Lenny's Podcast · Aug 25How to consistently go viral: Nikita Bier’s playbook for winning at consumer apps
Reached about 10 million downloads and $11 million in sales, running on AWS and Mixpanel credits with no investors, then sold to Discord. A fake trafficking hoax was beaten by cutting daily deletions from 3% to 0.1%, and renaming from Crush to Gas with a black flame icon lifted invites.
Tips
- Validate one stage at a time, executing that stage at 100%▶ 1:12:07Gas grew past TBH, with about 10 million downloads and $11 million in sales.
- Put live customer support chat in your app around the clock▶ 32:46The number one support message on TBH was whether users could pay to reveal who sent polls, which inspired the monetization in Gas.
- Test app names against invite rate, especially gender perception▶ 1:16:59Invite rate rose after changing from Crush to Gas.
- Fight a viral hoax on every channel and make it less viral than the app▶ 1:07:44Daily account deletions fell from 3% of users at the peak to 0.1%.
- Do not use hidden or non-consensual growth tactics like server-sent invite texts▶ 1:01:48
- Negotiate vendor credits to run a hit app almost without outside funding▶ 1:10:19Gas earned about $11 million in sales with 10 million downloads.
