Jay Raavi - Copy This UGC Strategy, It'll Make Your App Go Viral

Jay built a UGC machine so efficient that as a solo founder he manages 60 creators, generates 44 million views a month, and pulls in 65,000 dollars in monthly revenue. All without a team, all without VC. His solo travel app, Nomad Table, hit over a million downloads. But here's what's different about Jay, he didn't start with a creator network. He tested everything personally, got good at going viral, and only then broadening creators. And he's still the top performer, highest views for the past three months. I do think that it helps a lot, that like I'm also posting alongside them. I think it motivates them a bit more when they see me as the founder, getting into trenches as well. But he's not just posting for show, he's the quality filter. He tests all the ideas first, validates them, and then gives them to creators. I come up with all the ideas that I give them. I tell them to stick to my formats most of the time, but I do think that it's important to give them some freedom. This is how you scale without losing control. Early on, Jay chased Vanity Metrics, he'd get 300k views, but that video would only get 174 likes. Brutal engagement. He was falling for the ViewTrap, posting clickbait that gets great views, but has zero ability to convert users. Then he discovered the only metric that really matters. Watch time pass three seconds, specifically 75 to 80% retention in the first three seconds. This one signal is how you can predict if something will go viral or not. If that is the feeling like 75 and 80% usually it's a good format. If it's hitting that consistently, I know that it's going to go viral eventually. With this system, virality becomes predictable and inevitable. He posts once a day, gets one viral video per month. And those videos don't just spike and die, they feed him for months. So in this episode, Jay breaks down the entire playbook, how to test formats before scaling to creators, the watch time metric that predicts virality, and how to build a creator network that generates 44 million views a month. This is a masterclass in doing more with less. Let's get into it. This is the Superwall podcast, and I'm Joseph Choi, 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 paywalls to make more revenue with the same number of users. Superwall has a lot of data on the thousands of apps that user paywalls. So recently they put together a free AI tool trained on 422 profitable paywall experiments. It lets you upload a screenshot of your own paywall 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 to invite, apply using the type form in the description. Let's get into the pod. You got 44 million views on organic UGC. How does this whole machine work? Let's see, I think I have, including myself probably around like 60 or so creators. We all just kind of post every day on TikTok Instagram. So this is for your app, no mad table. We have over a million downloads. Are those downloads mostly from UGC or do you have other traffic sources? Yeah, it's mostly UGC. I guess counting my own accounts. I think as the app has grown, word of mouth has also become a pretty big driver. I'm just estimating it based off the onboarding kind of thing, but I think as of now, between 10 to 15% of people that our new user has come from word of mouth. The rest are pretty much all UGC, I think. Okay, so the new users coming in through cold traffic are completely just organic to talk Instagram and then some of those users invite other people. Other people, but more just sharing with their friends. Just kind of talking about it. Yeah, yeah. Talking about it. Yeah. So this is for the app, no mad table. Travel friends. What does this app do? How did you come up with the idea? Yeah, so basically it's an app to meet friends when traveling solo. You can kind of make activities. That's kind of like the main point of the app. You can make these activities which notify people nearby and they can join them. You can make stuff for just, you know, any kinds of plans from getting drinks to, you know, go like doing some touristy thing, kind of like whatever you want to do. For example, I just played some paddle today with some friends off the app that I met. But yeah, I got the idea when I was on a solo trip last summer. I've always loved to like travel solo. And the best part for me about it was people that I got to meet. It was always really fun. And I would stay in hostels most of the time. And hostels have like a really fun social environment most of the time if it's a good hostel. And it's really easy to meet people because everyone's not everyone. But most people are traveling solo and they're very like open to hanging out and, you know, just doing stuff together. So I always loved that social environment. And I just wanted to kind of recreate that. But without having to rely on a hostel because I'm not sure if you've done the whole, the whole hostel thing before. But it's kind of like grimy, you know, sharing your room with eight people. And also some hostels just weren't as social as others. So just wanted some other way to kind of create that same social magic as a hostel without having to actually stay at a hostel. Yeah, it's just like, it seems like this is the way that young, a lot of young people want to travel. Like they're, you're not going to go to like a travel planner. And do like a, you know, a whole elaborate thing. Like people just kind of want to go to a place, have a bunch of other young people there to hang out with. And just explore and do stuff. And it seems like this app basically is like in that niche. You have a million downloads on this app. What does that convert to in terms of revenue? Yeah. So right now we're doing, I think, like 65 K a month I want to say. Yeah, I mean, it is a social app. So, you know, your, your ARP who is definitely going to be a lot lower than, you know, a classic hard paywall app. And that's something that I kind of am you going into this, I think, with, you know, social apps more of your, your power comes with like your user base. You know, I think that is the more valuable thing. And I think there's always like ways to monetize with the big user base later on. But these are based kind of like the hard part about it in a social app. But I don't really want to add like, you know, ads or anything. But like, you know, if I was just like, I want to just squeeze this thing right now, which I, which I don't want to do. But if I wanted to, I could add a bunch of ads and, you know, probably make, you know, easily over 100K a month if I wanted to. I don't want to like, love the app with ads. And I, I really care about the quality of the app. And like, I'm trying to build like a generational kind of thing right here. So I'm like, okay, with, you know, not making as much as I could from the app. Yeah. But still 65 a month as a solo founder is still pretty incredible. This is like all subscriptions, right? So it's like weekly monthly annual. The annual is like 69, 99 a month or a year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I guess it definitely still is like a good amount. I'm not like trying to downplay that. It's, it's, it's, it's all, I'm, I'm very grateful for it. But just notice the time with an app with this many downloads, they tend to have a bit more. So I was saying that, but yeah, no, still very grateful. It's, it's been great. So how do you, yeah, like at a high level, what is the UGC strategy? Do you have a lot of people? Yeah, like what's the strategy for organic UGC? I think it's just like your classic, you know, high volume UGC engine. Just, you know, operating, you know, at scale with a lot of creators. You know, we've really nailed down kind of like, you know, our formats and, you know, what goes viral. And when you just have, you know, lots of people making those videos every day, of course, your surface area of luck just increases. So yeah, I mean, I kind of started off with just making content by myself. I was the only one for a long time. I probably got like the first, I don't know, 5200k downloads from my own content, I would say. I kind of just got good at it. Got good at like, you know, going viral. And then once I had like the confidence that, you know, these formats would just go viral again and again because it happened for me, you know, it kind of just took the page out of the classic, you know, playbook of just towering much creators and, you know, having them just make those formats at scale. How many creators do you have right now? Because also this is 44 million views. But then I just noticed that it says 34 million views the previous period. So is this per year? That's that's the per month. This is per month. So you get 44 million views a month or, you know, roughly like 30 to 40 million views a month. Those those are the last two months. I mean, of course, can't kind of like see the future. But yeah, that's that's what's been so far. Yeah, and um, but yeah, I know, I mean, it's been going really well. Thankfully, um, we have, I want to say like 60, the 70 creators, something in that and that range. Wow. So yeah, are you actually managing all those creators yourself? Yeah, yeah, I do all all myself all in house. That's crazy. Do you just have like, oh, what's like, like a giant, what's that group with like everyone? Yeah, I do have that. Um, and I also talked to them like one-on-one. I mean, of course, not like all the time, but um, I'm definitely like very involved. And um, I feel like that's something that's like, you know, led to a lot of these success. Um, I think I spend like a lot of my time talking to creators, giving feedback, you know, making sure they're doing well. And yeah, it's a lot of time. Look at my WhatsApp. It's, it's, uh, it's crazy in there. There's so many messages, but I think it really does pay dividends. I think when you have like, I think mean, you know, with apps like this distributions, everything. So I think it's time that's, you know, well, with investing in because, you know, they are kind of like my power, they're my distribution. So I'll absolutely spend like, by the time with that, probably. Yeah, that makes sense because yeah, you're like 100% of the cold traffic it's coming through this UGC. So yeah, that's like, is there anything you do with your creators that you feel like other founders don't do? Um, I guess like the level of the hands-on management, I mean, I don't like micro-manage them, but like, I just give them lots of feedback. And I do think that helps a lot that like, I am also posting alongside them. I think it motivates them a bit more when they see me as the founder, kind of getting into trenches as well. And also, I think I've been like the top views person, like the highest grossing views for the past like two, three months now. So I think it helps a lot that I'm as the founder like one of the best creators. And just working alongside them, giving feedback helps a lot because you know, if you're a founder, but you don't have like, you know, in the trenches like that, they might not take your feedback like as well because like, you're not really doing the same thing as them. But I think when you kind of be kind of like working alongside them, it goes a long way. That's cool. I didn't actually didn't realize you were doing your own content still. So you were the first one to create the content and kind of like figure out the strategy. And then you give the content strategy to all these creators that you hire, but you're still making the content yourself too. Are you the one that's coming up with the strategy still and all the types of content that the team has to make or is the team coming up with their own like ideas too? I give them like a bit of freedom for sure. I mean, I have, I tell them like stick to like my formats most of the time, but I do think that it's important to give them some freedom just because like, you know, obviously it's not enjoyable to just be doing the same thing over and over and over again. So I'm like okay with knowing that most of the time, like when the experiment is not going to go well. I mean, there's definitely sometimes that it's gone well, which has been great, but I'm very okay with that just because I want them happy. I want them enjoying what they're doing. But yeah, no, I kind of do all the kind of testing. I guess most of the testing myself in a try different things. I feel like that's one thing that I've gotten pretty good at is just strategy with content and like making good hooks and that kind of thing. There makes sense. What's the general like framework for coming up with new content ideas? I guess before we do that, we can just look into the actual content. So this is one of the reels that you shared with me. This is a you video. And the hook is just I've been solo traveling for two years and now I find out about this. Facebook emoji and then your your face is just like, you do like the reaction like OMG. I just now I find out about this. Yeah, and then you go straight into the product and just like the phone on the table and you just like start using it and then you just immediately say like, Oh, you can plan activities with nearby solo travelers. And then there's a chat. We got the details. Where was this when I had the most unsocial hostile and tyline? Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, what's the approach for this? Yeah, yeah, see, this is actually my like first ever viral video that I had. So that was pretty cool. Actually, it's funny because I made this one the app wasn't out yet. It was still just for pre-rider, I think. And like the UI is totally different now, which is funny. But yeah, I think the top behind this was, I mean, this is a hook that like, I mean, I did not invent this one. There's definitely ones that I feel like I've probably like invented. But this one like totally took from a different niche. I forget what niche it was, but there was some other kind of niche, not like travel. But it was the same kind of idea like I've been doing like X for, you know, X years. Now I found out about this. I think this is like a very versatile hook. And I think I still see, I still see it being used this day. It probably works for like any niche, honestly. It's like a good one. So I just saw that. And then I thought, you know, hey, this might work for for my niche. How can I like, you know, fit this? And this one was pretty simple. It didn't take too much thinking. Just kind of replaced like the other thing with solar traveling. And just like demo just them. So yeah. Yeah. And people are like actually engaging and asking about the app itself. What about the last part? I'm curious about like the very end of the video where you say, unlike my other, you know, bad experience with this hostile and Thailand, was that um, unsocial hostile and Thailand? What was the purpose of this? Was this just like, are you making it feel a little bit more organic so that, you know, people still share or comment? And like, otherwise, it seems like kind of like the whole video feels, it doesn't feel like an ad, but it does like people might get suspicious. I don't know. Like, are you kind of just adding a little bit more personality into it and making it like organic? Exactly. Like you said, I think adding details like this makes it feel a lot more real. I think that goes with like across the board. Like when you add details about things, like it makes stuff more believable, that's what people want to hear. That's what makes it real. You can always just say some general thing, but I think it really starts to stick in the come real when you add details like this. So yeah, you know, I'd said some specific thing, like about some unsocial hostile and Thailand. Like maybe I could have even said the exact hostile name to make it more real. But yeah, I think these small details go a long way. Yeah, and then this whole account, would you consider that UGC or like, are there certain ones that you would want to share? Yeah, you can, I guess whichever ones you want to like look at. I mean, I think there's probably better ones if you scroll down. I think this is like an old account that I stopped posting on because it got like, I haven't got shadow band or a weapon. Like my reach just got like killed. So I stopped posting on it. But if you scroll down a little bit, you should see some ones that have better views. I mean, these are all getting around the same, okay, actually, I'm curious about this. So if you scroll all the way down and you see this one, you got 300 thousand views 26 weeks ago. This seems like it did well. These are, these are all like ads I'm assuming because they're not getting that many views. They're all organic. Like they're not, I mean, don't not like paydads. That's what you mean. Like they're all organic. Right. Okay. And then this is getting, yeah, this got 300k views. It's like kind of like a, at a hostile and then you're zooming in on this girl. So this random girl in my hostile just showed me this and I'm not never standing enough to look at it LOL. And then you just, yeah, oh, interesting. And then instead of, so now you don't even need two different shots. You just zoomed into the girl and then you come back and look at your phone. Right. That's all one take. Yeah. So this format, yeah, actually, this something good to talk about. So this, this one is good. I mean, so I stopped doing this one, but I used to try it a lot. I thought it was good because it got lots of views. But as you can probably see, the engagement is like pretty bad. Like 174 likes with 300k views is like, it's like horrible. So one thing that I learned that other people might be able to like, you know, take some advice from benefit from is don't fall down like the view trap because on like, I think when you make these kinds of like clickbait hooks, like, for example, like in this hook, I'm saying, you know, some girl showed me this and I'm never staying in a hostile again. What the audience is probably expecting is like to see like some gross thing in like the hostile, but they just see like my app. So it's like kind of like clickbait. And that's probably why it gets lots of views because in strams, I'll go is like, you know, just because I watch time mainly. So people are staying and watching past that hook. It's a good hook, but I'm not delivering on the hook very well because it's just a clickbait thing. So I think that's why the engagement is so bad. And that's why I kind of stop doing these because even though it got lots of views, it wasn't very good engagement. That makes sense. Yeah. So it was almost like, yeah, it was like a red herring. Like you have these this big view count 300k, but then, yeah, 174 likes and eight comments. So you're, it's a great hook, but then you don't deliver on the hook. You did that like a bunch of times with this style of video where you're kind of like zooming into a person in a hostile. Yeah. With the caption. And you say, so the hostile volunteer is definitely getting fired for showing me this. Okay. So that's like another like clickbait hook. And then you show the app again. Okay. So you do this strategy like quite a bit. Is there a reason why you kept repeating it? Like are you trying? Were you trying to just like kind of see if the mass volume would would get some downloads? Yeah. So I mean, I think I was a bit naive when I was doing this because like I was saying, like I thought I got lots of views and I didn't understand like the whole engagement thing that well. And I was like, Oh, lots of views is good. But I will say like I do think that these look very organic like they come off as like not an adult like no one's gonna make an ad like this. Not many companies will do you do you see like this. So that part is good. But it also has its cons. I mean, with I guess with these hooks I was using, there's the clickbait. And then also, so I took all these while I was traveling like when I was actually staying in hostels. So like they required me to actually be like staying in a hostel to make these videos, which obviously that's not something that's like scalable enough. gonna have all my creator stand hostels. So, but yeah, I do think it has, like it was good because it was shod in the hostels. So, you know, as soon as my target audience, like, you know, you can pick up on like the small things in the background and understand it's a hostel. And like the second that they see that, they're probably gonna stop scrolling just because of that. And I think having that scenery in the background is like was really good to get like that, you know, initial hook in. In those cases that wasn't delivering that well. But yeah, I think as a hook, I think that was a really good. But just I stopped doing them because it's just not scalable. I'm not staying in hostels all the time anymore. So yeah. - Yeah, okay, that's interesting. Yeah, so I mean, I could see, I could see how that would happen where you get like 300,000 views or even just 10,000 views. And it feels like it's a pretty good format. Like you're showing, like you're getting 10,000 views and you're actually showing the app. So it's like, okay, why not? Just like continue to post this format. So then you posted it like hundreds of times. - A lot. - Yeah. And then you're probably getting downloads from other places too, like from your other creators at the same time. So it's kind of hard to tell like, is it working or is it not? But then at what point did you decide to just stop doing it? 'Cause it seems like you kept doing it all the way till 19 weeks ago. - Like 19 weeks ago. - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, well, that was like the end of my trip. So I just like stopped, I stopped being in hostels and stuff. So that was why, on the other point, I was probably still getting most of the views and like getting most of the downloads. There was some down there that got like, you know, like I think a lot more views. Still like not a great engagement, but like just because there was like, you know, I think like multi-millions of views, it got a good downloads. - So it seems like, yeah, you prefer like the standard hook demo that you originally started with to the, like compared to the format that you tried. And then you're going back to like, here, let's look at the TikTok. So this is a more recent TikTok, I think, or, you know, and this was, this was like, I think summer of last year. So it's still like a little old. But yeah, I think this was around the same time that I was posting those videos. But I had about like 10 creators back then, and they were making all kind of like the hook demo UDC style videos like this. - Yeah. And this is like, this is a lot more engagement. 74,000 likes and 30,000 bookmarks. Basically the same exact video as yours, just with a creator. And then the hook says, imagine being scared of solo traveling when this literally exists, emojis, and then yeah, just straight into product demo. Huh, that's interesting. Oh, one thing I noticed about this is the hook, it's slightly different. So it's like she, she like drinks the drink and then like does a wink at the camera. Does that matter? 'Cause your hook was like the handover mouth like surprised. I don't know, I've seen like different types of like face reaction hook. Does like the type of reaction matter, do you think? - Yeah, I mean, there's like all kinds of rap holes that you can go down with this kind of stuff. I try not to hear anymore, but yeah, I think, I feel like it's just good to like be enjoules doing something in like the hook. So I think lots of people have like said this just like lots of this, you know, coaches on how to get like lots of views that, you know, come up on your reals page. But I feel like one thing that I saw a lot early on, what people said to do was like always like be doing something, like be drinking a drink, like have some object in your hand, like have something, I don't know, it's like some kind of psychological trick. I think like tying your shoe was like one of them. I used to do all these things back in the day. I kind of stopped because I didn't see him like making that big of an impact. I think at the end of the day, like just a good hook is a good hook and if you can make it look organic, then it's fine. I think, you know, doing stuff like drinking a drink might make it look more organic, but I think there was like lots of ways to do it. I don't think it's like a requirement per se, but yeah. That's crazy. I wouldn't even think about that. Like it's just starting out, like figuring out what to actually do in the hook. Because like a lot of people just see that, you know, maybe it's just about the text, like, oh, imagine being scared of solar traveling when this literally exists. And you can do whatever you want. You can do the face reaction or, does this ever not work? Where you do the standard hook, you know, like you tell a creator, okay, do something, anything in the first three seconds and then put a caption that is in like TikTok language and then you put the demo right after. Does that ever just like flop and like why? I think with a good text hook, the answer, like, not really, like it'll do well at most. It's time given enough reps, of course, you know, of course, like if you just post like for, you know, a week or so, maybe it's not gonna hit, but I think, at least this is all just from my experience. I'm not sure how, you know, it is for others, but when we have a good hook, it works like across the board for like a bunch of our creators and like eventually, like pretty much everyone would get like a big video with it. And yeah, I mean, the reactions are kind of all varying. I mean, they're all like pretty similar, but I mean, some are probably better actors than others, of course, but yeah, I mean, I've definitely seen some that like, I mean, I have some creators that like are better at like acting than others and some of them like, you know, didn't seem like that believable to me in my opinion, but like, some of them still did great despite that. So I do think that like a good text hook can go a long way, even, you know, if you don't have like the perfect, like person to do it, I think a good text hook can really go far. - Wow, that's kind of crazy that if you have a good text hook and you have all the creators try that text hook, it pretty much does well across the board. It kind of just kind of like proves the theory that like TikTok really is a science and like the algo. If it does work once it'll work again, that's encouraging to hear because I feel like people think that TikTok is kind of a lottery and it just like sometimes it works and doesn't. Were there other hooks that didn't make it and like never got replicated across the creators? - I mean, yeah, I've definitely come up with like hooks that like didn't work. Like for sure we had hooks that are like similar that just didn't hit, but in general, like, I only have my creators remake the ones that hit, like all the flopping is done by, like I test out stuff. I flop a bunch, but like, yeah, that's all just kind of done by me and I feel like I've gotten good at just, you know, moving on from stuff that doesn't work like fast. I think there's always signs. For me, like the biggest thing, I mean, I think this is like pretty common knowledge, but in case not, just like the average watch time and on Instagram, they have it, I'm not sure about TikTok, but like it's the percent that watched past three seconds. Those are, and like also just kind of like the engagement of course, but those are just like very good signals. Even if, I mean, yeah, I think going like viral, like has a bit of luck to it, not every video with viral potential will go viral, but given enough reps, I think it absolutely will. But I think you know when you have a good format, when like it's consistently getting like, you know, 75 to 80% people watch past three seconds, average watch time is like, you know, I mean, for me, like around like six to 10 seconds. But I think the average watch time past three seconds is like one of my most important ones. If that is between like 75 and 80% like usually, it's a good format. Even if it's a viral, like that civic time, if it's hitting that consistently, I know that it's gonna pretty much for sure go viral eventually, just a matter of time. So that's like one I always look at. Yeah, 70% watch through the first three seconds. That feels like a really high number. Basically means like, you know, the majority of people that watch the video actually are engaged by the hook. That is a very high amount actually. Like how many views can you expect for like a 70% view through rate? All my good formats have at least like 70% past that. And then I sort of views, I mean, it depends, right? I mean, that's really it can get tricky because like, just because you have that there's always guaranteed lots of views. Like from what I've seen, the Virati is like a bit of a lottery like I was saying, just because it has like the potential to go viral doesn't mean that it always will. So, but I mean, I think usually like on Tech Talk, you know, a good format like that that has around that stats, like you'll get at least like four to five K views. And if you're getting like around four to five K views consistently on each video, that's like really good. Like it's just a matter of time before that's going to go viral. And yeah, I think it's just good to even know when to move on from formats like if you're getting like sub 50, like you know, it's probably cooked. Like you probably shouldn't be pursuing that like long term. Of course, this is just all from my experience. I know it is a bit of a black box. So I feel like this is at least what's it worked for me. And like I feel like for my content and like my niche, I have a bit of a bit of a science down to it at this point. I'm not sure how that applies across the board. Of course, but yeah, sure. So what's the difference between a 4,000 view video that has a good, you know, hook rate versus one of those that just goes viral and gets hundreds of thousands of views? That's the thing like there's like not really anything sometimes like, you know, it can be the same. video and I mean I'm sure people have seen this as well to you like you know you'll you'll post the same video on Instagram a tech talk and it blows up on one and just gets like not that much on the other just my opinion I don't think like every video that like can go viral will go viral and I mean yeah I've had like periods where like I posted videos for like a month and each of them has like 81% people watch past three seconds and like nothing went viral so that points a bit of luck and that is where having a big UGC network is really helpful because with that many people that luck is a lot more distributed and like you get lucky like a lot more with that many people like it's pretty hard to not go viral like you know once a week if you have a good format right right that's a good format as in like your your videos are actually getting you know around that 70% hook view rate which should result in about 4,000 views so that's that's a huge misconception that I feel like a lot of people have is that you know TikTok like people here that oh TikTok it's just all about consistency you just have to keep posting because it's luck and eventually you'll hit you're you just said that but with the important detail that you know as long as you're posting good content then it's then at that point it's about look so like you can post you know a hundred videos like it 4,000 views each and all of those are actually good videos but it's pretty you're saying it's like pretty random to guess which one of those will actually go viral so you may as well just have a ton of creators posting tons of variations of similar content and as long as they're all getting like a decent you know hook view rate then after that it's kind of just luck what what what is the hit rate usually of you know you post a hundred like decent videos that get a few thousand views like how many would you expect to go viral I would say from like my own accounts I probably have like a viral video around like once a month I would say just from my own and I would say for like most of my creators like it's pretty similar like definitely will have some months you just go bonkers and how like three or four I would say like average is probably about about once a month yeah and you're posting once a day yeah once a day also like the thing is if you don't realize is once you have a network that's big enough with like you know 67 people if all of them are getting 5,000 views like every day it's still like a lot of views if nothing going nothing's going viral like it's still like you have a pretty good baseline of views right there which still is a lot of downloads so even if nothing is going viral like you still have a lot of solid downloads and also like what will happen to is when you get a viral videos that girl like super viral which you probably will if you have a good format eventually it was like lots of longevity so they'll just pick up views for like literally like months and times like I think I won that got views for like literally a whole year like insane so once you have those like those will be like a consistent kind of stream that will just be there for like a long long time so those for good to have it's like an evergreen marketing asset at that point it's like an SEO article or like a I don't know like a YouTube video I feel like a lot of people have this perception that TikToks are just you just post it once and then you get a flash of virality and then it's over but you're saying that you're actually getting like if you have a really really good video then TikTok will just keep showing it to more people I mean that makes sense because when I scroll my for your page sometimes I see a video that's like six months old and has a ton of views I'm like why why is this showing up but it's still it's an engaging video so like why not so it makes yeah it makes sense so when you reach out to creators and you're about to invest into organic social and maybe boosting those videos with paid ads you don't want to just let the creators do whatever they want most of the founders I talk to you on this channel basically have the same content philosophy the videos need to go viral but also convert and promote an app and ideally are also repeatable and those formats are like gem then really hard to find that's why TikTok can sometimes feel like a lottery system so what a lot of consumer club members do is they use this tool called spy talk which brainwrap scrolls hundreds of thousands of TikToks and just finds the most viral ones that promote apps so here I search for fitness gym workouts I say like run a fitness app I'm gonna sort by most viral and here's this 106x outlier video that promotes a fitness app and it shows a text hook it shows the image in the background and then on the second slide it has this CTA in a really creative way and spy talk has been the secret weapon for growth strategy for 11 labs and ammo and voodoo which is the app studio that owns B-Real so I recommend spy talk it really is the only other tool I explicitly recommend on the channel or the super wall are you boost draft or do you have funding for this company by the way yeah so I'm I'm totally bootstrapped I will say like I worked in big tech for three years before this so like I had like savings definitely used like some of that for like the star because I think the first like you know a couple of months obviously I wasn't profitable I am now but definitely some months in the red that you know I had savings for me nothing like crazy like you know but yeah I was definitely helpful to have yeah I guess I was I was wondering because I feel like a lot of DC back startups don't like to do ads like actual like paid acquisition because they think that it's like it doesn't prove PMF as well as organic does but I'm curious why you don't do ads because you have a lot of these really good UGC formats that you could probably turn into ads and like maybe this could earn like War of Anu is do you feel like ads is just a different game that's you're like kind of all in on organic yeah I think it's a couple reasons I think with a social app I'm just pretty bearish on paid ads for social apps because you have much lower I was driving per user so it's pretty hard to get to a level where you're gonna be making money even if you have like you know a crazy good ad that's like you know very very low cost for download when you have a social app in your RPU is like that low it becomes pretty tough to justify so I mean I think at the very start maybe it can make sense when like you know you're just trying to solve like your your cold start problem I think maybe at that point paid ads can make sense just to get the thing off the ground but I think it's not like it shouldn't be a long-term strategy for any social app because it's not gonna make you money ever and with a social app you shouldn't ever rely on paid ads like you should eventually hope that your users will just be spread in the world themselves wow that actually makes a lot of sense yeah because I feel like there's certain other types of apps like I talked to some of these like betting apps recently and they're saying that you absolutely need to do ads in order to scale that that makes sense for them because like you have a very high average revenue per user so you can just calculate okay how much can I spend on customer acquisition cost for this influencer marketing and UGC organic is generally a lot cheaper it's a lot cheaper downloads but then it's not as scalable so what you're saying is that's that's a fine trade-off for you you you'll go for the cheap customer acquisition cost and figure out a different way to scale for a social app which is you know word of mouth and like sharing yeah I mean I do think that UGC is scalable it's not as predictable I would say because you know paid ads are very much like you know I put in this I know what I'm gonna get for like the most I mean I know you're the cost for like that audience will change like your a CCPM will change for that audience sometimes I know that but I think overall it's you kind of know if you're getting or as organic like there's a bit more uncertainty feel like we paid ads like there's a lot of playbooks that are just very like public and people know about because like organic and UGC is so new there's no like rulebook on like what's do-free things it's just like random podcasts like this random kind of tweets there's no article that says how did the UGC marketing so it's not like I think for like a like a big brand like it's not very attractive but I do think it's very scalable for sure at least I mean from what I've seen so far it's scaled well for me how do you pay your creators yeah so it's a bit of a mix but mostly just all performance based on just views the thing is I mean of course everyone wants performance based as like the founder of the company but it's a lot harder to get people to agree to that of course so I think before you get into the performance world you have to like be able to prove to the creators that like your app goes viral so you need to be able to show them like other accounts other videos that have gone viral so like show them like hey like this is what you could be getting because if you have some like brand new app that like you know has not done one video yet and you try to get someone like a cpm deal like no one's gonna want to do that because they don't really know like if your app goes viral yet they don't like there's nothing I think you can see that they're gonna get money with for so I think at the start I would recommend to like do retainers just because you kind of have to at that point like it's tough to get people to to to join without having that but even even better I would suggest kind of like what I did so and just make constant yourself like prove from your own content that goes viral and then you know you can show them that and be like hey like you know here's my account you can just copy this format I've done this format like eight times it's gone viral a bunch of times like this could be you so I think it's very important to prove that you have had success to the CPM because then it's framed as like oh it's easy money like yeah it's it's it's not a retainer but I believe so much that if I just post this one tick-tock it is probably gonna get used because there's so many other examples of other people doing it or the founder themselves doing it so sure yeah I'll do performance and then yeah that that psychology kind of makes sense to me and then do you have like benchmarks of like good CPMs to pay I think like it's between a dollar and two dollars is good I think you know I think it comes down to be like a negotiation to you if you get it kind of not stuff people always try to like get more of course so you just got to kind of kind of be get it like negotiation but I think between like a dollar or two dollars is like is like decent at that CPM like you're still like that's way better than any paid ads like buy by a long shot still so definitely yeah that's like a deep range to do I would say one to two dollars CPM do you think that varies across different nieces I guess it might be hard for you to say because you're just in the social app niche but it seems really really low maybe because like your willingness to have like a higher CPM is just lower because of the average revenue per user thing so you want to get cheaper downloads like to creators ever say like I got paid you know four dollars CPM from this other app and try to use that as negotiation yeah I mean it's it's hard to say for me because I mean yeah this is kind of all I've of them I've seen but I've definitely seen many other apps like do you with our CPM just because like my my creators have multiple clients sometimes and they'll tell me or I mean I've even actually get a lot of offers in my DMs because I have like my UGC accounts so I have a lot of people DM me like from other apps that like ask you to UGC for them so I'll get those in time I think the highest up seems was three dollars honestly at three bucks I was kind of I was kind of considered like should I be sure I do this and get some extra money on the side because that's a lot but yeah I mean I think from like what I've seen like a dollar two dollars is like pretty standard but I mean yeah I it could vary by niche for sure that makes sense that makes sense that is pretty impressive you have 60 creators and they're all doing one to two dollars CPM like no retainer and you just I mean yeah it sounds low but like if you like look at the views that we're getting like people get lots of views so even though like maybe yeah I'm sure someone's probably paying higher but like I think because we just have that virality kind of like you know aspect to it and it's proven people get lots of views like people still make a lot of money totally yeah I mean if you especially if you're the one who's testing all the hooks yourself you're kind of just giving them the sauce like for free and then like just making it as easy as possible for them so that they're almost guaranteed to make money if they follow the the hooks that you give them that makes sense yeah I mean I've made like I think my highest payout might have been like eight thousand dollars in a month so like you know people can make a lot and you know at that level like you're probably making a lot more than like retainers if you if you do well which does uplay mouth potential to do well so right yeah eight thousand dollars that's crazy what's the breakdown in that is that like how many views is that that's like like a million views a million views and then you get that's probably like several viral videos in a single month yeah I think that one might have just been like I think sometimes you just get these ones that go crazy so I think that might honestly all been from one to five or correctly but I know I know I know some people do cap their payouts and I honestly would probably suggest doing that with CPM just because like when someone hits like a video like that it kind of hurts but I mean I personally don't because I mean I just try to be fair and I mean if someone gets eight million views then it's converting well and I mean I'm very cool with paying them the full amount because I'll be coming on and I'm getting from subscriptions eventually so I'm super cool with that and then do pay that out like a the end of the month yeah yeah just like once a month okay so you're seeing like how many views they hit and then you do the payout and then you don't look at like views pat because like what if like the videos just continue to get views month over a month are you like continuing to pay out for those two or is it just like how many views do you get in a month and then you know pay that out I track views on old posts where I want to say like three months so yeah I know also I think lots of people don't do that and I do again like I just like to be fair I think like having a good relationship with your creators goes a long way and I just like to be fair I feel like if someone's getting views even if it's in the past you know it's still it's still views so I still paying for it that's cool so going back to the one of the original questions I had was for a social app do you feel like the marketing is any different are you trying to get just as many users as possible I guess with solo traveling app you're not necessarily trying to find people that like live in the same place or like groups of friends that already know each other you're just going for like solo people so actually maybe it maybe it's actually just the same marketing as if it was a single player app but yeah do you think about it any differently from like a single player app marketing yeah like not not really with some caveats yeah I mean I don't do like location based marketing when I was in my early phases that was something that like I thought I would need to do just because like you know most of the other apps to meet people like this like you know dating apps you know like those kind of mean for me like the dating apps are like the closest corollary so that's kind of like the close thing I have but the playbook for all those dating apps pretty much is you start off with one place you know advertising that area to get enough people on it and then once you like solve that location you kind of expand just you know copy that same playbook except for just more and more locations that works really well but because my audience you know are travelers I can't do that because I could solve one location but then after a month it all be gone so it's a bit useless so yeah I mean it's pretty much the same as any other app like like whatever the algorithm takes it if that's where it goes I thought that it would be like a really hard problem for me to solve at the start because I was like if everyone's always moving like how can I ever guarantee enough density in one place like the cold start problem would like just sound like really hard to solve and I guess it kind of was I mean I have to build a wait list before launching because you know with the app like this you kind of have to have the critical mass on day one of the app because if you don't it's like a revolving door and if anyone's building a search lab out there I'd recommend reading this book called the cold start problem by Andrew Chen it's really good it talks a lot about this kind of stuff that was very helpful to me but so I think I had probably like about 12 15k people on my wait list before for launching and probably like only 6k people got the app the first day from that which looking back like there's not that many for the whole world but the thing is I guess like the beauty of the app is you only really need two people in one place where it's work because they can just meet each other I mean obviously it's better if there's more people but it at least kind of works with only two people and like you kind of figure out like the biggest hot spots like with 6k people like Barcelona probably had like you know 20 people you know there's got a big cities probably had at least 10 plus people so it kind of worth the start and then from there you know had some you know saw videos that went viral and you know got more people when it was their guy but looking back I'm kind of surprised that it was that people start off with to be honest yeah that's pretty cool it still works with 6k people and you know just distributed all across the world like who knows where they are and where they're going yeah kind of it kind of makes sense like how many how many popular cities are there really for traveling like probably a couple hundred like or less and you know 6,000 people divided by that many there's probably like a few people in every city or at least like the more popular ones so that makes sense yeah it was that and then also I think one aspect to it was like I think my content at the very start was all just like very founder led like my face was in everything I had some like talking videos that I just kind of like explain like my background my story and stuff I kind of stop those now I should probably start doing those again honestly I just don't have time really but I was like very open with the camera I was very kind of like you know very kind of like public with everything how the app was going like everything like a big milestone with sign ups I would share it so I think I got an audience of people that like you know we're very invested that like want to be a win of those 6k first people I think a lot of those were like people that like really liked me like we like the app and maybe even if it wasn't like perfect on the first launch they still like you know stick around like water me to win and kept using it so I think that goes a long way to just kind of like you know being public with like your building I mean or just on like Instagram stuff and you know those kinds of platforms like make people like want you to win I feel like that goes a long way I think that just if people want you to win you know stuff will probably end up being okay okay I'm curious to know a little bit more about your story. Like you said, you were working in big tech. And then did you start this app, and then try to get it to a certain amount of revenue and then quit, or what was your journey there? - Yeah, so I got the idea for my, I guess on my solo trip last summer, that was just kinda like PTO of work. It took three weeks off to go travel. And that's where I got the idea. And then I got back. And honestly, I just was really passionate about the idea. I think even on that trip itself, I was already kinda like doing some research and talking to people and asking their feedback on stuff. I was really fired up about it. And so yeah, when I got back, I think after a week, I told my manager that I was in the quit. It was a bit of a risk, but I just never felt that passionate about an idea my life. And I just had to go try it out. I'm like just go all in on it. I don't think it was as risky because at these big tech companies, you kinda have this one policy where if you leave on good terms, I think at any big tech company, if you live on good terms, you can come back within a year with no kind of, you can just come back, like those take you back without an interview or anything. Because they know that you're good and they prefer you over some like Rando on the street, so I knew that was my back pocket probably. And if all didn't work out, I could do that. And I had savings and stuff. So definitely was like privilege to have that as like, like an offer on my back pocket. I know most people aren't lucky. So that was also one reason why I just kinda took the leap and went all in. - That's pretty awesome. I didn't realize that the companies had that policy. That probably helps, but it's still leap. Like even before like really launching seriously, like you kinda just took the leap, is that? Also, I'm thinking about the timeline now and the Greg Eisenberg video that you mentioned to me that I was in, that was about a year ago. So did you launch the, like, I'll show people what I'm talking about. So this is like the Greg Eisenberg YouTube video where Greg Eisenberg interviewed me about viral apps and like organic TikTok. And I just talked about like the founders that I had been talking to and like what I've been seeing with like TikTok shop and finding creators stuff. Did you find this video before you quit your job? Or after? - I think it was after, yeah, this was like November. So yeah, I think I quit. I wanna say September, but I remember like, I told my friend that I was building a consumer app and he was like, oh, like you have to watch this video. And I was like, okay, so I watched it. But yeah, no, this was like very close. I think it was like probably a month after I quit and I saw this and I was like, yeah, this is like, this is pretty cool. So this definitely was very helpful. - That's crazy. - That's so funny. Did you, so did you know that you're going to do organic TikTok strategy before you saw this video? Or were you like trying to kind of like wondering about it and then you started researching? Like I'm curious like how you got the idea to do organic. - Yeah, I mean, I guess like the whole multiple accounts thing, I knew about it from this point, but like I didn't really like act on it just 'cause like, I think it was like the back of my head that I was just still like so confused by it. I was just like, this was like so strange, like multiple accounts and stuff, like oh, anyone do this. I was just like, it felt kind of weird to me. So I didn't end up like really doing it back then, but I think I started first-hand creators, I think in April. I think probably like around like two months after this, I realized that it would be a good roadstrap to do. But like I knew that it would be useless to pay creators to make content that if it wasn't like vetted to go viral. So that's why I just did stuff myself and I was like, you know, once I can go viral myself, then I can hire creators because by just harder now, like there's no point 'cause they're not gonna know what to do really. - Is there anyone you're trying to meet? So we're gonna put this on YouTube and put your Twitter link in the description. Is there anyone any type of person you're trying to meet? Like I don't know, certain types of founders or hiring engineers or anything like that. - I mean, I'm not like hiring people, but I mean, yeah, I like love to meet, I mean, I just love to meet people in general, but yeah, if there's any founders that are out here in like Bangkok, I'm happy to chat. Even if you're not a founder, I just like to meet people in these socials. So yeah, if you're in Bangkok or if you're like a no bad and you travel, like definitely hit me up and we'll have to look up. - Nice. - Cool. - Thanks, Jay for being on the pod. This is a good one. And of course, thank you Joseph, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me. - Something you might not know, most of the founders I cover on this podcast are hanging out right now in the Consumer Club Discord, sharing with each other what's working now for Consumer Apps. So you can apply to join Consumer Club if that sounds interesting to you. And this is the Super Wall podcast. Of course, you gotta check out superwall.com. We have more videos on the channel. So dig into those to learn from at founders who are willing to share super tactical stuff about AdvGro.