: Panic led to solid planning as Adam reached out to the local angel network to raise capital and get things going, including a deal that represented his first foray into B2B sales.

[29:24] Market flows: Deep link usage for the paywall was one thing, but what really paid off for the app was ensuring it was as easy to activate and use as possible.

[32:05] DevOps on the cheap: Building for the addressable market of one company could pay off bigger if you take that idea elsewhere — if you know the business. Be careful about which projects you take on, as they may ultimately prove distractions.

[35:00] Partner-driven UA: 25% of Wavve’s total UA comes from partnerships. But plenty of users come through untracked and organic channels.

[37:29] Leveraging reality: Get the PR right, and landing partnerships can quickly snowball into further opportunities.