To survive the decline of dating apps, Grindr is leveraging its brand to sell physical goods. Crucially, it's focusing on consumable, recurring-purchase items like pills and skincare. This creates stable, long-term revenue streams from a user base that eventually stops using the core dating feature.
Related Insights
To remain sustainable, the local media outlet combines direct ad sales, branded content, merchandise (coupon passports), and a Patreon membership. This multi-pronged approach provides stability and avoids over-reliance on a single, often volatile, revenue stream like programmatic advertising.
The company initially used a one-time payment plan, resulting in low customer lifetime value. Switching to a recurring subscription model, even for a product with natural churn, massively increased revenue and LTV by capturing more value over time from each customer.
Offering a desirable physical giftâa "MIFK"âwith an annual subscription renewal can be a powerful tactic to combat churn. The appeal of a limited-time physical item can persuade even disengaged users to re-subscribe, as seen with the Endel app offering a bag.
Unlike transactional purchases requiring a proactive decision to buy, subscription models thrive on consumer inertia. Customers must take active, often difficult, steps to cancel, making it easier to simply continue paying. This capitalizes on a psychological flaw, creating exceptionally sticky revenue streams.
To find new revenue streams, analyze what your customer does immediately before and after interacting with your product. A gym could sell apparel (before) or smoothies (after). This "share of wallet" strategy increases lifetime value without acquiring new customers.
Grindr generated $100M in revenue and $45M in profit despite a dismal 1.8-star App Store rating and 19% Glassdoor score. These terrible qualitative metrics, paired with strong financials, indicated the company was severely undermanaged and ripe for a turnaround through basic operational improvements.
Education-based businesses struggle with churn because knowledge, once learned, has diminishing value. To build a sticky subscription, you must offer "consumable" valueâsomething that is used up and needs replenishing, like weekly market data, new ad creative, or trending product blueprints. This creates a reason to keep paying.
Grindr's new owners identified that the app had not implemented any of the successful product and monetization strategies proven by Tinder. Simply applying this known playbookâlike introducing boost features, optimizing pricing, and improving buy flowsâprovided a clear path to doubling revenue in under three years.
The path to $50k MRR for a mobile app isn't a feature-rich platform. It's an obsessive focus on doing one job perfectly for a specific group with a recurring need. Examples include 'value this vinyl,' 'create this logo,' or 'summarize this text.'
In subscription or repeat-purchase businesses, the customer relationship begins at the point of sale, it doesn't end. The funnel metaphor is limiting because it ignores the crucial post-acquisition phases of adoption, expansion, and loyalty, where most value is created.
