Track users who post a link and get 2+ replies; don't add feeds

Host… When you think about it, the result of that call to action, you sell the end result, right, which is what they'll get if they actually do follow the steps, and then once they're hooked, they get into the flow, and then they download the app, and then they follow the instructions. So, you're almost like leading with, "Oh, this is super easy. You're just going to get your own messages," and then you kind of have to educate them as you go.

Hunter Isaacson100%. And it's way easier to get a download by saying, "Get your own messages," than saying, "Hey, download this app." And that's why we we had like a very, very and still do, very, very high ratio of like new users hitting this screen and immediately going to the App Store and downloading it. And the beauty of this app is, you know, our our onboarding, 15, 20 seconds, right? It's like very quickly, we bring you in and drop you onto this screen right here. A big lesson I learned with apps is just how do you make it like one flow,

Hunter Isaacsonone funnel, and don't overcomplicate it, and just focus on like a North Star metric? In the case of NGL, our North Star metric was like, how many people are posting a link, and then they're posting like at least two replies?

HostThat's so interesting. So, I feel like nailing that first kind of core set of users is really important. Another question I had is, this is not a completely new invention. Like, there's anonymous messaging app came before this, but did not take advantage of this exact platform shift that you talked about, which is the link in Instagram Story. I'm curious if is this the way that you think of products in general? Like, tying a an existing concept …

Hunter Isaacson… say. Like, find existing things that have happened on other networks or other distribution mechanisms, and just switch the distribution mechanism, and improve the product to a certain degree. And and you're right, you know, before NGL there was YOLO, Yik Yak, ask.fm. We could go all the way back, I mean, Formspring, like this is a a behavior on the internet that's existed for a long time. I do think that the reason NGL went as big as it did

Hunter Isaacsonand has more downloads than all of those apps is because we use the biggest distribution graph of all, which is the Instagram graph. That's why it did so well. But NGL also is huge on other platforms, too. Twitter, it's big on WhatsApp, like it's big across the board, I think, also, because a lot of these anonymous apps kind of overcomplicated them after they were successful, right? They added feeds, and they added complicated profile tools, and like, if you look at NGL today,

Hunter Isaacsonand you look at NGL when it went viral, it's very, very similar. It's not changed to a a large order of magnitude. I'd say that it's more been optimized and refined, and that we found ways to just like make the product cooler and more fun and more engaging, but we didn't, you know, add multiple more tabs, and you know, make it super confusing. Like, it stayed relatively the same.

HostI like how you said distribution graphs. So, when when people think of distribution graphs and, you know, if someone wants to build a startup that uses the same framework, and they're thinking about the major distribution graphs, there's, like you said, Twitter, X, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, maybe YouTube, do you think that there's an underutilized, or almost like an an arbitrage opportunity looking at smaller graphs that are still powerful? …