Nomadtable · B2C · app for meeting fellow solo travellers
Build a 12-15K waitlist before launching a social app, so it isn't empty
About 6K downloads on day one; enough people in hotspot cities for it to work
Workedpr-launchvalidation
What they did
A social app needs critical mass on day one or it becomes a revolving door. He collected about 12-15K waitlist signups before launch, mostly via his pre-launch content (videos made while the app was on preorder). Reading 'The Cold Start Problem' (Andrew Chen) shaped the approach. The app works with just two people in one place, and launch users gathered in traveller hotspots (about 20 in Barcelona, 10+ in other big cities). City-by-city launches were skipped because travellers move on.
What happened
About 6K people got the app on launch day, enough to seed the main travel hotspots; viral videos then brought more.
In their words
The Superwall Podcast · Jay Raavi - Copy This UGC Strategy, It'll Make Your App Go Viral“I had to build a waitlist before launching, 'cause, you know, with the app like this, you kind of have to have the the critical mass on day one of the app, because if you don't, it's like a revolving door.”
“I think I had probably like about 12, 15k people on my waitlist before before launching, um, and probably like only 6k people, um, got the app the first day from that”
Related topics
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More from this episode
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- Nomadtable: Run all 60+ creators yourself in a WhatsApp group, with one-on-one feedbackFounder credits hands-on management for much of the success; no numbers
- Nomadtable: Keep a video format if 75-80% of viewers watch past 3 secondsFormats at that rate average 4-5K views and go viral eventually; about one hit a month
- Nomadtable: Borrow a hit text hook from another niche, react on camera, then demo the appHis first viral video, pre-launch; a creator's version got 74K likes and 30K saves
- Nomadtable: Film one-take hostel videos with clickbait hooks like 'never staying in a hostel again'Up to multi-million views, but poor engagement (300K views, 174 likes); dropped
- Nomadtable: Pay creators only $1-2 per 1,000 views, after showing them your own viral videosSigned 60-70 creators with no retainer; top creator earned $8K in a month
- Nomadtable: Always be doing something in the opening, like drinking or tying a shoeNo clear impact; dropped
- Nomadtable: Put your face in every early video and share each signup milestoneLaunch users were invested fans who stuck around through early flaws