Anova Sports
$553 total revenue. 18 subscriptions, 13 canceled in seconds.
4 pricing pivots in 6 months. Zero retained customers.
This is what the data actually says.
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Chapter 01
The State of Play
Anova Sports is a pre-revenue coaching SaaS for high school basketball.
In 6 months of operation, it has collected $553 from 7 one-time payments.
Every metric tells the same story: there is no product-market fit yet.
$553
Total revenue collected, ever
18
Lifetime subscriptions
13 canceled in seconds
4
Pricing pivots in 6 months
0
Retained paying customers
Each dot is a subscription. The 5 "original" subs (Dec) include 4 QA test accounts that paid $0. All 13 Ambassador Program subs (Jan-Mar) canceled within 4-14 seconds of creation. 7 of 13 paid the $79 fee before auto-canceling.
The 5 "active" subscriptions include 4 qaconsul+N@gmail.com test accounts and one customer (jamelio@) who has paid $0 and logged zero sessions in 117 days. The real paying customer count is zero.
The Ambassador Program
Every single Ambassador subscriber canceled within 4-14 seconds of signing up. This wasn't churn — it was architecturally broken. Either the checkout flow auto-triggered cancellation, or users were presented a cancel button on the success page. The program collected $553 as one-time payments disguised as subscriptions. It was never recurring revenue.
Chapter 02
The Broken Funnel
7,048 site sessions. 277 signups. 34 checkouts. 17 paid. 0 retained.
The funnel breaks at every stage — there is no single fix.
Conversion rates between stages: Sessions to Signups 3.9%, Signups to Checkouts 12.3%, Checkouts to Paid 50.0%. The checkout rate is decent for those who reach it — the problem is almost nobody does.
277
App signups
3.9% of sessions
34
Checkout sessions
12.3% of signups
The funnel has two fatal breaks. First: 96.1% of visitors never sign up. The site is not converting awareness into intent. Second: 87.7% of signups never reach checkout. The free app experience doesn't create enough urgency to pay. The 50% checkout conversion is the one bright spot — people who decide to buy do follow through — but almost nobody decides.
Chapter 03
The Traffic Mirage
Traffic looks impressive on two days and empty the rest.
Both major campaigns — a January email blast and a March Meta Ads blitz — generated thousands of sessions and zero conversions.
Daily site sessions by channel. The Jan 25-26 email blast drove 1,578 visitors in 2 days. The Mar 10-23 Meta Ads campaign drove 2,619 visitors over 2 weeks. Neither produced a single subscription.
2,433
Meta Ads sessions
0 conversions
2,288
Email sessions
0 conversions
395
Organic search sessions
Growing: 36 to 166/mo
167
Google Ads sessions
43% bounce rate
Meta Ads had excellent engagement metrics — 8.7% bounce rate, 4.5 pageviews per session — but zero subscriptions from 2,433 sessions. People read the content and left. The January email blast was likely a cold list: 2,356 visitors with 37% bounce and zero conversions. Google Ads had the worst engagement (43% bounce, 1.2 min avg) and should be paused immediately. The only organic channel showing promise is search, growing from 36 to 166 sessions/month.
The math on paid acquisition
At a 3.9% signup rate, 12.3% checkout rate, and 50% payment rate, you need
4,167 sessions to generate 1 paid subscriber. At even $0.50 CPC (generous for Meta), that's $2,083 in ad spend per $79 subscriber. This funnel cannot support paid acquisition at any price point.
Chapter 04
The Product Signal
132 free users actively use the app. They spend 6+ minutes on Dashboard, 9 minutes on Game Day, 4.5 minutes on Playbuilder. But subscribers don't use the app at all. The product has engagement — just not from people who pay.
Average session duration by app page. Dashboard, Game Day, and Playbuilder show genuine deep engagement from free users. Scouting has high volume (1,462 views) but shallow engagement (28s avg), suggesting users browse without depth.
4,875
Total free user pageviews
6
Subscribers who ever opened app
0
Subscriber pageviews (active subs)
This is the paradox at the heart of Anova. Free users find enough value to spend 9 minutes on Game Day and 6 minutes on Dashboard, but none of this engagement converts to revenue. Meanwhile, the 5 "active" subscribers have zero app usage — they subscribed through offline channels and never returned. The product isn't failing to provide value. It's failing to capture value from the users who have it.
The question the data can't answer
Why won't 132 engaged free users pay $599/year? Is the free tier too generous? Is the pricing page too hard to find? Is the price too high? Is the value not "must-have" enough? This requires direct customer development — call 20 of these users.
Chapter 05
The Pricing Maze
4 product iterations. 12 price points. Prices ranging from $79 to $899. In 6 months, the only price that collected any revenue was $79 — and that was a broken product.
Each dot represents a price point. Size indicates revenue collected at that price. The Apr 1, 2026 restructure introduced three new tiers ($599/$899/$899) with zero revenue to date. Every previous price point has been deactivated.
| Product | Price | Type | Status | Revenue |
|---|
| Coach Access Fee | $79 | One-time | Inactive | $0 |
| Coach Access Fee | $149 | One-time | Inactive | $0 |
| Coach Access Fee | $299/yr | Annual | Inactive | $0 |
| Coach Access Fee | $399/yr | Annual | Inactive | $0 |
| Ambassador Program | $79/yr | Annual | Inactive | $553 |
| Pro Team Plan | $499/yr | Annual | Inactive | $0 |
| Coach Plan | $599/yr | Annual | Active | $0 |
| Coach Plan & Player Portal | $899/yr | Annual | Active | $0 |
| Pro Team Plan | $899/yr | Annual | Active | $0 |
The constant repricing reveals a business that hasn't found what the market will bear. The Apr 1 restructure to $599-$899 is a reasonable bet for the market (Hudl charges $400-$2,000/yr), but Anova has never actually retained a paying customer at any price. The $79 Ambassador was the only price that collected revenue, and even that was structurally broken. Pricing iteration without retention data is guesswork.
Chapter 06
The Path Forward
What needs to be true for $10K MRR. Three priorities, in order. None of them involve spending more on marketing.
$553
Total revenue collected → $120,000 ARR needed for $10K MRR. That's a 217x gap.
200
Paying coaches needed at $599/yr to reach $10K MRR. Currently: 0-2 genuine subscribers.
10,256
Monthly sessions needed at current 3.9% signup × 50% checkout rate to generate 200 subs/yr. Current: ~2,000/mo bursty.
134
Coaches needed at $899/yr (Pro Team Plan) for $10K MRR. At $79/yr (Ambassador-style): 1,519 — completely unviable.
01
Fix retention before acquisition. 132 free users actively use the product. Talk to 20 of them. Implement usage gates on Game Day and Playbuilder. Add in-app upgrade prompts after engagement milestones. Don't spend another dollar on ads until free users convert.
02
Switch to direct B2B sales. At $599-$899/yr, this is a high-touch sale, not self-serve. LinkedIn outreach to HS basketball coaches. Demo calls. Conference presence. The only real subscriber came through offline outreach. Stop running Meta ads. Stop cold email blasts.
03
Validate $599 with 10 closes in 60 days. Close 10 coaches at $599/yr with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Require 2 weeks of active usage. Measure retention and NPS. If 7+ stay: the product has potential. If fewer than 5 stay: the product needs fundamental changes before anything else matters.
The fundamental question
Is Anova solving a real problem that coaches will pay for, or building a nice-to-have that coaches browse but don't need? 132 active free users suggest there's something worth investigating. The answer won't come from dashboards or ad campaigns. It will come from direct conversations with the coaches who use the product every day and still haven't paid.