GlamUp · B2C · AI makeup glow-up app
Strip makeup off Pinterest photos, then add it back in-app for big contrast
Contrast made the slideshows go viral; founder claim
What they did
What happened
In their words
Nicole Cheung - she makes $400k/mo from ai apps (while in college)
Nicole Cheung… were killing it, we were getting millions of views like every single day from it, um and it was pretty sick. And I remember the first faceless content that we posted, uh it was a slideshow, basically very similar um idea. And that one got like 10 million views. This one like our very first post got like 10 million views, which is insane. But as you can see, all of it is before makeup, after makeup, GlamUp branding, and then a screenshot of it.
Nicole CheungAnd you want to know something really funny? How we did this is actually we went on Pinterest. We found a bunch of like pretty girls. We downloaded another app that can remove their makeup. So, we would go to that app, and we would remove their makeup like 10 times to make them like just like really plain, you know, something like this. And then we will enhance their makeup. So, we have this huge contrast, and then we post on social media, and it goes viral. So, these are actually just like demo demos of our app, but these are not like actual users, um cuz we don't want to post their, you know, private information.
Joseph ChoiRight, right.
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More from this episode
- Post the same before/after makeup slideshow with one fixed hook, caption and audioFirst post hit 10M views; millions of views a day at peak
- Find a viral format on your own accounts first, then hire creators to copy itFounder went viral first on all four apps; scaled GlamUp to 30-40 creators
- Let users skip paying by inviting 3 friends with a code1.6M share/code requests; codes flooded TikTok comments; conversion barely dropped
- Put the app name in the copy-paste referral message so TikTok search ranks itSearching 'GlamUp' on TikTok shows only their content; founder claim
- Triple the weekly price from $3 to $9Conversion rate went up despite the 3x price
- Raise monthly and annual prices 20%, then test another 20%Conversion and revenue per download both rose; second +20% in test
- When people close the paywall, show the same plans at 50% off
- Limit scans per week by plan, and offer a bigger plan when they run out
- Show a fake 'analyzing' scan with blurred results, and run the AI only after payment
- Ask for a rating mid-onboarding; make users tap 'I rated' to continueOther founders who copied it say ratings improved; softer version still works
- After each onboarding question, show a screen on how the app beats the alternativesFounder says it primes users to convert; no numbers
- Skip the annual plan for a job-search app; sell weekly and monthly via Stripe
- Show the paywall right after onboarding, before users can open the app+50% conversion vs letting users try features first
- Put every new creator through a video course with a quiz after each moduleOver half go viral within 2 weeks; 100M monthly views at 200+ active creators
- Recruit creators in influencer-run Discords and on Handshake, then vibe-check them in 15 minutesMany top creators had no experience; founder claim
- Pay creators $10-30 per post plus view bonuses that shrink per view at scaleFounder says the decreasing tiers work best; no numbers
- Give creators line-by-line scripts with the emotion and camera shot for each lineTrained creators averaged hundreds of thousands to millions of views per video
- Film a 6.7-second 'War is over' clip flipping a job tracker cell to 'Accepted'Hundreds of millions of views and many conversions (not attributable)
- Rebuild a hit men's looks app for women, launching a rough MVP in a month1M users in 6 months; ~$150K MRR peak
Tags: tiktok, pinterest, creative, before-after, demo-content