Sweatcoin · B2C · app that pays you to walk
Kick off spikes with friendly creators, then let fast invite chains push store rankings
#1 app in the US, Brazil and 65 other countries; now stable growth
Workedinfluencerproduct-viralitypaid-socialaso
What they did
Three stages. 1) Groundswell: work with friendly influencers making content native to each channel (genuine, not polished, especially for TikTok) so people with followings hear of the brand. 2) Take the winning influencer content, share it with other influencers as ideas, and run some of it as paid ads (paid is ~10% of acquisition). 3) Rely on strong user-to-user invites: when time between one user installing and their invitee installing shrinks, 6-7+ people can join a chain within 24 hours, and App Store/Google algorithms pick the app up, adding organic installs. Tuned over years through experimentation.
What happened
Became #1 health and fitness app, and at peaks #1 overall in the US, Brazil and 65 other countries; spikes have since smoothed into stable growth.
- Stage
- scale
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · How to Turn Gamification Into a Retention Powerhouse — Anton Derlyatka, Sweatcoin“And the first stage is you need to kickstart the process. You need to create what we call a groundswell.”
“then take the content the that was the winning content they would produce, and we, A, would share it with other influencers to help them develop their own, to just give them some ideas. And some of them we started using our in our paid advertising.”
“When the velocity of invites shrinks, you could have six or seven people or sometimes more in, you know, the chain happening within 24 hours. And when that happens, the algorithms start to pick you up”
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More from this episode
- Sweatcoin: Pay users 1 coin per 1,000 walked steps, spendable in a rewards shopRetention far above other fitness apps early on; users walk ~20% more
- Sweatcoin: Show two ways to earn on the home screen: walk, or invite a friend for 5 coinsNew users went from under 300 a day to 300, 1,000, then 5,000 a day
- Sweatcoin: Offer a few donated brand products a day, with a new one every daySolved cold start; brands later queued for months to be featured
- Sweatcoin: Pay 1 coin for watching an optional video ad, up to 1-3 times a dayRetention and engagement rose at 1-3 views a day; fell when more were allowed
- Sweatcoin: Let users swap coins for 3 free months of Spotify or Apple MusicFounder says users loved it; instant rewards with no shipping delay
- Sweatcoin: Unlock a secret prize shop after 30 successful invites, for creators with small followingsSpread 'like wildfire'; about 5% of all users came this way
- Sweatcoin: Make a fitness app look like a finance app, with a name people react toPress picked it up; first 30-40K users
- Sweatcoin: Build free-tier limits in early, then sell a plan that lifts them and removes adsBasic plan already makes 'considerable' revenue; founder thinks it came 12-18 months late
- Sweatcoin: Let a health service fund extra prizes to keep diabetes program patients engagedProgram completion rose from ~25% to 89%; activity +45% vs +20% on free app