Full App Growth Guide 2026 - How to Make Viral Content to Get Users & Make Your App Retentive

What if you could build an app so

retentive it was stickier than Tik Tok

itself? Onap Flame has 50% day30

retention. And Tik Tok, which is

arguably one of the most addictive apps

to ever come out, is only at 40%.

>> We were able to increase our day 30

retention from 4.2% to roughly 30% and

then all the way up to 50% by doing

this. Tik Tok barely touches roughly 40%

on day 30.

>> But unlike most stories, it wasn't

always this way. His first version had a

dismal 0.8%

30-day retention.

>> Joseph, you know, how much was the day

30 retention on this product? Zero 0.8%.

>> So, he went back to the drawing board,

studied habit formation, and reverse

engineered what makes people come back.

And what he built was a retention

machine with a carrot and stick

approach, widgets, and notifications

that pulled users back in every day. But

with a killer product and no money left,

he had to figure out distribution or the

company would die. We decided to

monetize because we didn't have any

money left brother because we raised a

small round in 23. We were running out

of money at the end of the year. We were

like we need to monetize or we won't

survive.

>> So he dedicated himself to one thing

mastering Tik Tok.

>> I realized what I had to do was I had to

go into Tik Tok. Tik Tok was going to be

a savior. What I did is for 2 months I

dedicated myself to scrolling Tik Tok

for 4 hours every day.

>> And unlike 99% of people, he didn't just

doom scroll all day.

>> I started collecting these little

babies. What I can tell you is as

compared to a bigger iPhone, scrolling

on a smaller iPhone takes a lot more

work. It takes a lot more effort.

>> He built a system and developed the VSC

framework, his method for finding

content that is viral, scalable, and

convertible.

>> If you go to the comments, if people are

not asking what is the app, what is the

product, where can I get this, etc.,

then it is not content that converts.

Then it's content that's getting views.

Then it's content that's going viral,

but it's not content that can convert.

He created 10-page playbooks with

winning scripts and master prompts,

feeding them to AI to generate hundreds

of videos a day across multiple

accounts. And he built the product

itself to be visually appealing on Tik

Tok with every animation and loader

designed to be eye-catching.

>> Your product should be built for Tik

Tok. What I mean by that is if you look

at the flows on this product, if you

look at the way it's positioned, like

even the loader that comes in this

little AI animation, we built it so it

would appear visually pleasing on Tik

Tok. This system generated 50 million

views and 150,000 users 100%

organically. And in this episode, Anne

breaks down his entire playbook from how

he built a retention machine that's

stickier than Tik Tok to the VSSC

framework for finding content that

actually converts and how he uses AI and

a systematic approach to dominate

organic Tik Tok. This is a masterass in

building something people love and

systematically getting it in front of

millions. Let's get into it. This is the

Superwall podcast and I'm Joseph Choy,

founder of Consumer Club. The members in

the consumer club discord and the

founders I interview on the pod build

apps at a median of 1 million ARR. A lot

of these apps that make the most money

run AB tests on their payw walls to make

more revenue with the same number of

users. Superwall has a lot of data on

the thousands of apps that use their

payw walls. So recently they put

together a free AI tool trained on 422

profitable paywall experiments. It lets

you upload a screenshot of your own payw

wall and gives you an experiment idea to

increase your revenue. You can use it

for free at paywallexperiments.com.

Also, if you're building a mobile app

doing at least 100K a month in revenue,

Superwall hosts dinners in San Francisco

and New York. They keep each gathering

small, thoughtful, genuinely useful for

everyone. If you meet this criteria of

100K a month in revenue and want an

invite, apply using the type form in the

description. Let's get into the pod. So

you got 150k users. You have this huge

organic machine with tons of account

types and formats and everything. But I

actually want to start with just your

story in general cuz I think it's pretty

unique and interesting. You can just

tell me like how you got into

entrepreneurship and startups and stuff.

But even before that,

>> let me begin the chapter with my first

move, right? That's where it all

started. So I was really young, man. I

didn't know what to do next. I was

thinking, you know, this is back when I

was in India. I grew up there and I was

like, where do I move next? what do I

do? And I had the choice of moving all

the way to the west. I could try and do

a master's program somewhere in the west

or I could move to China. I was like,

why the f not, you know, let's try this.

So I decided to move to China back in

2013. I had no idea. I didn't speak the

language. I couldn't move around the

country. I didn't know about the food. I

was just thrown in there and I landed

there and I was like, "Okay, what is

happening now?" Like I took this move,

but I have no idea what's going on. But

learned the language, finished my degree

there and then I opened my first

business there in China. Can you guess,

Joseph, what the business was?

>> Something to do with fitness.

>> Of course. Of course, man. It was uh we

were the first 24-hour gym in Beijing.

Uh so we opened in Ping and then we

spread across to a couple of other

cities across China. Seven locations.

Had no idea how to, you know, I couldn't

speak Chinese at that point. I learned

by talking with the people who I was

working with, communicating with them,

understanding what was going on. Uh so I

carried on with this. That was my first

business. Scaled that to seven

locations. We did 15 million R&B in

revenue and uh I made a lot of mistakes.

I made a lot of mistakes. I was really

young then man. I didn't have a complete

idea. So things did work out well. But I

also made a lot of mistakes along the

way. Learned a lot of lessons. And I

decided to take all that learning and

move to Europe actually. So I moved to

Europe. I worked for Jono, German

scaleup back in Berlin. I took them from

a series B to a series C. And it was

interesting for me because in that

chapter I switched from being an

entrepreneur to working for someone

else. It was in a high growth startup

but I also learned a lot along the way

and I figured out that even though I

enjoyed the structure that came with the

scaling, I wanted to get back into

building something of my own. Now that

was back in 22nd

23 starting. I moved to the US. I

launched Flame. I raised money for Flame

in that year. And this was my first tech

product I was building. I didn't have a

complete idea regarding tech, how it

operated. I didn't even know what coding

languages were at that point, Joseph.

So, I went to a friend's house of mine

who was a developer. I was like, I want

to build this app. And they said, okay,

but do you have the UIU UX? I said, what

is that? I just want an app to the

screen that looks like this. They said,

okay, but do you know what language are

you going to build it in? Is it a web

app? Is it a mobile app? I said, I just

want to build an app. How complicated

can it be? So I learned a lot through

that entire process. Made a lot of

failures again as well and we