Jenni AI · B2C · AI essay writing assistant
Build a new study tool around a TikTok format spotted in another niche
What they did
- Stage
- Growth
In their words
Matt Gittleson - Our app makes $750k/mo thanks to this UGC strategy
JosephThat's really interesting. Are you optimizing it for TikTok? Like almost reverse engineering what's going to get views and convert on on short-form?
MattStarting with something as specific as a format. There's a format that I saw that's being used in a completely different niche, and I said, there's got to be a way we can adapt this. There's got to be a way, it's such a good format. Um, and I spent some time thinking and I said, I think this is a product that would work, or a feature that would work. I said, "Can we build it?" They said, "Yes." We're building it, and so not not even just starting with virality, starting with something as specific as a format, um, and working backwards from there.
JosephThat's so cool. I think this is the first time in history that you've been able to almost spy on product-market fit. It's like you can see other people's video stats. Like that's insane. Like you can't you couldn't do that in the past, right? There's no medium that allowed you to just publicly view other people's marketing performance, like day to day, but now you have like these like almost hints of product-market fit all over the internet. Like …
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More from this episode
- Hire creators from other niches who are fun to watch, ignoring follower counts150 creators and 75M views at under $2 per 1,000 views in 3 months
- Coach each new creator for weeks and treat them as part of the teamBest creator needed 25 videos to pass 10K views, then earned $5K+ in a month
- DM creators in casual lowercase, naming real results like '5-6M users'80 creators in month one, 150 in three; replies low but most calls closed
- Post a 5-second reaction clip with long text that splits viewers into two camps30M organic views on X after a screenshot; top quote tweet got 15M
- Write the app into the story as the fix, not just a passing mention1.5M views; host guesses more sign-ups than the 30M-view video, no numbers
- Film yourself explaining the tool, using the 'I made a website called...' formatFirst-ever TikTok got 245K views
- Scroll TikTok 30 minutes a day in your niche and 30 minutes outside itFounder credits it for spotting formats he adapted; no numbers
- Remake winning videos by improving one thing each time, not copying exactlyGuest says variations beat exact copies; no numbers
- Copy a rival's viral videos exactly, down to outfits and backgroundDidn't go viral
- Answer a big startup's creator DM by offering to sell them your appCEO call the next day; acqui-hire closed 4-5 months later
- Hire young founders who grew their own apps to run your contentThe hired founder built a 150-creator, 75M-view program in 3 months
Tags: tiktok, content-first-product, format-led