Opal · screen time and focus app
Hire a user who posted about you to run her own educational channel for you
0 to ~700K followers and millions of views in a few months
What they did
What happened
- Stage
- scale
In their words
Why Opal Stopped Chasing Revenue – Kenneth Schlenker, Opal
David BarnardYou actually hired one of your users, right? She now does videos just for Opal?
Kenneth SchlenkerYeah, yeah, absolutely. We actually hired many of our users in our team. But this particular one, we are accelerating organic growth in many different ways. One of the ways we do that is we found this person who was mentioning Opal in a video on TikTok, and thought she was great. Basically, we hired her. She's part of a team. She's basically building an educational media for us. Her name is Olivia. The channel's called Olivia Unplugged.
Kenneth SchlenkerBasically, she's educating people about topics around screen time and focus. But it can go all the way from how to make friends because people don't know yet to how to make friends anymore offline, to how to build a bedtime routine, and all of these kinds of different topics. She does this in such an amazing way.
Kenneth SchlenkerIt's not your Opal brand account. It's like creator account that is powered by Opal. Opal gets mentioned in the videos. There's a link in bio. But I think it works.
Kenneth SchlenkerIt works really well because we went from 0 to I think now 700,000 followers across different platforms, and millions of views in a few months. It's not just about the numbers because it's really relevant. The content is actually exactly like what the brand wants to say. It's very, very relevant.
David BarnardYeah. That's so cool. Hiring so many users and not hiring creators who were users, and organically posting content, finding organic content, and repurposing it as an ad, so many cool stories.
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More from this episode
- Drop the hard paywall and give the core app away for freePaying share of users fell 20% to 9%, but organic growth, 1M+ DAUs and revenue rose
- Test how many app blocks free users get; settle where free users still love it3 free blocks gave free users a great experience while power users still pay
- Sell the app to schools as a phone policy after students asked for itGrew from one school to many US high schools; front-page LA Times coverage
- License a stranger's viral video about phone overuse and run it as your adSeen by dozens of millions; still running 1-2 years later
- Add focus streaks with an animated flame and gemstone rewards at milestonesBiggest win of the year for retention and growth; no numbers
- Let users tap to crack open a gemstone when they hit a focus milestoneThe app's most loved moment; users remember it and talk about it
- Buy a New York billboard saying "Scrolling Kills" with no app linkNo effect on downloads or revenue; helped close one school deal
- Hand out thousands of "Scrolling Kills" stickers that don't mention the app
Tags: tiktok, in-house-creator, creator-led-brand, educational-content, link-in-bio