https://youtu.be/j8oZ7LXSbkc?si=aRV7Albn8Mr0PowG
Hey, it's Eugene, founder and CEO of Level Up Basketball. We are a small but passionate team committed to creating the best sports app for the global basketball community. Our objective is to address the major challenge of getting kids off screens and back onto the court. The year 2023 was truly inspiring and transformative for both me and Level Up. And I want to thank everyone who helped me on his way! Observing this year results I can say that Iām really impressed. We did a great job and so many amazing things are waiting ahead!
In 2022, we went through several survival and pivoting efforts, running from war disaster to better life. However, in 2023, the team underwent a complete restructuring, and I had the opportunity to work with amazing developers. I met my true love and moved to LA (Long Beach) to build a new family and create beautiful things together.
What we've done well and where we fell short in 2023:
- AI features: We tested AI features in beta but were unable to launch them due to the war in Israel.
- Pick-up games: We will be ready to launch pick-up games in January 2024.
- We failed a crowdfunding campaign on Wefunder, but I will share the story about it later. Instead, I focused on raising money from angel investors:
- I successfully raised funds from 6 angel investors and 1 VC, totaling $137,500 in 2023. This is an increase from $90k raised in 2022 from 2 individuals and 2 VCs.
- I reached out to about 20 sports tech VCs and had over 50 calls with potential investors.
- We translated the app into 12 languages.
- We integrated OpenAI Chat, a virtual coach named Dan.
- We added amazing new features:
- Beautiful NBA statistics: All player profiles with comprehensive stats and a following option.
- 2 integrated mobile games: Predict NBA game winners and a simple casual mobile game.
- Fixed a significant number of legacy bugs.
- Fixed critical database architecture issues.
- I obtained my O1 US visa and California state ID, valid until 2029 š.
- I attended SF, LA, and NY TechWeek, as well as several other events, just like in 2022, and connected with many amazing people.
- We migrated our website to Webflow and continue to attract new app users from the web.
- At the beginning of the year, I reimagined the product strategy and vision. By the end of the year, I finally understood the true problem we are solving.
- We achieved all of this with a team of 2 part-time developers, 1 part-time product manager, and 1 full-time SMM & business development manager (both of whom are children of my entrepreneur friends).
- We were unable to switch our paid ads campaigns to a CPA model due to limited financial and technical resources for conversion tracking.
- We completed several design improvement projects with the help of Careerist.
2023 vs 2022 in numbers:
|
2023 |
2022 |
Change |
Notes |
| New users: |
127,000 |
37,000 |
+252% |
Direct (word of mouth): +184% |
| Organic Search: +279% |
|
|
|
|
| Revenue (gross): |
$42,816 |
$9,473 |
+352% |
US: +344%, CA: +174%, UK: +242% |
| SMM reach: |
6,193,878 |
3,079,787 |
+101% |
Facebook: 2,666,012 |
| Instagram: 3,527,866 |
|
|
|
|
| Free Trials: |
5,273 |
1,208 |
+337% |
US: +285%, CA: +403%, UK: +270% |
| New Premium Subscriptions: |
1,671 |
369 |
+353% |
US: +278, CA: +291%, PH: +986%, FR: +425%, UK: +189% |
| Active Premium Subscriptions: |
960 |
187 |
+413% |
US: +421%, CA: +258%, UK +218% |
| CR from install to trial: |
iOS: 10.3% |
|
|
|
| Android: 2.4% |
iOS: 4.2% |
|
|
|
| Android: 0.8% |
iOS: +245% |
|
|
|
| Android: +300% |
iOS (US): +5.9% > 11.9% |
|
|
|
| Android (US): 1.1% > 2.9% |
|
|
|
|
| CR from trial to subscription: |
iOS: 19% |
|
|
|
| Android: 17% |
iOS: 27% |
|
|
|
| Android: 29% |
iOS: -30% |
|
|
|
| Android: -41% |
Users have high expectation to the product than we offer now. We know how to fix it š |
|
|
|
Users: