The highest-intent user is someone already paying a competitor

A pattern from building Anvil, my pay-once iOS strength tracker: the easiest person to win over isn't someone new to the category. It's someone already paying a monthly subscription to a competitor who quietly resents it.

Their blocker isn't price. It's their data. Years of logged workouts live in the app they want to leave, and starting over from an empty history is a real switching cost.

So the feature that moved the needle wasn't a training feature. It was CSV import from Strong and Hevy, the two big subscription trackers. Bring your whole history across in one step, and the cost of leaving drops to near zero.

It reframed the marketing too. Instead of "here's another workout app," the hook is "switching from Strong or Hevy? Import your history and keep going." Aimed at people already in-market and already frustrated, not the cold top of funnel.

Curious whether others selling against incumbents have found the same: is "let them bring their data" the underrated acquisition lever?