GTM Sauce

NGL · B2C · anonymous messaging app

Post TikToks of someone reacting to a shocking anonymous message they got

~1M views fast; first 1,000 users in a day, then global in a week

Workedinfluencerorganic-short-video

What they did

Tested many versions with different message texts, all funny, controversial or edgy so they stop the scroll. The winner: a girl showing an NGL message like 'I was with your boyfriend last night' and trying to get a hint about who sent it. Each video ties back to the product: you can get lots of messages and maybe find out who sent them.

What happened

The video got ~1M views quickly, brought the first 1,000 users in one day, and set off worldwide spread within a week.
Stage
breakout

This shipped together with other changes, so the result can't be credited to this alone.

In their words

Hunter Isaacson - Meet The Guy Who Solved Growing Apps

Play from 4:09
4:08

HostWhat was that TikTok?

4:09

Hunter IsaacsonIt's a TikTok of a girl, and she's like chilling one of her NGL messages. Someone said, "Oh, I was with your boyfriend last night," or "Your boyfriend said this about you." And it was like the girl like, you know, to get a hint on who sent me the message, right? So, it's kind of like one of those really funny like gotcha-type TikToks, and it blew up. It got like a million views very quickly.

4:28

HostThat's crazy. What was the hook of that video? It sounds kind of similar to stuff that goes viral today.

4:34

Hunter IsaacsonIt was really like a controversial, crazy message to get from someone. You know, so it was like, we tried this with a bunch of different message texts, you know, just like funny, controversial stuff, edgy, that just would catch your eye when you were like scrolling TikTok. And then, we always kind of related it back into the platform of like, oh, you can get so many messages from people, and, yeah, you might be able to like, potentially, find out who sent the message, super excited,

4:57

Hunter Isaacsonlike, "Oh, I'm going to download that." And that's what activated like our first thousand users in one day, was from that TikTok.

5:03

HostI've seen some people criticize like mass virality on TikTok like for consumer apps, and they say like, even if you get a bunch of users, they'll churn out. So, but it seems like that wasn't the case for you guys. How did you like handle the virality and actually take advantage of it?

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Tags: tiktok, creative, hooks, controversial, curiosity