2026 IRL Playbook: How Apps REALLY Win On Campus

The biggest downfall you can do with campus marketing is go in as an outsider. That is like red flag number one. Students will step that out in a millisecond and they will reject you. It's like a virus in their body. Who's this weird old person here? You guys actually kind of enrolled in a lot of these colleges, went to some of the classes, became a student at some of these campuses. I think what makes a Ditto Ambassador different, the thing that we're looking for is just unique thoughts. How do I get my people on the app that I love is what makes our ambassadors really successful because it's really easy for them to think that way. You really just are giving people these products or these apps. Just use this organically and how do we tell a story? I wonder what you tried and it didn't work means. Like, did you? Lily, thank you for coming on the pot. I'm so excited. I'm hyped. How's the day going so far? So good. I literally was looking forward to this all day. I did no work this morning. I was like, I need to lock in. Be here. I'm so excited to see you guys. Welcome to New York. Thank you. Thank you. It's always a fun time in the city. Absolutely. That's good. Okay, so for everybody that doesn't know Lily, Lily is a co-founder of a mobile app called Ditto. It's been called Pinterest MeToo. Notes app. Lily's career really started in marketing. Then she turned founder. She raised the money for this new app where really the mission is to bring more authenticity to social media. She got to start by scaling skincare brands and now she's on a bunch of college campuses trying to rally Gen Z about this new mission. Lily, welcome to the pod. Yay. Yeah, let's do it. I'm really excited. No, I think it's going to be really good to dig into how you're launching these huge college ambassador programs, how you're doing so much IRL and just building so much community that I think a lot of startups are missing right now. Yeah. But before we dive in, let's play my favorite game. Little for you page scroll. Yeah. TikTok or Instagram. What's your favorite? We're going to do TikTok. I'm not on reals. Like, I'm the same way. I fear I will be though because it's like always one of those things. I'm not going to be on. They're going to be on. So I won't be on. Should I start? Yeah, let's do it. We'll take it. Yeah, let's over here. And it's being stream recorded. So basically the goal here is we're going to go through the TikTok. Okay, fire. And then it will like talk about what we see. And then we're going to try to guess like what your personality is based on what we say. Because the algorithm knows best. Okay, first video is a girl saying if you don't like your life right now. So Lily, how are you doing? Damn. I'm doing good. I think that might have been shown because I'm looking for hooks for my video. So it's something like that. I know, I feel like my feed right now is like all founder contacts. I'm trying to like build my personal brand, right? And I'm like, this is great. But like, I need to consume something funny. Everyone's like, I need something entertaining. I will say though, October is historically my, my worst month of the year. Like mentally, like it's my most down that month. Like every bad thing that's ever happened in my life has been in October. Mental health, like if I had an aura ring for my mental health, like October would be down bad. Like every single year. And it is true this year. It's not as bad this year as like other years. But I was just talking to like texting my friends. All like guys, October's always fucked for me. So like maybe that's why it's the weather. I feel like it's like, okay, things start to shift. You're like, where's the sunshine? What's happening to me? Maybe, but I just have bad luck. Like dumped in October. Like quit my job in October. Kicked out like, you know, yeah, all that. I'm pretty sure I saw something that was like around like the Saturn, like revolving around. I think I was the one I'm talking about or no. No, no, not a planet's girl. Okay, skip, skip, skip. Okay, baseball. Jays are in the world series. Let's fucking go. Yeah, we're watching baseball. That's so funny. No, do you know the Toronto Blue Jays? No, I mean, I'm familiar. Okay, well, guys, guys. So I'm from Toronto for anyone who doesn't know. And like we have a horrible sport. It's like experience. I mean, we have the blue Jays, the raptors, the maple leaves. Like we just aren't really good. I never heard of them. No, we suck. Like, but it's like, we don't have like 50 different sports teams like the US does, right? So everyone like hyperfixays and like the Toronto sports teams. And then we suck. But the Jays are in the world series. Like they're playing the Dodgers and everyone thought it was going to be a blow out because like, you know, I actually don't watch any baseball at all. I just know this because like this is like a monumental experience in Toronto right now. So anyways, they just won game four. Oh, yeah. Go for the Jays. Tie two, two in the series. So I've been watching a lot of baseball. I like, I hyperfixate on these things. Wait, I love that your Canadian roots are showing. It is. Okay, this is an ad. So let's get bit. Okay, this is about somebody who has a company. So founder, founder, I get so much of that. And I don't know about you, but I feel like I get so much of it. I'm like, does everybody have a company now? Like everybody has a company now. It's so scary. It's really, it's especially since like my TikTok name is like Lily. And then it's like building. Yeah, they're like building a list app. And I think like, it's been like that for a year or maybe a year and a half. And now, maybe again, like it's where my videos are going. But when I read the comments section, it's like this person building that. This person building that. And I'm like, fuck, I kind of want to not be like that anymore. Yeah. Like, you're like, how do I reach consumers and not just other founders? That's what I've been doing every month right now. This is though. Okay, so Canada, founder, led stuff. What was our first one? In down bad October. In down bad October. Yeah, honestly, really accurate. Like, really fucking accurate. Feel accurate. Feel like hot. All right, well, thanks for, thanks for having fun. Thank you. Okay, so in this episode, the main thing we're going to talk about is really this like modern playbook to IRL activations on college campuses. I think we all know like the old stories around Bumble Tinder and how they used to do it. But times are constantly evolving, especially with social media. And I feel like there hasn't been a company that is really like, innovated in this space until now with Ditto. So that's going to be the main theme is basically what is Ditto's playbook for currently going on campuses, riling up troops and starting the ambassador program. And they're really just like leveraging take talks short from content to really amplify what they're doing on these campuses. But before we get into that, I would love Lily to explain a little more around what is Ditto. And then really like, how was this idea born? Like, what's the backstory behind it? Yeah, I'm excited to dive into all the college stuff. But also, it's excited to like, first share a little about Ditto. It's really interesting. People always like, where do you get your company idea from? I mean, like, I am a big believer that like, you get your best ideas when you're down bad at your spot. For some reason, it's just everything becomes clear and you're like, holy shit, I see the light. But Ditto, like the reason we built something like this is because like, I really do believe it's time to reinvent social media. Like we need to build something different. I think it's really interesting. People have always said like consumer apps are a want, not a need. And like, I think it's a need right now. Like we need to do something different. And so the idea for it is like, what kind of app can we build to bring people back to sharing on the internet? All of us still use apps every single day, but we just consume. Our thumbs are permanently in like this position. And after we consume for three to four hours, we feel like shit. And I think the key is like, yeah, like one part of it is you can get people off of social media. But the other part is like, what if you get people to share more about themselves? Like what if you get them to remember the things that they love, share about their obsessions, document their lives? And it becomes like social media, what it's supposed to be, a digital diary of your life. And so that is the goal, but we didn't really know how to solve that. Like it's a lot easier said than done. And so the idea came from it when I was dumped and like, go for my job, they'd exact same week about three years ago, give her a take. And I was like, well, I feel like shit right now. I don't want to be on social media. And I remember opening my notes app on my phone and making a list in my notes app called how to feel better, like by myself two a.m. in my bed at night. And it was like, not supposed to be functional. Like the first thing on that list was like, lose 20 pounds. Like the second thing was like, I need a haircut. And the third thing was like, same I morning affirmation. It's like, just like girl stuff, you know, like when you're going through it. So I made that list. And one, I was like, why do I feel a little bit better after that? Like, why did just like, writing my thoughts down helped me feel a little bit better. And then I thought, this is kind of funny. Like this is kind of funny. I think someone would benefit from it. So I took a screenshot of the notes app and I posted it on TikTok. It was like a six second video of me pointing at my green screen and I went to bed. And when I woke up the next day, the video had four million views and it totally blew up. And I looked through the comments section and like every single person there was sharing stories about going through a breakup, how it helped them tips. And then people would reply and DM me with their own notes app screenshots. They're like, this is my list of favorite rom-com movies. And like, these are my quotes, like my favorite quotes ever. And it was all people's notes app screenshot. And that was kind of the light bulb moment for me, which is like, oh, I'm not the only person who has all these ideas and lists and thoughts in my notes app. Everybody has it too. We want people to share more. We want people to connect more. What if we just try building a social version of the notes app where your friends are on and you can post these lists about your life? And so that's kind of the mission and like what we're trying to do and also the personal experience that I had going through it. So yeah, it's been kind of like a crazy journey since then. We've launched in May. I know it's been about five months since it has been live. Amazing. I love that. So it's like, it's like short form journaling almost totally so much emotion so much community and you're doing that now with your big IRL college push. Yeah. But I love to get into. Yeah. Can you kind of walk us through what that looks like? I'm very curious like what schools you're starting with and why and in what that launch program looks like. Yeah. Maybe it's helpful to give some context as to like, even how we got here today. Like, I would say for any brands looking to grow, especially if you're building a consumer product, don't look at college first. Like, don't just put that in the back of your head. Keep on going on. It's super expensive. It's very resource intensive. IRL college. IRL college. You're competing with Uber, Sephora, DoorDash, like clothing brands. Like, I think what was it? Like, Hollister is partnering with the University of Texas. So like, do all of their game day outfits or something like that. And so college is extremely saturated and you also don't get the reach. So like, for new brands, don't, that's not your number one. Like, wasn't our number one. We started with TikTok. We started with, let's just tell the internet like what we're building and see who's interested in using our product. And that got us our first batch of users. And it was really exciting because for us to being this like, supply and demand platform, like, we need people to come on and share things to get that content flywheel going. But I think about two, three months ago, we looked at this like, long term growth and we're like, Ditto is this product that is best used in groups. The same way a lock it, a B reel, a snapchat, even Instagram, it's the best when you and your best friend is on it or you and your boyfriend sharing long distance, you know, notes or your roommates making grocery lists. Like, it really is the best experience with people that you know. And it's very difficult to get that on TikTok because you're relying on building some insane product so everyone download turns into five and I think that's really hard. So we're like, okay, well, how would we then, if this is our goal, which is get friend groups on, what other go to market strategy would we look into and evaluate? And so the reason we decided to focus on campus was really because we wanted to see if we can crack getting groups of people on board at the same time in a smaller, more dense network. And luckily, like, we were able to raise money. And so we had the capital to say, let's really give it a shot and let's give it a good shot. So that's the backstory we're right now in three schools, Michigan, Austin, Columbia. We have about 40 ambassadors and we're trying to figure out right now the way to scale to another 15 schools in the spring and bring on close to like three to 400 ambassadors. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's a lot. You guys started with TikTok as like your main distribution channel. It was working really well. It sounds like maybe TikTok is more so like single player utility. Totally. It's like products, right? Like one person sees the video they really like it. They go to the app so they download it. That's like the full journey. But you guys had like this discovery where it's really better when it's like tight friend groups. So like multiple people downloading it at the same time. And so the strategy was let's try IRL activations in college to try to get groups of people to download the product together. Yeah. Okay. 100%. Okay. Doesn't mean we're not abandoning TikTok though. No. Like you have to still use it. You guys know. Totally. To not tap into that and to not leverage that is like also a huge mess. So we're trying to figure out like okay, in my mind, it's like a pyramid structure where TikTok is like at the very top. It's always in TikTok. Any sort of short form video content like building the brand halo, telling the brand story, getting reach, getting distribution, like that coming from the top and at the bottom of the pyramid, it's like let's tap into colleges and let's tap into networks and like have individual evangelists getting people on board, even if one user gets five. That's amazing. But if we can get a hundred of those, like what's the exponential effect of that? So and then ultimately if we can build these things out, like it'll meet towards the middle. And like that's ultimately how you build a scalable, giant, massive consumer business. So it's like a pyramid sandwich approach. Yeah. I think if you're doing such a great job of really leveraging social with your IRL activations too, because it's like, yeah, I'm falling along. I know where Ditto is at every school, I wish I was in college, so Ditto would come to my school. Like you paint such a great story and you can leverage socials that way where it almost becomes like the IRL activations are becoming an asset for these viral moments for you. And then blow up way beyond how many college students you're reaching at that school. A thousand percent. Yeah. So, okay. So social media is really like an amplification of the IRL events. Maybe tell us a little bit around like what is like the specific strategy you're doing, right? Like what, when you create these events, what are you thinking about like the settings, the props, like how do you make sure that people actually take videos of what's going on and actually post and talk about it? Yeah. So the way that I break down a campus program, like the way that we thought about a campus program, like what's going to make it successful is what are the different components that go into it? So you have events like that in itself is like a pillar because every time you do an event people come, they, you can force them to download the app. It's a great way to build community, but that's one pillar. The second pillar for us is ambassadors. So like we do actually go to every school IRL right now, which like we should talk about later, but it's not scalable. Like I cannot be flying to every school. So ambassadors and just finding these evangelists is like the second pillar. And it's one of those things where like these pillars sound very obvious, but like then when you go into each one, you need to come up with a strategy for each one that cuts to the noise. So we have events, we have ambassadors, we have like guerrilla marketing and like stunts as like a third pillar for us to do. And then we have content as like a fourth pillar. And our north star for at least this first iteration of campus is how can we build a literal cult on campus? Yes. Like how can we actually make college students want to be a part of this thing? Like in every aspect, the events, the ambassadors, the guerrilla, the content, like Doritos has a campus ambassador program these days, like every company does. And so it's lost its edge a little bit, like low keeping an ambassador is not cool right now. So if you want cool people to do something that's now not cool, like what are you going to do as a brand to like make them want to be part of it. So the north star for us is like we're building a cult on campus. Like we're going to treat these people really well and we're going to take care of them and we're going to make this thing really cool. The components are events, ambassadors, guerrilla marketing content and then tier question, which is like the events part of it. The hypothesis that we had was, can events be a place for us to do product education? That's actually something that people miss, right? They do these coffee tabs, they do these tailgates, they do these parties, sure, like you have to stand an app to download, so you get a thousand downloads, 300 downloads. But like these kids are not done, they're then I delete it right afterwards. And it's really like one of those things where you see a picture of this app that did a launch party and like it looks so great because they're taking the photos of the camera and the beer pong cups have their brand on it and the table has like a vinyl sticker on it and the balls have the logo and you're like holy shit, they're killing college, I promise you they're not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I literally promise you everybody was drunk and yeah, nobody saw that. It's all in the trash, it's dirty, it's on the floor and nothing happened. So we didn't want to do that. It's very easy to be like, well, that looks so fun, but like it's not our goal. We need to do product education. And so for one of our events, we booked out this venue at UT Austin that had a big TV screen. And we actually displayed a live dashboard that we made of Ditto, where everyone from Austin who came to our event, who made their first list on Ditto, their list were displayed live on screen. So fun. And so we had hundreds of people coming in and we had free merch that we were giving out that you have to show us your first list and it's so easy to share something on Ditto. We had students sharing like fall break trips that they have planned. It was near Halloween. So people were sharing their Halloween costumes. We had one student post a list called Propaganda I Won't Fall For and the first bullet point was just men. It was literally just men and as they were sharing, it was like constantly on this like big huge LED screen and then everybody waiting was like, oh my god, look at that. Look at that. I want to make this. I want to make this. And so we really just try to think about like every single event that we do like where is the product education because like getting 200 people to come is great, but getting like 50 of them to use the product and fall in love with this magic moment to then go home and tell their roommates like, wait guys, like you guys should use this with me is the ultimate goal, not a branded flash beer punk up even though it's like that does look really cool. Yeah. Back in my old old started days, when I was working at Avia Women's Health Startup, we did very small campus ambassador programs and we tested a couple different things. One of like, okay, let's just pass out flyers to people. Let's pass out merch. It's going like a hot girl walk. But what always converted the best for us in terms of users that actually stayed around was like talks like that, like getting in front of a group of girls at the time and just talking to them about women's health and like what the app does and like all those people down the app and then state power users afterwards, it's like, oh, they have a connection with the company. They have a connection with what the product is. And it was just so much more powerful in that way. And I think that's even more powerful than a really well-produced TikTok video too at the same time because you're like creating a lasting experience for these people who then you're exactly right, go tell their friends, go tell their family members. It's a lot of child error. Like, we've tried a lot of things, we've tried coffee tabs, we've tried parties, we've tried house parties, we've tried club events, like speaking events, we've tried, like literally table on the street, like tabling. So I think you do have to try all of them and give it your best shot and like really figure out what works. But I feel like it's just really hard because as a new brand, you want to get it right the first time and you don't want to invest the resources. And I think that's where people go wrong, like you don't invest the resources so you never produce something that's at its best so you can't accurately tell if it worked or not. So I feel like my tip would just be if you really want to try campus and you want to do in person events, have a hypothesis, choose three things, hey, I'm going to try coffee tab, I'm going to try tabling a tailgate, produce one of each to the best caliber and just look at what happens and it went from there. At most, like maybe you lose like $3,000, that's okay, I hope, maybe for some, it's not that bad. Yeah, if you can afford it. Yeah. So I want to break down a couple of things from your event activation that I think is really smart. I think the first thing is that I went through your onboarding experience great by the way, shout out Connor. Shout out Connor. Get him on the pod. Yeah. And you actually guys, so with like these apps, there's always like a magical moment where it's like the core experience, right? So like how can you get him to do the core experience? And that's hopefully where the retention comes from correct me if I'm wrong, but the core experience with your product is really creating that first like list, right? And so you guys actually put that straight in the onboarding, so like they have to do it if they want to sign up. So I think that's like the first thing that if you want to copy something similar, like make sure it's like really easy to get to that core experience really quickly. So then your goal really was like it's easy to get downloads, but it's hard to get like retentive users right people to actually come back and use the product the next day. So for the activation, you guys said like, Hey, it's not enough to just have people download the app, but we actually want them to go through and experience what it's actually like to use the core product. And so, you know, part of the activation was like actually sign up, actually make a list and then it shows on the TV. And like it also creates this like idea of like the criticism of like, wow, my list is like now on the TV. Like I'm famous. People start taking videos of it. And now it's like a competition, you know, like I want to get on the TV too. And I think there's just like so many like nuanced parts to what you guys are doing. That really like made up this like whole beautiful activation at the end of the day. So just want to break that down for like people that don't understand. Okay. So now I want to talk about like you guys actually like kind of enrolled in a lot of these colleges, you guys like went to some like classes, you guys really like became a student at some of these campuses. What was kind of the thinking of the strategy there like why do you do that? So when we first as an internal team talked about like, okay, we want to tap into campus as a go to market. Like the first thing that I reminded every single person, I was like, guys, we're chopped and unc. We're old. Like we are I'm 27, honors 27 like our team is a little bit younger, but like it really is going to be us. And the biggest downfall you can do with campus marketing is go in as an outsider. That is like red flag number one, like students will step that out in a millisecond and they will reject you. Yeah. I can smell it. No, this weird old person here literally, it's you lose trust. Everything you now seem like a weird salesman. Like it sounds like you're shilling stuff. I was like, why are you here? So like, that's and I think where most brands go wrong. So I think first we just had to remind ourselves, like we are outsiders. And so there's two things like one, we really need to rely on the insiders and we need to become an insider. That was like one thing that we were thinking about, you know, at the very start. The idea of going to campus and like living on campus and like going to class and like going to stool was actually a joke when it first started. It was something Connor said. He was like, haha, he's so fun if we did Ditto House and I was like, what is that? He's like, what if we just like lived on campus for a week and just like, just survive. So like, how he described it, like, and I remember, like, you know, usually it's like it goes one in one year, it comes out the other. I'm like, whatever. I was like, listening to that. I was like, okay, like, that's not the worst idea, you know, like we could learn a lot. And when we started this campus program, we also made an effort to tell the team, we're in learning mode right now. Like do not expect us to have $10,000 tomorrow. Do not expect us to have the entire 40,000 students at the University of Michigan on Ditto in the next three months. Like, we are in learning mode. Like, we just need to learn as quickly as possible, as much as possible, and figure out what is going to work for us. And so knowing that we couldn't be outsiders, knowing that we were in learning mode, then hearing this idea about going to campus, I was like, that actually really makes sense with our goals. And so in September, what we did was we got an Airbnb literally on campus, like 10 minute walk from the main Michigan campus part, and we flew our whole team out, engineers, designers, my co-founder, I flew a girl, I flew an alumni from Chicago to the house where that's never met her in real life. Literally, it was like, hey, we're going to do a launch in Michigan, like you want to pull up and like pay for a plane ticket, and she pulled up for the weekend because I was like, we need someone here who like knows the school. And so it was literally like seven peep, Janice was there. She was literally seven people and a four person Airbnb, like every room had like four, it was a trap house, like no joke, it was a trap house. But that was like what we wanted to do. And so we did a bunch of things while we were there. We had people come to the Airbnb, we threw a house party at the Airbnb, we did a bunch of events on campus, we worked inside coffee shops and inside the library to observe students. We walked into the schools and went to different classes and just like sat and took a peek and just wanted to see what's up. We did a table and we talked to students on the street. We made TikToks and we landed on a lot of students for you pages to the point where they would come up to us while we were there with our ditto tote bags and say we saw you on TikTok. What's happening? Not scalable at all. Like definitely not something I think that's going to be this like huge thing that gets us to the goals you want to get to. But I think it's really unique that not a lot of companies are willing to do. And I think we built one, a lot of brand equity, just like our ambassadors and our users seeing that we're willing to fly to their campus and do this was a huge positive signal. I think we learned a lot about our product, like watching people use it in front of you. And like college students, they are brutal. Like they will tell you straight up if it sucks, like they'll be clicking things and we're like that's not clickable. Like you have to do that. So we got a lot of learnings in the product, we got a lot of learnings on positioning. And it was a great way for us to figure out like what does our actual go-to-market playbook look like because we invested in this wheat long experiment. So I love that. We bought our shirts. Like I have, I've been collecting shirts from each school. I know you need to make like one of those like quilt things. Yes, yes. No, I will. I have like a yellow mission in shirt. I have a go blue shirt. I have a Texas shirt, I have a Texas football jersey like that's so fun. We really went all the way. It's not scalable, but it makes such a difference. And I think when you're going zero to one, especially in like IRL stuff too, like this is your first time doing those big IRL activations, you have to do things that are so like grassroots because it makes the biggest difference and it just starts you off with such a big momentum where it's like, okay, we did this thing. We went really, really deep at these couple of schools, like you were there for a week. You went to all these schools for like a week at a time which is crazy and you met these students and needed the thing. Now when you do go to scale, it's so much easier because you know it works and you don't work. And you know how to teach other people to do that, but you have to be the one doing that in the beginning. And I think people try and outsource so much in the beginning and it just doesn't. The impact isn't there because you need to be the one doing the learnings if it's truly your baby and like what you're trying to build. This mantra that's been in my head, I'm a big mantra girl, like I just every month. I used to make less actually of my like, I love that. Monsters of the month, like affirmations of the month, but the mantra that I have for October that really got me through the last like month of just this brutal like exhausting campus program is just whatever it takes. I love it. Like I have been repeating that to myself like day in and day out, just every more literally at this point when I wake up my eyes open, the first thought is whatever it takes and when I notice the night I'm like, whatever it takes, like when I am, it sounds exhausting. No, actually the like when I'm in Austin and I've been like talking to these 19 year olds for a so I've been doing this all week long like and my brain is telling me like I need to and I'm not an extrovert you guys like believe it or not, I'm an introvert. So like this is a bizarre like thing for me, I just constantly I'm like, whatever it fucking takes, whatever it takes, whatever it takes, like that's I think the mentality you need to have if you're building a company, if you're doing anything you want to do it while like it really is whatever it takes. And so I think that city visit experience is like a great symbol of like whatever it takes and I think we got a lot of dead learning is like I can't really don't think I'll be doing like things to that scale and the spring semester, but we're going to take and adapt a lot of those learnings to our overall playbook. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It sounds like brands like maybe this is a big mistake brands make when they want to do like I around college activations is they just don't really go all in like it sounds like that's exactly what you guys are doing like you guys are spending a shit ton of money you guys are actually being on campuses and you guys are just doing everything you can to just understand what that market actually is. Yeah. And so I think it's a great example that branch to follow is like truly understand who you're marketing to and like go live on the campus, go be with the students, go to these classes. I think that's like where like the true insights will really come from. Yeah. I mean it's the same thing we do on TikTok right where it's like when you're creating content you kind of have to pretend like you are that target user. Same thing when you are going to IRL. You have to pretend like you are these students like you have to be the community you want to serve to otherwise they'll sniff you out and it won't convert it won't work and people don't trust you. But you have to get on the ground and do the initial work. It is really hard though. Like so hard. We talk to a lot of other people building consumer apps and like these consumer apps are way more ahead of us like not going to say their names like you probably know all of them. They have millions of DAU's like they're really really big apps and I've been talking to them a lot lately because we're trying to hire another employee on the team to kind of like lead growth and marketing for us. That is a plug. But I'm like, Hey, by the way, like how do you guys try campus like what's that for you guys and constantly the response is we try to didn't work. We try to didn't work. It's on your channel for us. We try to didn't work and like these are really smart people building really successful products and maybe they don't need campus. But I end those calls and I'm like, I wonder what you tried and it didn't work means. Like did you get two students and give them 100 flyers and then they didn't get 10,000 downloads next week. So I'm always curious. Like yeah, but I have been hearing a lot. I'm sure you guys hear it. She was like, we tried it didn't work. But what does it tried mean? And so I'd probably reevaluate like what that looks like for you. And again, like I feel like it's important to stress. Like if you don't need this, like don't do it, there is way more efficient ways of getting users. Like if you're a product is more single player optimized. If you just for some reason have an insane K factor. If you have unlocked another distribution advantage, like this doesn't have to be something that you do. So for sure. Yeah. And I guess like on that theme, if a founder did come to you and said, hey, like we want to start our own campus ambassador program. Or be like some of the steps, some of the things you'd recommend they do like right away. Just based on like you're learning so far. If someone came to me today and was like, hey, I want to start a campus ambassador program, like what do I do? I feel like probably do three things. So one, I'd say like, just what's your hypothesis? Just identify what your hypothesis is. Like is it, hey, I just want to see what, I want to see how much it costs me to get my first thousand users on a campus. That's a great hypothesis. Like maybe it's one dollar, maybe it's 30. Maybe your hypothesis is I want to see what kind of students at this campus like my product is it the business, like academic, like people, is it the story girls? Is it the athletes? Maybe your hypothesis is I just want to build a brand here and like do something that people love, like from a brand perspective. So number one, just figure out like what's your goal? What's your hypothesis? Like be really clear about that because once you start and you start freaking out because like your goal is to figure out what kind of student you want it. Then all of a sudden you're like, why do we only have 300 downloads? Like, let's focus on the goal, right? So that's number one, number two, I would figure out like your, for your company, like what's the best way to get that? Is it through people? Is it through clubs? Is it through events? Like some sort of outlet, some sort of like acquisition outlet, I think I said earlier in the podcast, right, like if it's events, pick three and just try three. So what's your goal, try three events and then look at where you can iterate just from that very small experiment and is it worth dumping more money in and expanding bigger? I think for us like our goal was really like, can we build a cult? And so it was okay that we didn't get 50,000 users or for a semester, but we, there's other things that we could look at, which is like, do we feel like we've built a cult? Like, is the ditto brand, something that's desired on this campus? Do we have people in our DMs reaching out every single day to be an ambassador? Yes. Are these ambassadors wearing all of their ditto merch, posting it on social media all the time? Yes. Are they referring their friends to join the program? Yes. And so we're like, okay, great. The lifestyle cult part is like really working. Our focus is now like, we do want downloads, like we want growth. And so we're like, great, this little like engine is clearly working. Let's now shift our brain power to focusing on what we want. So I say for our new founders, just get really clear about what your why is and try the smallest experiment. But do it really well. Like, do the experiment really well? So focus. Yeah. Yeah. That's like my, that's my mantra of the quarter focus. Yeah. Catalies are in. Lock in. Always. Lock in. Lock in. And whatever it takes. No, it's so good. They'll say, go right together. That makes a lot of sense. So now, semester two, you're coming back with new goals. How has the strategy changed or what's going to change for as you go back to campuses? One of the things that will change is we go back to campus as we think about scaling from three schools to like 15 schools is just stale of people, stale of labor. I think that's our big thing that we're trying to change this time around. So for context, like when we did our first pilot, which is this semester right now, we're month two, we have 40 ambassadors, I think, maybe like 38 or 40 across three schools. There is no application. We found all of them. We literally went on LinkedIn. We went on Instagram. We went on TikTok and we found the people that we feel like exuded the vibe and the essence of what a ditto ambassador is, someone who is outgoing, ambitious, social, smart, hardworking, very individual, very unique and like was proud of the things that they represented. It was a very high bar, like candidly, like we had to say no to a lot of people because we really were excited to see what this group of ambassadors could do for us. And so it was like a 72 hour, like we did interviews with all of them, like pitch them, we were at LinkedIn. We felt we were like weird, like, hey, almost all these girls on these calls are like super excited to be part of this. Like how did you guys find them? Yeah. Like don't even worry. It's not important. It's just, we just, your energy, like we just found us. We were so excited about you. But you can tell, right? Like if you do on their LinkedIn, like what are they involved in? Do they have experiences? Totally. Like are they involved? Etc. For spring, that's not going to be the thing that we do anymore. Even in this past few months, we just have such a high demand inbound for people who want to be part of our program that it doesn't make sense for us to not let them in. Because the other thing that we learn too is there's multiple ways for ambassadors to share your app with the people that they're close to. Hosting events is, you know, for sure, something that they can do. Just getting their roommates to sign up is like a great way. Getting your club to sign up is a great way in sororities, getting your big little, grand little, grand big. I don't even know how long the lineage is, is like a great way to get people on board. Some people like making TikTok. Some people want to put up posters. Some people are just, some, a lot of guys want, like really want to be ditto ambassadors. That's a lot of guys. And they think so differently, right? They're not thinking like, let me do this brand marketing. Like thing, they're just like, I got homies and like we really all put our like fantasy picks on ditto. Like the next time we do our fantasy, like Sunday thing, like I'm going to bring up ditto. Fantastic. Like that's amazing. And so we're like, okay, yeah, it was really a lot to find these current ambassadors. We love them a lot. So many people want to be part of it. It's so diverse. What we need to do now is like capitalize on this wave of interest that we've built. And so we shifted the ambassador program structure to be a bit more flexible. Anyone can join. There's a very like minimal requirement to stay in the program, which is obviously being active on the app and using it. You have your referral link. You can do whatever you want. And whatever I think you're excited about to get users to come use the app, you get paid out for every bonus struck like every incremental bonus that you hit. And then we'll go from there. And of course, like there's so many other things we can provide in the process and building a community around that and engaging with that is something that we're excited to pivot into for semester two. So I'd say the ambassador piece is for sure something we're trying to change. And then second, I think to your point earlier, we are using content as an amplification layer, but I don't think we did an A+ job of that this semester. I love your content, Lily. I know, but like our content, we're also still a five percent team. And so I preach like going all the way and like whatever it tastes, but it is a lot. And I think this semester, like so much of our time and energy was like calling the venues and like calling the photographer and like, hey, can you work this? Can you work that? Like, I don't know why it's not as easy as it should be. And this was like very clear to me that I will never be a wedding planner or like an event production company because it is really difficult. And so we're trying to think about like, okay, let's, if we were focusing 85% of our time on doing these events and 15% of our time thinking about how to create content and amplification around the events or just around what Ditto is and what we're doing for the next time around. And even just honestly starting now, like it's not going to be like in spring, let's spend 20% of our time on events and still doing these things that really bring community together. But let's spend 80% of our time figuring out how to get the things that we're doing to be amplified on a platform like TikTok or Reels to reach more people and get more people interested in Ditto because at the end of the day, like we're not a party company, we're not an events app, like we are a community building, you know, business, but we're a social app. We're a social app for you to dump your thoughts and document your life and share little updates. And so we need to go back to really making that the focus. So I say those are the two changes that we're going to make. I love that. How are you doing that with, with like the social aspect? I feel like there's a couple ways. I mean, one, you can obviously have the ambassador's post on socials. And then two, I feel like you could do so much like behind the scenes, fun stuff of like, oh, here are 200 ambassadors, Susie's winning this week. Like, I don't know. There's so many fun things you could do to bring in the community, like Ditto's Super Bowl almost. It's like what I envision of like, oh, how can we cheer on all these different ambassadors and how can people who maybe don't even go to college, but still want to experience this fun, like, I don't know, ambassador experience from their films. There's so many fun things you could do with that. I feel like. Yeah, we're doing a pretty bad job right now. Like right now, the structure that we have set up is like, we do event recaps. Like, when the events happen, we take b-roll, of course, like we take photos and like, we do a photo dump, we post. But that's why I think we look like an events production company. Like people are just like, they throw great parties, but like, what is it again? And so we want to just like iterate that a little bit. Getting ambassadors to post is really great because you're getting on their stories, you're getting on their TikToks, you're reaching their followers and their community. It's always easier to set than done though. So it's so hard. Because like some of them may not take a content or may not want to post. And luckily for us, like, because we hand selected this current group, we did vet their social medias and we're like, you guys know what's going on. Like, you don't need any like tips on how to post a story by any means. So luckily we have that in place and because we built this cult, they want to share on their stories. Like, imagine being a girl who's like super cool in a sorority and then she's a Doritos campus ambassador. What are the chances that she's hyped to post that she's a Doritos ambassador on her story right now, where all of these people are following her, like, not very high. And so if you're an app that's doing language learning, essay writing like this, and you want people to post, like, either you have to pay them a lot of money and you're like, I will give you 50 bucks if you post on your stories or you just have to think about why they would do it. You know, I think there's just like, you have to be realistic with like, what people are going to do and say. So I think for us, like, we were really strategic of like building this brand and this community. So when people do have a more like natural inclination because you're like, I do, because when I get sent PR from road, I'm posting whether or not they pay me. Oh, totally. Because it's cool. It's, it's right. So like, how can we emulate that as a non-haley beaver, you know, start up? So I think that's one. I think too. Also, like, it does get very like operationally like, are you checking? Like, are you verified? So we're still just trying to figure out like one for the content side, like, we do need to be better. Kind of film good content, like just think about it more ahead of time. Like, hey, we're doing this coffee event. Like, what, what kind of stories are we trying to tell about Ditto, the app that is going to be weaved into this coffee event? Like, maybe we asked everyone to share their favorite coffee shops in Ann Arbor. And as they share their favorite coffee shops, it's a list on Ditto that you can find that you can participate in. So there's a lot of ways to be more integrated from our perspective. I think too. It's like, how do we leverage the ambassadors? Like, from an op standpoint instead of standpoint. And then I think three, it's like, maybe there's something we didn't even consider. Like, something that we're thinking about now too is potentially even just building content teams at the stool. Yes. Just people where you don't have to worry about events. You don't have to worry about getting people to use the app. We just want you to be part of our team because you're a sick content creator and so just focus on that. And like, just create content about Ditto. Like, you don't even need to talk about the activation or the events. Like, maybe it's like, hey, guys, like, I'm the student at the University of Michigan. And like, I'm going for fall break. And if you're going for fall break, like, here's my list of like tips that you should do. Like, I love that. Just stuff that's like really around the product. But still, it's a student at the school that we're trying to target. Yes. So that's how I'm thinking about things. But like, as I'm talking to you, like, I'm still thinking it through. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is very much like what's literally currently like in my brain right now. Totally. The content game is so hard, especially for like, IRL stuff. I mean, I'm always like that. I totally, I mean, like, even this podcast, I should be taking content and like, post it about it. But I always forget. And it's one of those things, too, where especially when you're building four community, you want to be in the community. And I feel like any time I like take out my phone or be like, okay, guys, like, do this, do this. I'm like, oh, it like takes away from, from the moments, you know, so it's so hard to find the balance. And some people do it well. I'm not one of those people. But I think the content team is such a good idea because I'm just like, can you guys just, can you guys just make content? And we'll, we'll make the fun thing happen, but just be there with your phone camera and like, do what you already do best. Yeah. I think that's really strong. Yeah. It's definitely super saturated. Like, I mean, how are you guys feeling about content in general and just, yeah, I feel like it's very interesting because I think about a year ago, like, late 2024 is when all these things start to happen where brands and startups and apps and everyone was just starting to really capitalize on this UGC wave of, let's just pump out as much content as we can. So it's definitely becoming more saturated. But I think it almost makes it more interesting now because it used to be really easy. Yeah. Used to be just like, okay, you just get some people together. They can make these like half-assed videos and they'll go viral and convert to a ton of downloads, which was awesome for when it was the thing. But now that everyone's doing it, you have to get so creative on how do we make this feel really organic? How do we gain the trust of the viewer? How do we make this look nothing like an advertisement? And that's how you continue to stay on top. And it also makes it more fun, right? Because in the content's more fun, it feels more organic. You bring in people. You bring in these users who really feel like they authentically discover this product themselves. And then they're a higher adopter. They stay longer. They retain longer. They are more likely to tell their friends. So it's been really fun to watch like the evolution of content and almost build communities around the way we tell stories for brands and the way we tell stories for products. But yeah, it's definitely, it'll be interesting to see where it goes, especially with like AI, AIUGC, consumer fatigue of AI and salesy videos. But I think it's always just how do we be the most human, how do we be the most friendly? And that content always resonates the best. Yeah. Is that how you feel? Yeah. No, I totally agree with everything Julia said. She actually started doing something really interesting on TikTok, where she put out a post trying to hire more content creators for a play kid. And the basic message was like, hey, if you're in college and you have a friend group that you're constantly with and you want to make money together, I have a job for you, where it's literally just like film yourself having fun doing the things that you already do. And you can get paid. There's a little job. And it sounds kind of crazy like when you think about it, just like super abstract. But in reality, that's all that content creation is involving your friends, filming stuff. And then just trying to figure out how can you, very natively, organically plug a product that maybe you are promoting, but make it feel like a very small part of the whole content idea. And so yeah, I love the videos that are starting to come out. It involves friends, it involves driving in a car, it involves doing stuff at parties. Now we're driving into the DDC space, trying to figure out how to promote physical products and how to just apps. Yeah, times are changing very quickly, but I think that's what makes it fun. So fun. Yeah, because it's like, you really just are giving people these products or these apps. And it's like, just use this organically and how do we tell a story? Yeah. It's very similar to like, IRL activations for Ditto too, where how do you just make it feel so natural? I feel like I said this before, but my like, thesis with content right now is that it's starting to feel more like Snapchat stories where, you know, with your friends, you pull out your phone when someone does something funny and you like post it to your Snapchat story or your true private story. Yeah. And that's how good TikTok content needs to feel now. Otherwise, people sniff out that it's an ad or that it's a product placement or it's just not a good piece of content. So like, how do you, just like empower people to have fun with all these products, which is a really good push for brands to make your products actually fun in a content's better. I think that's so true. And like, it's really cool to hear you guys say that because there's just so much noise out there right now and every domain, whether it's campus or content or AI or, and I'm curious, like, now I'm interviewing you guys. But I was thinking about this yesterday with Connor and I'm just like, so curious what everyone's thing is. And everyone starts to do like the same themes. Are you guys like allergic to that where you're like, holy shit, like, I need to do something different? Or you like, well, we're just going to be the best at it. And I'll give you an example of the other yesterday night. I was just like strolling through my Instagram, especially as a founder of like a consumer app startup. And I was like, wow, everyone's really doing one of like five things. It's office gets, everyone's doing an office get every like every startup is like a short or, it's like an office or a dating show. It's like one thing street interviews, just like insane, like popping off, UGC, like, you know, the like, oh my god, like UGC, some sort of college program or founder, I put my job to start this app. Like, storytelling. Yeah. And I was like, looking at that. And I was like, oh my god, every single company is doing these, this, like, these five things. Like, part, when I personally get that, when I like see that, my immediate thing is like, I don't want to do that. I want to be different. I'm just like, fuck it. Like, I'm over it. Like, but I think for Connor, he's like, well, we, well, it's, it's a thing because it's working. And so we should just be the best at it. Like the, make the best office. It made the best street interviews, like tell the best founder's story, which I can totally see it don't either way. It's just, I'm curious what your immediate reaction is. His mind's always like, everyone's doing this. Oh my god, I don't want to do anymore. Like, what's next? What's the, what's like, what can I admit now? Yeah. I feel like when we started playing it, it was, this, like, UGC mass production stuff was really new. Like, nobody was doing it at scale. There was a couple of companies doing it and that's where we got inspiration from. And so that felt new because it was like, okay, no one's doing this. People will need this. Let's figure this out. And I think when it comes to content and like, trends and stuff, it's like, yeah, you hop on things that work when they work and it's like, if it's broke, don't fix it. Or don't change it. Like, yeah, but we are always at the same time innovating. So it's almost both. It's like, okay, yeah, let's test what's working and like, ride the wave because it's there and, you know, why not? Especially when we're doing stuff for brands and we want to see that, like, engagement. But at the same time, it's always so important to innovate. And when we have, like, for our campaigns, we have 150 videos going out each week. So a lot of those are doing what we already know is works. But then a lot of those are also testing new things to say, okay, how can we be at the forefront of this, how can we figure out what's the new angle, what the new content pieces. That's going to be the next thing that blow up. How do we start the next trend, which is also super fun. But you need a lot of room to be able to iterate and figure out what that is. Yeah. Yeah. I also agree with everything Julie just said. Like, like they say, I think, like, good artist, copy, great artist, steel. Like, I think it's, there's always room to innovate on something that's working. Yeah. I think the fun part is like questioning or asking yourself, like, how can I plus one? What is already happening? Totally. How can I make it better? Make it funnier. How can I provide more value? But like while still using like a foundation, right? And so, yeah, I wouldn't like, I wouldn't shy away from it. I like Conor's mentality. Like, if obviously a bunch of people are doing it, it's probably because it's working. But it doesn't mean you can't do it either. You just got to feel your angle and it doesn't even have to be different. Like, there's so many people on TikTok that haven't seen like any of those videos. True. You know, we're in a bubble. Exactly. Yeah, we're in a huge fight. Definitely, I think my greatest superpower, but also my biggest downfall, is like, I just really crave being different. And I really want to build things that are like really different. And I think that's been one of the best compliments that we've done going to campus. We put our app in front of all of these students and they're using Ditto. And often the first response is, and I love this, like, I get it. Sometimes it's what the fuck is this. Like, most times, it's, I've never seen this before. Cool. Like, most times people will say, this is so unique. Like, I've never seen an app like this because they're so used to seeing dating apps. Like, they've seen every version of a dating app. It's like, the boy swaps, the girl swaps, your friend swaps, your mom swaps. Like, this way, that way, like, three photos, no, they've seen the dating apps. They've seen the gikyaks, iChat, like, forum, kind of products. Like, they're seeing the Snapchat locket be real one second a day. Like, that stuff is, like, really popular. And I get really excited when the first response is, like, I've never seen this before. Like, this is really interesting, like, I've never used something like this. Yeah. Um, the next question is, like, well, do you like it, but we can figure that out. Yeah. But I think it's also my biggest downfall, which is, like, I don't stick with things, like, long enough to make it the best because I'll start with something. And when I see a bunch of other people doing it, I just, eventually, I'm like, I just don't want to do this anymore. Like, we'll start doing street interviews or office stats. Like, we did office hits a long time ago. And then now it's like, yeah, in my bubble, at least, like, everyone is doing office stats. So then I'm like, I don't want to do office stats anymore. But you're right. Like, sometimes you just have to be the fucking best. And like, if this is something that you're like, people watch reels, like, they watch TV nowadays. And so we need to serve them that. Then, like, maybe this is what you have to do. But, yeah, just a desire to be different is, like, so, I don't know what's, why? Maybe I'm an only child, like, I'm such a pick me person. It's actually really bad. No, but it's served you so well because I think your brand and your presence is so strong. Like, people who know Ditto's, like, oh, yeah, they know Lily. They know that your story. They've seen what you've done and it's so admirable. Like, it's so easy for you to stand out with what you've built because it is new and it is innovative. And I don't know. I think there's like so much respect for that because it's harder to do that. But it pays off a lot and I know it's been so fun to watch you and just see how much you've grown. And the way your brain works is like, oh, my God, I don't even know. How do you have time? Does it work? Yeah, it's like, I don't. It's like non-stop. But also to that point, though, the other thing that I'm thinking about, especially as we're heading to next year for, like, the company, too, is like, I do think there's a lot of benefits from a founder-led brand, like a founder-story-led brand. I think, of course, that will work time and time again. But I look at the most successful companies and like, a lot of them don't have founder-led brands. Like, they're just really good brands or just really good products and really good companies that users love because they're getting value out of. And so I also, there's a part of me that's like, I don't want to lean too heavily on like, this is Lily's app because she got dumped. And like, now it's like, it's her and like, I'm using it because like, I think that's great for your first 10,000, 50,000 users. But I'm thinking, like, how do we get a million and 10 million? And I think a lot of that revolves around how do we build a brand and a strategy outside of a founder-led, like, approach? Like, how does Ditto just like find its place in the zeitgeist and like become its own moment? And so I've been thinking about that, too. And so it's just really interesting because like, I think a lot of people talk about founder-led content, how to do it, how to get started, like, and I'm like, great, do it, but also we got to phase out. So true, yeah. I'm in the era of like, low key, I'm like, trying to phase out right now, like, which is also hard to know. Yeah. There's a place for it, for sure. But I think it's like, it can't be the thing about the ship that your company is like going forward on. Like, it can't be you, like, lugging this ship behind you. It's like, in the beginning, yeah, because you gotta like, lug it out to sea, but then you just gotta build engines, and then you just need to like, get on the boat and fucking like, sit there and just be like, that way, that way, like, you know, you gotta captain, for sure. For sure. Yeah, it's such a tough space. I have a buddy who like, his app blew up because of founder-led content. And then he was like, okay, I gotta hire a creator because I just don't want to create content for the rest of my life. He hired somebody else, and you know, it was a different face in the videos. And like, he immediately, he saw that his conversion just dropped. Because people just don't trust that individual. And like the new person, right, they love the original person. That's like why they follow the product. That's why they use the product is because of that face. And so yeah, it does get really tricky. Like, I think it's a great way to get started, like you're saying, but it can't really be the long-term strategy unless maybe you get created with how you do it. But even so, like, it eventually does need to be the brand. It sounds like that's the everlasting, like, persona for the company. Yeah. I don't have an answer to that. Maybe we can do like a part two to this in six months or so. Let's see, learn if we figured it out, but it's always like not a warning that I would give to entrepreneurs, but I do just want to bring it up. Like I just think that for people who are starting, it's like, yeah, they want to do founder, like, content. But I'm like, okay, what are you really trying to do if you're really trying to build a massive and during, like, business and company, which if you're not, that's totally fine. Like, in the back of your head, you always need to think about, like, when does this phase out? Totally. And like, how does this just go on its own? And I think us doing two campuses, like, one of the first swings at bats as like to how we're thinking about it already. Mm-hmm. I know. It's even the same for us, too, where it's like, people find playkicks, they find like my Twitter, my LinkedIn, or whatever, also like Client Referrals, too. But then they expect to have me on the sales calls, me on their client check-ins, which is great, in which is where we're at right now, but as we grow, I won't be that person. So how do you, like, almost communicate that to your audience, it's very tricky. And it's hard to keep the trust without being like, yeah, I'm right here. I'm going to walk you through the whole process. We're best friends. Let's figure this out together. But then when you take yourself out of the equation, it's like, now you really just need to have the brand ready to take over. So I also don't have an answer. We'll circle back on this. We'll figure it out. We'll touch base. We'll make a point, too. Okay, let's talk about your ambassadors a little bit. What makes a Ditto Ambassador different than the rest of the ambassadors? Like what's your unique angle, like why should somebody become an ambassador? What's like the general strategy behind that? I think what makes a Ditto Ambassador different than a regular ambassador for another company is you're not following rules. I think with this is a double edged sword, too, so like pick and choose like where you want to take this. I think a lot of programs come with like a strict criteria for like what to do in a weekly or monthly basis that makes you eligible to be an ambassador and gets you your title and gets you your pay. Like this, this, this, this post this post that go here, put up those XYZ. I think what makes a Ditto Ambassador different and if anyone listening wants to be a part of this role, the thing that we're looking for is just unique thoughts. Like we don't have crazy and like crazy unrealistic expectations for you. Like we are not expecting this one student who is involved in classes in extracurriculars to no figure out how to get 5,000 new users. All we're asking for is like you to think about one, you love the product. Like that's just like number one, too. Like you just love the app. You know what it is. You know what the purpose of it is. Which inherently if you love the product, you want people on it and you want your people on it. And so to be an ambassador, it's just how do you think about how to get your people on the app? And that should be pretty easy for anyone who wants to be in this role and wants to be successful in this role. And I think it's what we do and what our job is as a company is to give you the resources and tools and tricks to do that. So if you're saying, Hey, I'm part of like the fashion club on campus and I really want to get my fashion club on because we always talk about our favorite brands. We're doing holiday gifts, like we're doing gift guides. Like I think everyone should make their gift guides on dinner. Like it would be so fun, but I don't know how like do you have any tips? We have a club playbook like we know how to get clubs on right now. So we can be like, here's what you do put this up in the slide, tell them to scan this code. We made you a custom landing page when they get on. You made it. So you automatically all follow each other and here is like dinner branded swag to give out at your club meeting. So it's more so thinking through just like, how do I get my people on the app that I love is what makes our ambassadors really successful because it's really easy for them to think that way versus I think for a lot of other ambassadors, it's like you're juggling school. You're juggling exams midterms. Actually trying to find internships and jobs, like it's really, really busy. And then you're like, oh no, but I have to post four times and I have to go do this and I have to go do that. It feels like extra work that you don't want to do versus us being like, just go figure out how to get the people you love on and tell us what you need. It could be really small. Like we had someone say, hey, I'm a senior right now and I have my lineage, they're Lind. Do you know that's what it's called? Lind. Oh, I've learned so many college rooms. You guys, it's called my Lynn, like your lineage. So it's like her, she has her, her big, which is someone who just graduated, her little, her grand little anyways. It's like five people and she's like, I want to get my whole Lynn on board and I want to like do that. I'm like, I'm great. You can make a group chat and send this prompt and like get them to fill it out. We just built a new feature. I can tell you guys about it, but we built this new feature that makes it really easy to get multiple people on at the same time. And so for them, it's like a win-win because they get their friends on the app, which just makes the app a better experience for them, too. They do their job, they get hit, they get bonuses, they get paid out for it and we give them the resources to support them. So that's how I think about it versus giving them like, yeah, another checklist of things to do. Like you don't want to do that unless you can pay them like $500. I love it. Totally. No, super smart. It sounds like you're really just like, the question is like, how can I just like embed already like what they're doing in their life and just like give them the tools to like promote whatever it is they're really doing in like their lifestyle, right? So not making it like extra task, extra job is just like, what are you already doing? How can like we be of a resource for you to actually promote it? And like we want to make sure that you're a fan from the start. So like, how can it actually be useful for whatever it is you're doing? 100%. And I think to like add on to the point earlier where I said, you need to go all the way, right? If campus is your focus or whatever is your focus, like you need to go all the way, we literally take all the way, not even to the end of like go to market, but to product as well, right? Like if we really want to win campuses, we need to make changes in the product that support a campus experience, not a TikTok experience. And so we realized that people really wanted to tell their friends or their club or their sorority about Ditto. The question that they were always faced with was, okay, what should I make a list about? They're like, oh, wait, I come in this app, like we can all share things and like it's a list, it's really fun. So they're like, oh, what do I make a list about when they get stuck? And then you're, you're leaving it up to the ambassador to now field like questions and like now it's, it's not productive. And so we built this thing because for me, I'm like, well, how do I get my friends to like participate in things? And I notice like every time I would travel somewhere, like it looks like I'm doing Austin and I text a group chat, being like, does anyone have Austin Rex? This is when my group chat's alive, guys, like I get left on red, like it's nobody's business. The second I ask a question, like, where do I get Austin much from? What do I do in Japan? Like what books are you guys reading? What do you want for Christmas? Like anytime I ask a question, the group chat's like pop in, like everyone's like this and that. And then I have to like write all these things down. And then I actually end up making a list just like subsequently from this experience. So I sat down and I was like, how does this become a user acquisition tool and a product feature that makes the whole process a lot easier? And so that's why we created this thing called list requests, which like I feel like I need a better name for. It's like a little lame. But in the app, you can open it. You can create a list request and it's a really fun like question box and you can write anything in the question box. It can be like places to shop in Soho when I'm in New York this weekend or it's like going to San Diego, like what beach is strido to or it can be really unhinged like, what should I text this down? Like any sort of like thing that you need recommendations for what it does is it generates a link and you can either put that link on like a story or send it to an IMS group chat, which is really easy or you can make it into a QR code and put it on the screen. Now you're telling people, not hey, download this app, you're saying, hey guys, fill, make me this list of like San Diego Beach spots. And all your friends are like, okay, great, they click the link or they scan the QR code. It actually opens into Safari. So it opens to Safari and it says like Nick is requesting a list from you or Julia is requesting a list or Lily's requesting a list. The title is already pre-filled. So it says what the person wrote. So San Diego beaches or New York coffee shops. And all this person has to do is fill in the bullet points with their recommendations. So when they're done, it says, okay, post it to your Ditto account, download the app to see it. So it really just makes the whole experience a lot easier. And so I think to my point about like you really have to go all the ways like change and orient your entire company to be focused on what you want to do. And what we want to do is you want people who are 18 to 24 who are in school, who love their notes app, who love instas, who love documenting to use Ditto and then get their friends on it. And so we're building product features and tools to support that. So we actually just released it. It's been like eight days, so we're still testing it out. Maybe we can like again, circle back in like six months and see how it does. But we want to give ambassadors these tools to get their friends on and make it easier for them. I love it. I love it. If somebody wanted to become a Ditto Ambassador, where would they go? You can DM us on Instagram. We also have the application link live on our website. So it's really easy. It's a tally forum. It's a quick 15 minute chat. And then we add you to this giant Slack that all of our ambassadors are a part of. We take a lot of notes from you guys, like you post fun challenges and updates and like everyone's able to build a community in there. I love it. Yeah. Okay. Well, to wrap up, maybe let's talk about some horror stories from these like IRL campus activations. Anything that really jumped out that you weren't expecting that was like, you know, ship moment, anything exciting that happened. We exciting or horror story. Maybe let's see both. Let's see both. Let's start with horror. Oh, horror stories. It's actually really hard to get people to come out to stuff. Not gonna lie. Like so brutally honest. Like, one of the events we tried to throw a mission in, I think like we expected 200 people to come and like 30 people came. And it's like one of those things where it's like you're having a birthday party and you're like, I hope people show up and like usually people show up for your birthday parties. I'd like people to show up for us. And so that was a great learning for us too. It's like doing the event is like one thing in itself, but getting people to show up is like the second thing. Totally. And then I think what we learned from that horror story experience is we actually had that event at our Airbnb in Michigan, which is about like 10 minutes walk from campus. And then we like, in the retro, I like thought about it. I'm like, yeah, you know, what like, and it was an event targeted for freshmen. I was like, hmm, telling a freshman who's just got to college two weeks ago to leave their dorms and go to a stranger's house off campus Friday night at 8 p.m. for mingling. Yeah. Probably wasn't the best thing to do. Super sus. Like, also like, yeah, like, why did I think that was in it? We were like, oh my god, like, well, my, because our thought process was like, yeah, freshman, they can't go to the bars. Right? So they usually don't have anything to do Friday night. So like, we'll host something for them to do. Like, we'll host the house. That's weird. That's so weird. And so what I'm glad no one came, because I think it would have been bad if they came in general, but that was like, that's just definitely a great learning experience. Like we all sat there. We like, it was truly like a birthday party that no one showed up to. Like, there's more of the team than like students who showed up. So I think that was a great learning experience, like we're like, let's not, let's meet them where they are. Let's like go meet them where they are. So that would be a horror story. The other horror stories would genuinely just be like, how expensive things are. Like just everything is so expensive. Like bar tabs are a thousand of dollars, coffee tabs, hundreds of thousands of dollars. You want to do merch, tens of thousands of dollars, fly to the city, thousands of dollars, book a bar, multiple thousands of dollars. Like they, people want you to sponsor a frat party, the audacity they have, someone asked me for three K, to sponsor a Halloween frat party, I was like, that, just like the thousands is insane. Like, you know what I mean? And we always talk about it. You can't really look at CAC like the same way you can look at it for other platforms. But so honest, like the CAC for us at times, we're looking like $37. Yeah, that's crazy. A $37 CAC for a free list app that you use to like share your life with friends. Like, when you think about that way, it is a horror, that's like the most fearful I've ever been in my entire life. Like, obviously we knew it wasn't going to be this way, but it is just like, yeah, if you truly divide the cost by your users, like it gets to be like that. Yeah. So it's not for the faint of heart. It's exciting things, I think just like for me at least it's just meeting the students. Totally. Like, when we're there and, you know, hundreds of people are coming to our events, and I always try to say hi to everyone, and I'm like, hey, I'm Lily, like, I'm the founder. Like, they're like, oh my gosh, like, and I'm like so just like overwhelmed with like joy and gratitude that these people are like excited to meet me and like, excited to meet Ditto. And it's funny because we're a list app, so usually after all of our events, all of the users will go on Ditto and write like a recap of the event, which is really sweet. Like, they'll be like, Ditto X victory lap, like, Ditto this and like, they'll write down 'cause they use it as a journal. You're really much right about that. And a lot of them are like, oh my gosh, Lily's exactly like who I thought she'd be like. She's the exact same in real life as she is online. Like, someone said she is like the exact, I am the exact personification of what Ditto is. And it's like, I do feel really good about that because it is really authentic. Like, we built this platform for people to share. We built this platform because we felt like people weren't showing their identities and they weren't being seen. They weren't being understood. And like, I, at every one of these events, like, try to make people feel seen and ask them about what they're doing, what they're studying, like, how things are going. What do they need help with? A lot of people want advice. They're like, I'm in science right now and I want to switch to business. But my mom, like, you forget just like how many personal stories these students have. And then just Pete, not even students, just people have. And then you think about platforms like Instagram and like TikTok and it's not really helping that at all. So I think the exciting part about me is just spending that quality time with them and like really being the evangelist and building up our evangelist at these different places. And then yeah, when I was in Austin, I got a custom football jersey. Nice. Said Ditto in the back. That's so cool. Yeah. So I'll pull that die out when we are number one. But yeah, it's fun. I mean, I went to school in Canada, like never got the US college experience. And like, I remember being in undergrad, like, oh man, like I should have went to like a US college. Like I should have went to, you know, one of these big football schools or like played a division one sport and you're like, well, I can't go back and relive my life. So like, you know, that is so just over. And I feel extremely grateful and lucky that I get to spend a week at these schools, cosplaying at students with my shirts, like going to tailgates and stuff. And I'm like, I am so lucky at 27 to like get a week-long experience at the Michigan, one of the biggest football schools, Austin, one of the biggest football schools. Like nobody else in their life like gets this experience. So I do feel really grateful and it's been really exciting just personally to experience that. That's amazing. Yeah, college is a fun time. I don't know. Where did you go? I went to the U of M son Minnesota. Okay. Nice. They're doing, they were doing good in volleyball, but now they're telling not to do so hot. Yeah, it's a hit on a miss at the sport. Should we go to Minnesota? Definitely. What did I do well? Definitely, definitely. I think if you had fun in Michigan, you'll have fun in Minnesota. The schools I do well for us are like big school spirit, a lot of friend groups. People usually live on campus, really involved social, very community driven. So that's Minnesota, you described it perfectly, yeah, good school, good school. Okay. Well, maybe I'll see you in Minnesota. If I just city me today. Let me know, I'll fly back to, yeah, I'm there right now, but let me know and I'll meet you at the campus. I love that. I can be your guide. We're thinking about the Florida school. So we're looking at Florida Miami right now. Someone has said like, you know, big like Wisconsin, Indiana, like those schools, any Minnesota is like in that realm, ASU has been like really popular. I think people have recommended other SEC schools like Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and then obviously the California schools, but they're a little like, they're too much scarier. That's not so long, next level. Sweetly, well, thank you so much for coming on the pod. Where can people find you while you're building and just kind of follow along with the whole journey? Well, don't find me find Ditto. Remember we're pivoting out of pivoting. We're pivoting. Okay, I'm going to important now, but you can find it on the app store. We're first if you search up Ditto, but if you do want to find me, I want to Instagram and TikTok, just sharing the ins and outs daily life of building this company and we're always looking for really smart people to work with. So we're hiring across the board full time, part time, interns, ambassadors, if you're smart and you're energized and you really love the product, like I want to meet you so bad. So I love it. Yeah. Cool. Well, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me.