Runify · B2C · ranked running app
Build a tool that turns one video template into thousands of versions
10,000 variations in a minute; fed ~5M views in month one
What they did
What happened
- Stage
- pre-launch through launch
In their words
Caleb Dean - I speedran an ai app from 0 to $100k exit in 26 days
Joseph ChoiI see. That makes sense.
Caleb DeanAnd so all these ones that you're seeing here that they look slightly different, we like my um CTO in like 1 day just like built an internal tool where we could generate like 10,000 of these videos in like 1 minute.
Joseph ChoiAnd like the only changes are like slightly changing the the amount of time uh for each of the medals and then changing the caption. It seems like the caption might have been the hardest part. Like um cuz it has to be like casual copywriting, like kind of like some humor, like emojis and stuff like that, but you're able to like kind of like GPT this?
Caleb DeanYeah, exactly. We we found that there was definitely like a couple captions which continued to perform. But yeah, I think in the first month, we would have got like 5 million views from this. And what was really interesting, so like pretty much just to go back a couple steps, the very early stages of like posting this, like this was enough validation for me to be like, "Okay, like let's start working on this."
Caleb DeanI posted on my story like, "Hey, does like if you're a designer, developer, like marketer, like hit me up. Like I have this idea." And I actually, surprisingly, got like a really strong amount of inbound, and that was like directly from 10x. Like people which I had never interacted with, but who had watched the stream, put the dots together that I was the CMO. Um and one of those guys actually was the guy who became the CTO of Runify. And then in …
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More from this episode
- Copy a proven app's viral Reels format for your niche before buildingMillions of views; one copy hit 2M; ~50 videos drove the whole waitlist
- Charge $5 for early access on a one-page site before writing any code2,000 waitlist emails and 90+ paid $5 in about 2 weeks
- Post 9 Reels a day on Instagram instead of flooding TikTokInstagram held 5-10K avg views, 1 in 10 over 500K; TikTok views fell to ~5
- Put your app up for pre-order so thousands download it on launch day3,000 pre-orders in ~2 weeks; leaderboard hit its 1,000 cap in an hour
- Rewrite onboarding to promise a result (becoming a better runner), not just ranksChanged because first onboarding converted poorly; no after numbers given
- Email your waitlist two updates, then a launch video with a half-price codeDiscount codes brought most launch-day revenue; 32% of emails hit spam, 20% opened
- Message every paying early adopter yourself and make them your beta testers~20 testers on WhatsApp; founder says their feedback was invaluable
- Ask your Instagram followers in Story polls which features to buildTracking answers split evenly across Garmin, Apple Watch and Strava, so they built all three
- On launch day, tease on Instagram Stories, post on Reddit, and tweet a demo videoFounder's X demo got ~50K views; mostly exposure, not core users
- Tweet openly and confidently about your app's goals, even from a tiny accountCold acquisition DM 1-2 weeks after launch, from a ~200-follower account
- Sell a month-old app at ~5x yearly revenue but keep 30% of itSix-figure sale ~26 days after launch, plus 6-month earn-out and cash bonus
- Design every screen and button in Figma before developers startCore design done in 3 days; CTO built it in about 6 weeks
- Rank in App Store search for a rare condition's name (shy bladder)Most users and revenue came from search; 30%+ conversion; $5-10K lifetime
- Pick a space where 1-3 apps already make $100K+ a month, then twist the ideaLiftoff at $200-300K/month led to Runify; sold within a month of launch
Tags: instagram, content-automation, templated-video, captions