New Beautiful Mess app nets 377K downloads in 3 weeks

A Color Story, the new app by A Beautiful Mess, netted 377,000 downloads in its first three weeks.

Trey George, business development manager for the Springfield lifestyle blog, said the color-filter app launched Jan. 19 outperformed its other two apps in the launch phase.

A Color Story beat its flagship photo editing app, A Beautiful Mess, by nearly 150,000 more downloads in the first few weeks after it was released in 2013. A Color Story already has more downloads than the company’s second app, Party Party, which has 90,000 to date after the photo animation app launched in 2014. A Beautiful Mess now has nearly 1.2 million downloads, George said.

“It’s pacing a lot better than A Beautiful Mess,” he said.

Apple named A Color Story one of its best new apps, which landed it on the front page of the App Store for about a week.

“If it’s getting a lot of downloads, they start to pay attention,” George said, noting the bloggers had an existing relationship with store editors from its previous works.

A Color Story is the company’s first free app, and George attributed its early success to word of mouth via A Beautiful Mess’s 362,000 and A Color Story’s over 61,000 Instagram followers.

“We had a beta group of Instagram users, like some people who were helping us test the app and make it as good as it could be. Each of them all had around 50,000 followers,” he said.

George said while A Color Story has in-app purchases, the fact it’s free to download is a challenge, given that the App Store defaults to paid apps.

“Because both A Beautiful Mess and Party Party were paid, it was easier for them to climb the top charts because it’s not as competitive. We’re not going to be able to get the free ride that A Beautiful Mess got,” he said. “On the free side, you’re then competing with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc., so trying to be in the top charts there is a little bit more difficult.

“On A Color Story, we very much have to rely on building a community around it.”

A Color Story currently is only available on iPhone, but George said the company is targeting a first-quarter release date for Android phones.

The app sells filter packs and effects for $1-$2, as well as an option to buy all for $7.99. The app was designed to exceed other filter apps’ ability to make photos bright, colorful and saturated.  

“We weren’t finding that in other filter apps,” George said. “There wasn’t really a filter app that matched the style of photography that we’re into.”

Later this year, George said A Color Story would consider sponsored packs for users who don’t want to spend money on the app. Free options include color balancing and cropping.