GlamUp · B2C · AI makeup glow-up app
Rebuild a hit men's looks app for women, launching a rough MVP in a month
1M users in 6 months; ~$150K MRR peak
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What they did
Took Umax (face-rating / looksmaxxing app for men, seen early via a co-founder's HF0 cohort) and reframed it for women around makeup and skincare products rather than face ratings; checked the App Store and found few such apps. Built a barely working MVP in 3-4 weeks and worked on distribution in parallel; v2 redesign took another month.
What happened
1M users in 6 months and ~$150K MRR peak.
In their words
The Superwall Podcast · Nicole Cheung - she makes $400k/mo from ai apps (while in college)“It was basically like jawlines and all that stuff, like, scores for your facial structures, but we wanted to do something that's like a little less toxic in that way.”
“The app barely worked. And it was just a concept. Like, it was genuinely an MVP that we just launched. But we didn't really care. You know, we were working on distribution at the same time.”
Related topics
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New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from GlamUp
All 20 GlamUp tactics- Build the women's version of a hit looksmaxing app for men1M users in 6 months; peak $150K MRR
- Post faceless slideshows and videos on TikTok and InstagramPeak month: 40-50M TikTok and ~200M Instagram views; 1M users in 6 months
- Run the same creator playbook on each new app you launchTwo new apps at ~$200K MRR combined within 3 months
- Swap text makeup tips for a face scan showing your before and afterStarted going viral on TikTok; founder gives no numbers
- Try each social format for 2-3 weeks, then pour everything into the winnerFounder credits it for all four apps; no per-format numbers
- Push a text-only feature through influencers, faceless accounts, own UGC, Reddit and DiscordDidn't work over 3-4 months; the feature itself was the problem
More from this episode
- GlamUp: 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
- GlamUp: Strip makeup off Pinterest photos, then add it back in-app for big contrastContrast made the slideshows go viral; founder claim
- GlamUp: 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
- GlamUp: Let users skip paying by inviting 3 friends with a code1.6M share/code requests; codes flooded TikTok comments; conversion barely dropped
- GlamUp: Put the app name in the copy-paste referral message so TikTok search ranks itSearching 'GlamUp' on TikTok shows only their content; founder claim
- GlamUp: 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
- GlamUp: When people close the paywall, show the same plans at 50% off
- GlamUp: Limit scans per week by plan, and offer a bigger plan when they run out
- GlamUp: Show a fake 'analyzing' scan with blurred results, and run the AI only after payment
- GlamUp: Ask for a rating mid-onboarding; make users tap 'I rated' to continueOther founders who copied it say ratings improved; softer version still works
- GlamUp: After each onboarding question, show a screen on how the app beats the alternativesFounder says it primes users to convert; no numbers
- Sprout: Skip the annual plan for a job-search app; sell weekly and monthly via Stripe
- Sprout: Show the paywall right after onboarding, before users can open the app+50% conversion vs letting users try features first
- Sprout: 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
- Sprout: Recruit creators in influencer-run Discords and on Handshake, then vibe-check them in 15 minutesMany top creators had no experience; founder claim
- Sprout: Pay creators $10-30 per post plus view bonuses that shrink per view at scaleFounder says the decreasing tiers work best; no numbers
- Sprout: 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
- Sprout: 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)