Help me scale my app in it’s early stages

[Vasudev Soni]

Hey Fastlane Forum users, I want to ask this from you today: How do we scale the app fast and what should be the next steps towards building our fastlane business?

(Read below for more details)
I launched my app about three months ago and currently have 7k+ downloads. We have spent $0 in marketing and are getting around 200+ organic downloads daily. People are engaging in the app and are also leaving good reviews.
The app(I can’t reveal the name) allows users to buy and sell used/new products to others nearby. The app is only available in India as of now. We are a team of just two people and I am the only tech guy in the team. We are somewhat confused of what steps we should take to scale our business from here.
Our final vision/goal is to expand to multiple countries and make a multi-million dollar company and then finally sell it to a giant company within a few years.

We have followed the CENTS principle in building this app:
Control: Most of the control is in our hands.
Entry: The entry isn’t easy, as it took us months to build, test, and deploy the app.
Need: There is a massive need for this kind of app, as the competitors are either providing poor customer service, or are charging the customers heavily for the service. Our app is Free to use, always.
Time: We are earning some revenue from ads and in-app-purchases, which will remain our major source of revenue, so our income from the app is independent of our time.
Scale: The market for second hand products is massive throughout the world, and it is growing as more people start supporting sustainable living.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Skroob]

Sounds like you've had a good start! Based on your numbers, it looks like your download rate is growing, so that's a good sign. How's your other numbers? Daily/Weekly/Monthly Active Users? Your app is almost entirely network effect dependent, so your goal should probably be to get as many people using it as much as possible. How often does your ideal user interact with your app?

At the stage you're at now, organic growth is gold. Keep plugging away at it, try to get it in as many hands as you can, and make sure people can see the difference between your great offering, and the crap ones that already exist.

 

[Vasudev Soni]

Sounds like you've had a good start! Based on your numbers, it looks like your download rate is growing, so that's a good sign. How's your other numbers? Daily/Weekly/Monthly Active Users? Your app is almost entirely network effect dependent, so your goal should probably be to get as many people using it as much as possible. How often does your ideal user interact with your app?

At the stage you're at now, organic growth is gold. Keep plugging away at it, try to get it in as many hands as you can, and make sure people can see the difference between your great offering, and the crap ones that already exist.

Thanks! We currently have about 2.5-3k monthly active users. The one thing that is worrying me is that the retention rate is very low right now.
Do you have any suggestions on how I can increase engagement in the app and increase the retention rate?
Thanks to our keyword research and clear benefits listed on our google play listing, we are getting organic downloads around 200-300 daily, which is increasing every week.