How GlamUp grows

Faceless TikTok slideshow: girl without makeup -> girl with makeup with GlamUp branding -> app screenshot of the personalized routine. Hundreds to thousands of posts used the identical on-screen hook ('never saw myself with the / right makeup routine' + two crying-face emojis on a third line), identical caption ('I will be unstoppable' + exhausted emoji), same hashtags and one of ~10 proven audios. On-screen text kept small and off-center, 'Gen Z Insta-girly' style. Hook wording, line count and text size were tested; other audios did not go viral. Earlier formats that failed: Latina makeup slideshows, color theory, celebrities, makeup tutorials. Posted across ~20 UGC creators' accounts.

After the (blurred) scan result, the paywall offers two buttons: 'View results' (-> paywall) or 'Invite 3 friends'. Inviting leads to a share-your-invite-code screen; results unlock free once 3 friends download, finish onboarding and redeem the code. Friends get no benefit beyond helping. Target users are 13-25 and don't want to pay, so they post codes in TikTok comment sections. Branch was used for attribution/referral links. Repeated on Sprout and the newest app.

Raised the weekly subscription from $3/week to $9/week (weekly and monthly plans only, no annual).

Inspired by Umax, a looksmaxing app for men built by founders in the same HF0 batch as her co-founder, they built a glow-up app for women focused on makeup, after checking that no app like it existed on the App Store yet.

Took Umax (face-rating / looksmaxxing app for men, seen early via a co-founder's HF0 cohort) and reframed it for women around makeup and skincare products rather than face ratings; checked the App Store and found few such apps. Built a barely working MVP in 3-4 weeks and worked on distribution in parallel; v2 redesign took another month.

For Glam Up (2024) they ran faceless UGC on TikTok and Instagram. She designs the app itself to be innately shareable on social (visual results like color analysis and makeup looks on your face), then tests viral formats and doubles down on the winner.

After Glam Up and Sprout, built two more apps in 3 months and grew them with the same design + UGC distribution system.

Found photos of attractive women on Pinterest, ran them ~10 times through a separate makeup-removal app until plain, then enhanced with GlamUp's makeup to create maximum before/after contrast. Used as app demos rather than real users' photos (privacy).

The copy button doesn't copy the bare code; it copies a template like 'Download GlamUp and use my referral code ...'. Users paste it into TikTok comments, so the keyword 'GlamUp' ranks high in TikTok search and searches surface the app's videos.

After onboarding questions, a 'Leave a rating' screen triggers the native rating pop-up; to continue, users must tap an 'I rated' button (whether or not they rated). Same screen used on Sprout. Newest app dropped the forced button (co-founder uncomfortable) and uses a plain 'Leave a rating' + continue, which still works. Similar approach for the notification permission page.

Onboarding is for priming, not analytics: ask about goals/concerns (beauty goals, skin concerns; job goals) so users feel they need the app, then tailor a plan. On Sprout, added 'fun fact' pages after questions: e.g. 'Have you tried other job search apps?' is followed by a Sprout-vs-other-apps comparison; 'What is your goal?' is followed by 'you can reach that goal with Sprout way more than without'. Then rating, notifications, referral code.

First version: scan your face, get text-based makeup tutorials. It did not work on social media. Changed the core feature so users scan their face and see a before/after of how they would look with specific makeup looks, a visual result that suits TikTok content. Had tested several candidate features before landing on it.

Work through a list of distribution strategies, 2-3 weeks each: Reddit marketing; faceless TikTok/Instagram content (slideshows, videos, different CTA variations); face UGC (AI UGC or real creators); and, with capital, paid ads and influencers. Within each category exhaust variations (e.g. slideshow vs video, different slideshow styles) and keep iterating until one goes viral, then scale it.

Each co-founder ran ~3 TikTok accounts, warmed them up and tested formats. Only after a format went viral did they hire creators (30-40 at GlamUp's peak), trained through a course covering account creation, warm-up and exact content details (text size, placement, etc.).

For 3-4 months marketed the text-based first version via influencers, faceless accounts, the founder filming her own UGC, Reddit marketing and Discord. Nothing worked until the feature changed (see pivot). Her takeaway: if several variations and methods fail, the feature is not viral and you learn that quickly.

Hard paywall with weekly tiers $8.99/$10.99/$12.99. On close, immediately show a discounted paywall at 50% off ($4.49/$5.49/$6.49). Not used on Sprout.

User picks a scan, gets photo instructions, takes a selfie or video, sees an 'Analyzing' screen, then all results are blurred behind the paywall. The scan is fake; the AI API is called only after payment to avoid wasted API cost.

Tiers include e.g. 2 or 4 scans per week. Many scan types (color analysis, glow-up guide with six makeup guides, etc.) make users want more scans; running out triggers an upgrade paywall to a higher tier.

All apps are hard-paywalled; the scan results (Glam Up) and core features require a paid plan. Business model is a weekly or monthly subscription. Paywalls run on Superwall, revenue tracked in RevenueCat.

Apply consumer-app design principles: welcome pages, onboarding questions that personalize the result (job postings tailored to answers in Sprout, chosen scan in Glam Up), and priming users to convert. Treat the product design as part of distribution by making outputs innately viral for social media.