Activation tactics

Onboarding asks the user's goal (weight loss, getting started, having fun, reducing stress). The app then builds a goal-based program (a curated package of classes) and drops them into it right away instead of a content catalog, to cut decision paralysis. Framed against free YouTube: 'how is this better than YouTube?' Kept releasing more programs and features that reduce choice.

The first product was a web app; it did OK but did not convert and growth stalled. The founder paid $1,400 for a 15-minute call with Nikita Bier, who advised going mobile. The team spent six months building the mobile app, then launched it alongside a video that went mega viral.

V1 was a node-based editor like ComfyUI (upload image -> node, connect nodes, write prompt, many parameters). After users said it was too hard, rebuilt as a ChatGPT-style chat: user uploads sketch/model and types a plain request; an AI assistant ('Vizzy') asks follow-up questions, presents a plan with selectable options (materials, lighting e.g. 'raw concrete', 'blue hour'), builds the prompt, and sends it to image-generation services. Also produces videos.

Postpartum users (based on time since birth) can submit a posture assessment reviewed by a real expert (not AI), which recommends a starting program and custom routines. Free without a trial but not promoted, to avoid overloading coaches under the 24h rule; promoted organically in Stories only. Possible future lead magnet / paid ad angle.

Double dates over video: two friends meet two others, with a shared group chat plus a private chat for each pair ('these guys are weird, let's leave'). Both people on each side must match or skip ('quadruple opt-in'); matches land in a group chat to swap Instagram or Snapchat.

Rather than recruiting existing creators, SideShift 'mints' supply: anyone can join and take a ~6-hour Duolingo-style course on making UGC for apps (more money and time went into it than into the product). Creators progress to campaign managers, then to their own UGC agencies run on SideShift, which SideShift supports with referrals.

Targeted incarcerated people, a market most founders ignore and served by overpriced, low-quality incumbents. With no app store access, the product has no UI: users email a specific address via the internal prison email system and a bot processes the request (ChatGPT lookups, legal research, sports stats, family messages) and replies.

Microtransactions designed around the core outcome (more matches): Boost shows your profile to more people (like LinkedIn's boost); Super Like sends a differentiated like. Guest's rule: good a la carte products scale roughly linearly in value (10 is 10x better than 1). Other microtransactions were tried; some stuck, some did not.

Idea came from a friend who struggled to focus. Designed onboarding and main screens in Figma with co-founder Alex Malaj, then built with Claude. Applied video-game mechanics (XP, competing with others) to daily tasks.

While analysis runs, a 'warming up' screen shows how much data is being processed. Then: minutes of stress from a recent clean day (e.g. 192 minutes), a timeline of their day with stressed/active/recovering periods and an animated zoom on a blue recovery period ('your body was doing a good job' - empowerment after the scare), then an animated 30-day calendar of built-up stress, and the share they relieved on their own (~20-30%). All numbers come from the user's real Apple Watch data.

As soon as someone joined the waitlist, emailed them an invite to a call. On the call, sent a link to the platform, asked them to share their screen, and watched quietly, speaking as little as possible (not even helping when they pressed the wrong login button) to see where they got stuck.

During the first-time user experience in Simply Draw, AI animates the drawing the child just finished. Kids run to show parents, who see the app as positive screen time worth paying for.