My App Makes $600k/Year Using This Easy Growth Strategy (copy me)

This accidentally viral Tik Tok video

made these engineers $600,000 a year

with their app.

>> We discovered this one format we call

the feed in. For some reason, it was

just like I hacked the Instagram

algorithm.

>> The crazy thing is to me they replicated

the same exact video 300 times and it's

still working for them. So while

everyone else is getting caught up in

the hamster wheel of chasing the latest

trends, these three guys cracked the

code that most marketers would kill for

how to go viral on demand. and they've

used a skill going viral to pull more

than 300 million views, over a million

app downloads, and they've built a

multiple sixfigure business all from

their basement. So, you said you

estimate this one format, you've posted

multiple times, and it's gotten over 200

million views. I would say potentially

even 300 million.

>> The funniest part is that they're not

even marketers, they're engineers, and

they stumbled into something that

shouldn't work, but does.

>> We were like, are we going viral

somewhere? Like, what's happening?

Turned out we just had a bug and

everyone opening the app was getting hit

by and overnight that was just our

biggest boost probably like 25% for us.

So in this interview with Peter the

app's co-founder we're going to uncover

exactly what they discovered and find

out what makes this strategy so powerful

to the point that they're still using it

years later. Hopefully this will change

how you think about content creation and

viral app growth. And for those who

don't know, this interview is brought to

you by Superwall, the all-in-one

platform for paywall management and

revenue analytics for your mobile apps.

Let's get into it. Yeah. Why don't you

tell us about your app?

>> Yeah. So, we've been running Stronger

Now for probably two and a half to three

years. I founded out it with one of my

best friends from back in back in

secondary school actually. Um and then

my brother as well. We bootstrapped it.

We were initially a hardware business

actually. Completely different idea. Um

ended up pivoting towards this. I went

off into management consulting. Had to

kind of put Stronger on hold for a bit.

But while that was going on, my

co-founder Jack kept growing it. And

eventually we just kind of took off on

Tik Tok. Ended up doing really great

there. I think we were one of the first

apps to kind of start using Tik Tok

marketing particularly organic. And back

then like it was great. You know, vibe

coding wasn't a thing. You know, you had

no competition. So we quickly ended up

going up the charts which for a workout

tracking app was uh quite impressive I

feel given how saturated the industry

is. And even now, like I don't know why

anyone would go and make a workout

tracker because, you know, you can vibe

code it up in two, three days. So, we've

been building that out for yeah, I'd say

two and a half to three years now and

starting to look to begin to expand our

portfolio and have other consumer apps

as well.

>> That's awesome. I want to dig in really

deep into the into the viral Tik Tok

stuff, but yeah, can you give us some

like highle stats on how the apps are

doing?

>> Yeah, I think we've probably got 1.2 two

million users I would guess on stronger

at this point ARR around about 600,000.

Our biggest market would be US, but in

terms of penetration, still the UK. So,

we've got a lot of room to grow. Um,

particularly in the US, that's kind of

where where you want to focus next. And

then we just launched our second app

there maybe a couple of weeks ago. Um,

which is a gamified focus app. So,

that's going to be an interesting one

for us. It's like the Forest app meets

Farmville.

>> Super interesting. So, like a million

users and 600K ARR. That feels like a

lot of revenue for for the users. Like

do you think the gamification has

something to do with that?

>> Definitely. Whenever we first started

it, I feel like our monetization was

really bad. Um we weren't active on

Twitter back then. We didn't really know

any other founders. We kind of just

stumbled upon let's build a workout app

and we really didn't know what we were

doing in terms of monetization. We

didn't have best principles put in place

and our LTB per user was super low. Over

time, we've used tools, you know, such

as Super Wall, for example, to be able

to AB test and actually optimize that

LTV per user. And at the end of the day,

your category defines what your macro

limit is in terms of LTV per download.

Like, we are a workout tracker. Our

value prop is against a pen and paper.

You know, if it was a workout planner,

our value prop will be against personal

trainer. You can charge more. I think by

AB testing, we've been able to improve

monetization a lot to the point where in

terms of workout trackers, we're

probably one of the best at monetizing

per user.

>> Okay, so that now we just added more

stuff to to the agenda. I want to go

into payw walls, uh viral Tik Toks, but

first let's like what what is the app?

What is stronger?

>> So stronger is a gamified workout

tracker. Think Straa, but for strength

tracking. It allows you to compare your

physique to other people with the same

body weight as you. You can see if you

have elite chest muscles, novice legs,

and also see what your friends have been

doing in the gym. So, we like to think

of it as the social media for the gym as

well.

>> That's awesome. I love the whole

category of like Strava 4X. I've seen

your guys Tik Toks. I think I saw them

more than a year ago. It was the first

time I they just popped on my feed. And

this thing that you're showing right

here, like this uh kind of like the

anatomy diagram with all the different

colors. It's super eye-catching. How did

you come up with that?

>> Yeah, I remember it's probably like six

or seven years ago now. I remember

seeing a Twitter thread with a web app

where you could put in, you know, your

bench press, your squat, whatever, and

it would spit out your performance

metrics. And I remember thinking, "No

way, that's so cool." and it was a super

viral thread, but there was nobody doing

it on a mobile app. And whenever we were

doing the workout tracker at the time,

we were talking to we we didn't go down

the investment route, we got a lot of

grant funding from government agencies

back in Northern Ireland and whenever we

did like our startup pitches, everyone

always says, "Don't go down the workout

tracking app sector. You're just going

to be a commodity. It's hard to stand

out." But we had this real insight that

what if we actually were to quantify how

strong people were and enable them to

assign some sort of status to their

strength. So no longer would you be

telling people, oh, I can bench, you

know, 100 kg for, you know, five reps

and be met with blank stare. You could

say, I'm actually an elite lifter

because this is what this translate to

on the heat map. is really trying to

think of something that makes it easier

to visualize that progress and people

can be proud of. Um, so that's why we

decided to implement it. It was kind of

our way to stand out in the crowded

market and it was also going to be like

our main marketing asset, too.

>> That's cool. Yeah, I was about to say

like it makes for a cool product, but

then the heat map is also just visually

it's so eye-catching and it looks really

good on Tik Tok slideshows and like

Instagram real slideshows. show some of

the results that you've gotten w with