Coconote · B2C · AI note-taker for students
Build hidden app screens only creators use, made to look good on camera
Used in the 18M-view video; no separate numbers
What they did
What happened
In their words
Brett Bauman & Zack Hargett - COPY this ai app's $6.7m/yr marketing strategy
Zack HargettWe were posting the PDF to Brainrot, you know, 6 to 8 months after that, and it just framed It was a different product intended, and I think resonated with a different age group, one that has most likely less disposable income. It's not framing the product as a solution to a real problem. It's just more of a toy, and that's the big learning.
Brett BaumanAnd some more like behind the scenes on on this video is like, the recording screen uh and the transcribing screen are are not real screens in the product. These are screens that the content creators have access to for making content easier and things that are just a bit more eyecatching than like a more like boring recording screen that you might might find in like a the actual app.
Joseph ChoiThat's interesting, too. Like this uh this wave screen, is this one uh like a creator's-only screen?
Zack HargettMore so the latter. Yeah, can't give away all the uh all the internal secrets, but yeah, they're they're they're generally coaching them, walking them through metrics.
Brett BaumanYeah, I mean, something you asked about earlier is like, how an individual person is successful as a creator inside Coconote, and really it's everyone is working as a team and different creators have different strengths. And so maybe one person is filming and yeah is okay with their face being in content, another creator wants to- doesn't want to show their face and then but they're really great at editing. Creators are all in Slack with the engineers and the product team as well, providing product feedback and asking for those hidden screens and things like that.
Joseph ChoiSo let me show you this. A lot of app founders I talk to have a feeling their app has viral potential, but don't want to be the person brain rot scrolling an hour a day hunting for formats, or worse, burning thousands on creators shooting videos that just flop. Recently, I've been telling every founder I meet about Spytok. It's basically an AI TikTok viral marketer that I've seen a lot of top app growth teams using. You just paste a link to your …
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More from this episode
- Build a novelty free tool (text to brainrot video) and push it on TikTok100-200M views and 3,000 trials in days, but only ~$25K revenue
- Post short videos that show the app solving a real student problemSeveral ~20M-view videos, ~99% organic, converting far better than viral novelty content
- Mix a known game (2048) with studying and promote a catchy URL in videosOne video reached ~2M views; no conversion numbers
- Keep a small team of 10-12 part-time creators, led by a proven oneLead creator drove hundreds of millions of views; founders say it worked
- Recruit creators who aren't influencers via Handshake, DMs, email and referralsA Spanish tutor with no content experience became a top creator in 9 months
- Double onboarding from 5 to about 13 screens in one big changeTrial conversion up 16%; one-or-two-screen tests had only given small wins
- Let people pay before creating an account; move login after the paywallFounder calls it significant; no separate number
- Let users record a whole lecture before asking them to payCalled a big win; no number given
- Put a little ad money behind organic videos that already went viralNot much success; ~99% of views stayed organic
- Pitch the app as great for ADHD in videos and the first App Store screenshotUsers say it helps their ADHD; no numbers
- When trial users cancel, offer them 7 more free daysKeeps 27% of cancellers in their trial; a smaller share later pay
- Hire an investment bank to run the sale so you keep buildingSold to Quizlet ~18 months after launch; bank ran it end to end
- Hire engineers who can also do backend or a second platformSmall engineering team ships a lot; with 50%+ EBITDA margins
- Post creator-style TikToks and Reels to drive app signupsHundreds of thousands of signups for an earlier app
- Track each creator's results with a dedicated tool (viral.app)Only one of 5-6 tools tried that worked for them
Tags: tiktok, instagram, creative, creator-tools, hidden-screens