My Initial Thoughts about ABCmouse’s $1B Valuation

First of all, congratulations to Doug Dohring. It feels really good to see someone in our space (i.e. educational apps for kids) finally reaching that milestone.

Having all that content (over 7000(!) activities now, per article) and the fact that their subscription pack offers full curriculum for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten gives users enough value to result in an unusually high uptake for their subscription. As a result, they get more lifetime (and even short term) value out of a user than it costs to acquire one. This is a rarity in mobile kids space even in the App Store (with Playkids, Reading Rainbow being some of the notable exceptions) and certainly on Google Play. Once a developer reaches a stage where they make more money per user than it costs to acquire one – they are able to scale their success by paying for advertising.