User acquisition got so insanely expensive for apps that there are few to none business models where you can justify or break even the user acquisition costs.
I'll add that even after acquiring a user, engagement, apathy, and not being a 24-hour uninstall statistic are close seconds.
I'm working on a solution that's currently in private beta but it should be in public beta in a few weeks.
The only thing is that the gold rush of the app stores is gone.
The next site ia just ONE single click away. The next app is few clicks and a download away, even without any sign-up, an app install is a gigantic conversion breaker. This is not comparable with websites at all. Anyone who does new apps in 2017 must have a good plan.
* Are you providing enough value?
* Are you charging enough for it?
Of course there might be use cases which have a healthy CAC to LTV ratio. But almost none of them is B2C, except scammy dating apps and addictive fremium games. And some one-hit-wonder games which cannot replicate their success.
On the B2B side it's a bit better because of higher LTVs but all B2B apps have a web version where leads are generated anyways. So, mobile is just complementing but not in the user acquiring role.
But maybe you tell us if you are so lucky and have a, from a business-POV working, app which provides enough value and charges enough for it AND can acquire users for less than their LTV. Give us your example, we are curious to hear how you make money in the app stores (which is just hard to believe).
This, to my mind, also means that small paid apps indeed is not a reliable market. Either you need to go viral (a rare stroke of luck), or you have to complement an existing business of some sort (and it has a web site which is a powerful lead generator, this goes without saying).
So no, I don't have a good example, for these very reasons. When I will have executed on a a million-dollar idea (which is, of course, peanuts for a startup but could be a great side project), and it would happen to be in the mobile-only space, and won't be a freemium game, I promise to write a post.