An AI texting reply app · B2C · guest's new app
Design the app's screens and loading animation to look good on TikTok
What they did
In their words
An Nayal - Full App Growth Guide 2026 - How to Make Viral Content to Get Users & Make Your App Retentive
JosephHe created 10-page playbooks with winning scripts and master prompts, feeding them to AI to generate hundreds of videos a day across multiple accounts. And he built the product itself to be visually appealing on TikTok, with every animation and loader designed to be eye-catching.
An NayalYour product should be built for TikTok. What I mean by that is, if you look at the flows on this product, if you look at the way it's positioned, like the even the loader that comes in this little AI animation, we built it so it could appear visually pleasing on TikTok.
JosephThis system generated 50 million views and 150,000 users 100% organically. And in this episode, An breaks down his entire playbook, from how he built a retention machine that's stickier than TikTok to the VSC framework for finding content that actually converts, and how he uses AI and a systematic approach to dominate organic TikTok. This is a masterclass in building something people love, then systematically getting it in front of millions. …
JosephCuz you're just straight up demoing the product as the main point of the whole video.
An NayalStraight up. And one of the things I also learned, I was watching, I I This is also from the Consumer Club, so thank you, Joseph, in the end. You know, most of my early success early learnings we've got, actually the zero to one of TikTok learning has been because of the club you put up. Now, one of the things we also learned is that your product should be built for TikTok. What I mean by that is, if you look at the flows on this product, if you look at the way it's positioned, like the even the loader that comes in this little AI animation, we built it so it could appear visually pleasing on TikTok.
An NayalThis is another lesson we learned, that similar to what Cal AI did, right, as well, they built the product so it would be easily able to spread across social media. It has this little scanning feature which works really well. We use the same approach, and we built the product This is actually designed by my partner, Lauriane, who's also my my wife-to-be. So she designed the entire product with a French touch, and we built it so it would appear …
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More from this episode
- Relaunch the date planner as an AI relationship coach right after ChatGPT came outDay-30 retention rose from 0.8% to 4.2%, still too low; press but no traction
- Make the daily question for couples the main thing on the home screenDay-30 retention went from 4.2% to ~30%, then 50%, with streak reminders
- Send a friendly morning reminder, then an evening 'your partner will be sad' nudgeDay-30 retention went from 4.2% to ~50% alongside the daily-question redesign
- Hide your partner's answer until you answer the question yourselfCreated a back-and-forth loop credited with lifting retention; no separate number
- Add a home-screen widget showing distance to your partner and days togetherWorked well, per the founder; copied from a competitor; no numbers
- Launch alongside a TechCrunch Startup Battlefield feature800% organic growth in one month; stopped by a trademark letter
- Start charging in a free app when the money runs outBarely survived; the early '15% conversion' counted renewals, so it was inflated
- Pitch big investors on great retention before you have a way to get usersFailed; top firms asked about distribution and no term sheets came
- Scroll TikTok 4 hours a day for 2 months to learn what worksGot the first account getting views, then copied the approach across accounts
- Run 20-30 TikTok accounts on numbered iPhones, 3-4 accounts per phone~50M organic views; host cites ~150K users
- Use one Apple ID on every farm phone to skip repaying for the proxy appFailed: TikTok linked the accounts, one flag hit all; lost 120 work hours
- Under 300 views means a broken account; 300-1,000 means fix the contentTheir working rule for which accounts and formats to fix; no numbers on impact
- Judge app videos by likes and question slideshows by shares and savesLow-like videos rarely drove downloads, even at 1M+ views
- Post slideshows of '5 uncomfortable but healthy questions to ask your partner'Shared a lot, but only 0.05-0.2% of viewers downloaded
- Post videos that show the app in use, not memesApp demos convert 0.5-1% of views vs 0.05-0.2% for memes and slideshows
- Give AI a 10-page brief with product details, winning scripts and a master promptTeam posts ~200 pieces a day from it; winners are fed back in
- Log every post by hand in a spreadsheet and review it every morningForces the team to study why posts fail; no numbers given
- Copy only formats that went viral on small accounts and get 'what app?' commentsAdopted after 50M views brought few conversions; C part learned late
- Run real 'what do I text back?' Reddit screenshots through the app on videoJust started; guest expects 0.5-1% of viewers to download
Tags: tiktok, built-for-tiktok, animation, visual-design, cal-ai-style