firstrun.sh: activation consulting for stablecoin apps

What changed this summer

Two clocks started this summer.

Both force you to touch the exact funnel where users already quit, and neither is something AI can write its way out of.

Jun 9Apple 4.3(b) rewrite

nowthis quarter

Jul 18GENIUS Act rules land

Jun 9

Apple rewrote Guideline 4.3(b): apps in crowded categories must add real value or get pulled. Review now runs 7 to 30 days.

Apple App Review Guidelines, Jun 9 2026

Jul 18

GENIUS Act final rules land. Stablecoin issuers face mandatory KYC and identity checks to rebuild.

GENIUS Act final rulemaking, Jul 18 2026

30–50%

of users are lost at KYC, the same step the rebuild forces you to reopen. Most of that loss is design, not the law.

stablecoin on-ramp onboarding studies

You have to reopen the KYC flow this quarter regardless. Done wrong it bleeds worse. We make the forced rebuild recover activation instead of losing more of it.

The problem, quantified

The rails are ready. The funnel isn't.

60–90%

of stablecoin-app installs never reach a first transaction

industry onboarding studies, 2025–26

1 in 5

users abandons onboarding at the KYC step alone

fintech onboarding benchmarks

$3.3B/yr

lost to abandoned KYC across financial onboarding

published KYC-abandonment estimates

AI ships the code. Your rail holds the money and the licenses. What neither touches is the stretch in between: Apple review for a financial app, the Apple Pay entitlements, and the KYC step where the users die. That stretch is our whole job.

Rails fluency

We speak your stack.

Virtual accounts, liquidation addresses, KYC links, just-in-time card settlement. We know what your rail handles and exactly where it hands the user back to you. That handoff is where funnels die, and it's where we work. Convert before custody, never custody-then-convert.

Bridge (Stripe) Tempo Circle / Arc Base Privy Rain

Rails we build on. Not client claims.

The firstrun method

Four steps. One number.

Install · 100

KYC · 62

Fund · 34

First txn · 15

Teardown

Every screen from install to first transaction, plus the KYC and funding config behind them.

Instrument

Event-level funnel measurement you keep forever. The exact screen where deposits die.

Rebuild

We redesign the leaking steps and ship them with your team. The code is the easy part; the KYC and entitlement config is the work.

Measure

Lift verified against the baseline we both agreed on. That number is what you pay on.

Engagements

Start small. Scale on evidence.

The Teardown Start here

Fixed-fee diagnostic. Full funnel audit, every screen plus the KYC, funding, and card-provisioning config behind it, instrumented baseline, ranked fix list with projected lift.

Two weeks Fixed fee, credited forward

The Rebuild

Sprint engagement. We design and ship the fixes with your engineers, feature-flagged and measured.

Six to eight weeks Fixed fee, scoped from the teardown

The Activation Partnership

Quarterly. Ongoing experiments on the funnel: ASO, onboarding, KYC recovery, lifecycle.

Quarterly Reduced base + performance on lift

We price on the lift. If the funnel doesn't move, the performance component doesn't exist.

Founders

Who you'll work with.

Product & growth engineering

Abe Mangona

Two years on Tinder's User Growth team: onboarding and activation experiments at consumer scale
Solo-built a non-custodial Bitcoin & stablecoin iOS wallet: Secure Enclave, cross-chain to Solana, Ethereum, USDC

LinkedIn ↗

Payments & partnerships

Rafi Rashid

Product at Aztec Network: ran the apps and ecosystem programs for the privacy L2
Co-founded Denota: payments-fraud escrow for fiat onramps; diligence with MoonPay, Transak, Sardine

LinkedIn ↗

Questions

The ones founders actually ask.

Why not just hire a growth PM or a mobile engineer?

Your engineer plus AI now ships features faster than ever, which adds to the flood, not the fix. The work that's actually scarce moved somewhere else: getting a financial app through Apple review, clearing Apple Pay entitlements, configuring the KYC waterfall, and instrumenting what actually converts. That's judgment across four domains, rarely one hireable person, and it's what we do. We start in days, ship a measured lift, and hand a clean, instrumented funnel to whoever you hire.

What access do you need?

For a teardown: nothing but your App Store link. We map the public funnel ourselves. For a rebuild: read access to your analytics and a working branch. We bring our own instrumentation, and it stays with you.

How is lift measured?

Install-to-first-transaction conversion, on event-level instrumentation, against a baseline we agree on in writing during the teardown. Same events, same definitions, before and after. The performance component only exists if that number moves.

Do you only work on stablecoin apps?

Stablecoin cards and cross-border payments are where we're sharpest and where the funnel pain is most acute. We selectively take consumer fintech and crypto apps with the same shape: high-friction onboarding standing between an install and a revenue event.

Where does compliance sit?

With your rail, that's the point of building on one. Bridge and its peers hold the money-transmission and custody licensing; your app stays software on top. Our rule in every flow we ship: convert before custody, never custody-then-convert. We design funnels that respect the regulatory line, not ones that flirt with it.

Can you make us GENIUS Act compliant?

No, and be careful with anyone who says they can. Whether your app is compliant is a legal determination your counsel and your KYC vendor own. What we own is the next question: does the compliant version still convert? The forced KYC rebuild is exactly where users drop, and our work rides inside your compliance rebuild to recover them. Your counsel signs the legal opinion. We sign the lift number.

Installs aren't users. First transactions are.