Bro · B2C · AI companion app
Post lots of TikToks: a real person in a texting mishap, then the app helping
Very top-heavy: a few videos hit 2-3M views; the best one was a surprise
Workedugc-creatorsorganic-short-video
What they did
Classic hook and demo. The hook is a relatable scenario with a real person on screen (people stop for faces, swipe away without one); then the app interface. For Bro the demo reads like the iMessage thread itself, with Bro floating over it, so it feels like a hidden demo. Top video: a creator panics after autocorrect sent 'I love you' to her crush, and Bro suggests 'Autocorrect hates me, lol'. Simple 'fix my mistake' stories beat more complex ones (e.g. how to rizz a guy). They mass-produced videos because they could not predict winners.
What happened
A few outlier videos reached 2-3M views (one 2.3M); most had modest views; drove Bro to #1 in the US. Videos the founder expected to win flopped and 'ridiculous' ones won.
- Stage
- growth
“it's basically it's the classic hook and demo. So it's like the hook is the scenario, you need a real person there, cuz you- you don't have a real person there, people swipe away.”
“So, first of all, like, we did like mass-produce a whole bunch.”
“Like, the ones I thought that would work just didn't work, and the ones that I thought were like ridiculous like worked surprisingly well.”
“so this one the story is she made a mistake and then Bro she's in a panic, so Bro helped her fix it. It's a very, very simple thing, right?”
Related topics
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More from this episode
- Bro: Film a clickable mock-up and put TikTok ad money behind it before building7.9M views; proved the concept and found a video format to scale
- Bro: Pick one everyday moment, texting, as the way into a big AI companion ideaTexting wedge became the winning format; lock-screen versions also did well
- Bro: Find TikTok creators through topic hashtags like #relationship and email them to post~50 creators at peak, down to 10-20; hits took 2-3 months; hit #1 in US
- Lobby: Add a group photo countdown to video calls that people share to StoriesCredited with more sharing and pulling in left-out friends; #1 in UK, Italy, Germany 3 months later
- Lobby: Track how many new users get 5 friends on day one, then build for it60% vs 20% hit 5 friends in Israel vs elsewhere; D90 25-30%, about double
- Lobby: Invite friends to a 1-minute video catch-up at a random minute each night
- Bro: Carry a tappable fake of the app and use it daily before codingFounder says it cut a lot of wasted engineering; no numbers