MoveWell Update: We Doubled Down On Content And 4x'd Our Website Traffic
This is a follow up story for MoveWell. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published over 5 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
Hi - My name is Joel Runyon. I created MoveWell- a movement and mobility training app - after I hurt myself running an ultra marathon on every continent in the world (777.impossiblehq.com) and needed to piece myself back together.
Movewell is essentially personalized and custom physical therapy designed to help you with your specific fitness goals through 15-minute app-focused mobility routines.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?
Since we talked last - we rolled MoveWell into the rest of the IMPOSSIBLE branded projects (including impossiblehq.com, impossiblefitness.com, and impossible.co). In addition to consolidating the branding, we also copied many of the things about the app that were working well and launched them in our fitness-focused app - impossible fitness.
As for the app itself - the app has been growing steadily (it’s still a small side project), but the website has grown exponentially.
We’ve found that the app has positioned us as an authority in the mobility and recovery space and that’s allowed us to do well in the content space.
I sat down and started realizing how well our content was doing. Instead of trying to be a genius - I just figured we could “do more of that” - so we did and the site began to grow 4x.
Because of this, we’ve built out industry leading guides on cold tubs, saunas, supplements and even toe spacers.
These are all products that our existing customers want more information about and bring in more customers to our product as well. This has allowed us to build out affiliate revenue streams in addition to our subscription revenue - which has been immensely helpful.
We’ve also created in-depth guides on techniques like mewing and muscle scraping that our customers are originally looking for and subsequently find our product to be immensely useful for their issues.
We use a mix of tools like ahrefs.com to find opportunities while also listening to our customers and keeping our finger on the pulse of cutting edge performance and nutrition to find the new content our audience loves.
What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?
One of the biggest challenges has been just how much apple charges for apps.
A 30% haircut on every transaction is a lot for small businesses so it’s been good to be able to diversify with our content and affiliate channels and continue to improve both our revenue streams and reliance on a single source of revenue.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
- Do more of what’s working.
- Do less of what’s not working.
This is a stupid simple lesson, but I constantly find I want to stick to my original plan, and then when it doesn’t work - I get all frustrated - not realizing that there are 2-3 things that are working well - that I didn’t even think about.
Apologies if this sounds overly simplistic, but it’s been wildly helpful.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
- We’re going to do a ton more content. As a leader in the movement and mobility space - we’re not only helping people find useful resources and products
- Tons more routines. One of our requests from users is more routines and movements - so we’ll be adding to the mix over the upcoming months to build our database to be the most comprehensive anywhere online.
- We’re taking many of the lessons we learned at movewell and replicating them on our impossible fitness site to a wide audience focused on fitness and training. This allows us to capitalize on our learnings here, utilize the impossible brand and also reach a larger market than is addressed by the mobility and fitness space covered by movewell.
What’s the best thing you read in the last year?
I’m sure a lot of people have great answers for this - but to be honest - I’ve been mostly focused on working harder and increasing the output of content over the last year.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?
Sit down and ask yourself what is and is not working. For me, I sat down and started realizing how well our content was doing. Instead of trying to be a genius - I just figured we could “do more of that” - so we did and the site began to grow 4x.
I don’t think people have had enough conversations with themselves. They don’t challenge their presumptions or ask what they could change or do better. Instead, they just pick one hypothesis and when it doesn’t work out - they assume they’re doing something wrong.
Take a look at what is and what is not working and be honest with yourself. Then, instead of beating yourself up about the stuff that’s not working - just do more of what is working.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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