Arise · B2C · anime-inspired fitness app
Pay influencers and meme pages $1-2 per 1,000 views
$6-7 revenue per 1,000 views; grew to ~$50K/month at 70-80% margins
What they did
What happened
In their words
Daniel Kwon - He made $2.2M from building simple apps. Here's how (no-code)
Joseph ChoiWhat did your influencer deals look like for this?
Daniel KwonI mean, it varied, but most of the influencers and meme pages we worked with were happy with like a $1 to $2 CPM, and typically we're looking at around like a $6 or $7 RPM. So most of the influencer deals are what pushed this app to around 50k a month, similar 70-80% margins to to the other consumer apps I've been working on.
Joseph ChoiThat's so interesting. It's like It seems like the framework for this was just like, find a large group of people that are really passionate about a thing and then just make an app that's sort of like based on that IP. So they're super fans of Solo Leveling, and that doesn't really exist in real life.
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New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from this episode
- Stitch an already-viral classroom clip with better audio, then demo the app15-16M TikTok views in a day, 100M+ across platforms; drove a $500K month
- Make videos siding with students against pointless school busyworkOne such video got ~4M views (host's reading); guest says the style still works
- Have a co-founder make all the videos himself, faceless and low-budget~220M lifetime views and ~$2.2M revenue, mostly organic
- Test paid ads next to organic videosMargins were worse than organic; dropped
- Build a tool to get around AI detectors the night one launches$1M ARR within about 30 days
- Have UGC creators film inside Snapchat so videos look like real stories
- Put schools' logos on your website without askingGot cease-and-desist letters from several schools and a legal fight
- Talk to three or four buyers when selling the appSold, but some competitors posed as buyers just to pull information
- Post a scrappy 'we made way too much, so it's on sale' videoHit every time creators remade it; brand had views but no sales before
- Put a flash sale on a TikTok Shop item to reach more For You pagesGuest says it automatically boosts the product and brand; no numbers
- Film shop videos in the founder's kitchen or bedroom, even as a funded brandBrand became #1 in food and beverage on TikTok Shop; not isolated
- Pack visible value into product photos and release limited flavor dropsGuest says it made organic storytelling much easier; no numbers
- Post carousels about Solo Leveling fans wanting 'the system' in real lifeGuest's fastest cold start besides Shepherd; ~$7K/month early
- Build the app fans already ask for when rivals just run adsReached ~$50K/month alongside influencer deals
- Stitch popular faith podcast clips and farmed hooks onto a quick app demo~7 videos: 20M views, 100K+ downloads and $75K MRR in 2 weeks
- Pitch a God-first lamb against Duolingo's AI-first owl during its backlash~10K Discord members from the launch push; later fans rejected an AI feature
- Replace the AI chat with a custom devotional and drop 'AI' from the copy
- Pause creator videos and build invites for prayer and accountability buddies
- Build the app in two weeks while running a two-week content pushReached #10 on the charts and $75K MRR despite a buggy app
- Post about your app yourself; skip paid ads until five formats winGuest's rule from five or six cold starts; no numbers
Tags: creator-comp, cpm-deals, meme-pages