Flamme · B2C · couples app
Scroll TikTok 4 hours a day for 2 months to learn what works
Got the first account getting views, then copied the approach across accounts
What they did
What happened
- Effort
- 4 hours/day for 2 months
In their words
An Nayal - Full App Growth Guide 2026 - How to Make Viral Content to Get Users & Make Your App Retentive
An NayalWhat I did is for two months, I dedicated myself to scrolling TikTok for 4 hours every day. I just had no idea how TikTok works, right? I had to look through every single piece of content, I had to understand how it works, I had to understand, you know, why was what we were putting out, why was it working, why was it not working?
An NayalSo I spent 4 hours every single day for 2 months on TikTok to understand how TikTok worked, what was the language used there, what was the kind of content there, you know, what were the hooks, why were people getting more traction, why were people getting less traction, why were we getting less traction? And once I understood this, once we started unlocking views for our own single account, I realized I had to multiply this if we had to make this work for the business.
An NayalWhat I mean by multiplying this is we had to take what was happening on one account and we had to multiply it across accounts. I'm not talking two, I'm not talking three, I'm saying a couple of dozen accounts had to be set up, a couple of dozen accounts had to be aligned for this to work. TikTok was a volume game for us at that point. We were not creative geniuses. I wouldn't even call us creative geniuses right now. We right now know how to …
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
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
- 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
- Design the app's screens and loading animation to look good on TikTok
Tags: tiktok, platform-immersion, hooks, research