I left money on the table when I sold my app

Hey there,

I sold Puff Count for a good price, but I could've gotten more.

Here's what lowered my exit valuation and what you should fix before you sell.

1. Over-reliance on paid ads

Organic growth started Puff Count. 50M+ views on TikTok, 120k followers.

But we scaled with paid ads.

And in the eyes of buyers, that's risky.

Because they can't just take over and profit from organic traffic. They have to figure out paid ads too.

That means higher costs and more work for them.

Buyers want apps that grow organically. SEO. ASO. TikTok content that doesn't cost money to maintain.

I didn't rank high for keywords in the App Store. My SEO wasn't strong. Most of my traffic came from paid ads.

That decreased my exit price.

2. Solo operator (no team, no systems)

I was the face of Puff Count. I posted all the TikToks. I ran the marketing.

No team. No one else could step in.

Eventually, I burned out. Stopped posting for a year.

Buyers saw that and thought: "If we acquire this, we have to rebuild the entire marketing system."

That’s more work and more risk for the buyer. And a lower valuation for me.

What I should've done: Hired another creator to be the new face of the brand. Built a content team. Made the app run without me.

Apps like Cal AI and Rizz crush creator marketing because they built teams.

The lesson: Build your app to run without you. That's what buyers pay for.

Learn how to scale your app to $10,000 MRR

Peace,
Steven