Stronger · B2C · gamified workout tracker
Reply to comments with videos showing their lift as random objects in the app
A series of viral videos; likely most of the account's 4.9M likes
What they did
What happened
- Stage
- launch
In their words
Peter Gillan - My App Makes $600k/Year Using This Easy Growth Strategy (copy me)
HostYeah. Yeah. I mean, that's crazy. So then, after your first video, you had all this attention, you you had like thousands of followers. And then, how do you follow up from that? Like you you build the app, but then, if I'm if I'm imagining myself in your shoes, like, I would be so scared to post the next video. Like, is it going to hit just as as hard as the first one? Like, how did you follow up from the first video?
PeterSo, we got a lot of comments about people saying like, "I lifted, you know, I benched-pressed 220 lb for five reps. What is that?" And then we would just stitch that video. It was Jack himself was doing it. He would just like record and be like, "You've lifted," type it in on it, and then show it his phone up to the camera, and it would be like, "That's two blue whales," or like, "That's 500 bowling balls," something random. And people just kept commenting with different random objects, so we had a series of videos kind of went viral. I'm sure a lot of like the the likes on this TikTok page, like we've got about 4.9 million there, I'm sure a lot of them probably came from that early stretch of home runs then.
HostThat's a really good playbook, actually. I feel like that could, I don't know, do you feel like that could be done today, where the Well, there's a few pieces to that. There's like post the almost like the engagement bait video as the first one, and you you show the the concept and it baits people to say, "Hey, what you know, uh convert my thing into whatever, you know, the meme is that you just posted." Then, the cool thing about that is like in …
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More from this episode
- Post the same 6-second fade-in app screenshot Reel over and overEst. 150-300M views, a 100M-view month; low conversion and now fading
- Copy a winning video across many accounts, changing a few words or colors each timeAdopted after a rival did it with ~10 accounts; no separate numbers
- Copy a rival's viral video format and post it from 10 accountsDownloads visibly ramped up; out-scaled the team that invented it
- Design every feature to look great as a screenshot for social postsScreenshots are the main money-maker; founder claim, no numbers
- Post 2-3 slide TikTok carousels of real, unpolished app screensHistorically their best-converting channel; weaker in the past year as 20 rivals copied
- Post a rough founder video of a fun app feature before launch~15K followers in week one; then hit #3 in Health & Fitness at launch
- Make everyone start a free trial first; free version only after they cancel~25% boost, their biggest ever; few complaints, but less sharing
- Test when and how often the paywall shows before testing its wordingFounder says they now monetize per user among the best workout trackers; no numbers
- Turn workout numbers into a strength rank users can show off12 months with no copycat; became the main marketing asset
- Adapt viral video formats from other app niches, then test hooks by watch timeHow they find each new format; no numbers given
- Keep content in-house; hire agencies only to scale a proven formatTwo founders make almost all content; few affiliates
- Fund the app with government grants instead of investorsStayed bootstrapped; no amounts given
- Copy a rival's strength score and add game-style ranks for each musclePerformed 'brilliantly' per the guest; Stronger later added ranks too
- Give each running influencer their own workout plan in the appGuest says it built a strong brand and rocketed up the charts; no numbers
- Build the new app as a tile-based game that AI tools can't copy yet
Tags: tiktok, stitch, comment-replies, face-on-camera, series