The Viral App Idea Framework That Got Her 1M Users — Transcript

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1. 0:00So, when it comes to, you know, finding
2. 0:02and validating ideas, I think [music]
3. 0:04a lot of the times you need to observe
4. 0:06the market.
5. 0:08>> [music]
6. 0:12>> Interestingly, I've never had an idea
7. 0:15come to me and be like, "Oh, I I would
8. 0:17use this. This is such a good problem to
9. 0:19solve, so I'm going to make it." It was
10. 0:20never that. It was almost like I just
11. 0:23look at the market. I come up with a
12. 0:24good niche that I want to attack.
13. 0:27Um and then that's how the idea comes
14. 0:29from. Um so, yeah. And then when it
15. 0:33comes to,
16. 0:34you know,
17. 0:36also pivoting, I think pivoting is so
18. 0:38important because, you know, when first
19. 0:40you have an idea, especially if you're
20. 0:42like an early founder, you don't really
21. 0:44know how resonating the idea would be.
22. 0:48Um but, that niche can be very, very
23. 0:51good for you. So, you just kind of
24. 0:53always have to pivot around and in order
25. 0:56to find, you know, the viral feature
26. 0:58that you want to build for your app. For
27. 1:00Glam Up, we pivoted a lot. Um when it
28. 1:04comes to just what the app is about and
29. 1:06the main features for it, for for my
30. 1:08second app as well. We We did a lot of
31. 1:11it.
32. 1:11>> Nicole, I know you said in the past,
33. 1:13like when you're designing an app, you
34. 1:14almost want viral features embedded in
35. 1:17that product. How do you Is there a
36. 1:19framework that you like to go through
37. 1:21and be like, "This can go viral" or how
38. 1:23do you come up with these type of
39. 1:24features that can go viral?
40. 1:26>> Yeah, to be honest, I didn't used to do
41. 1:29this, but I think if I were to start
42. 1:31over, I would totally do it like this.
43. 1:33But, go on TikTok and Instagram first,
44. 1:36find a niche where it's not too
45. 1:39saturated, but you can see a lot of
46. 1:40people passionate about the niche. For
47. 1:43example, cooking, let's say. There are a
48. 1:45lot of cooking videos, there are not a
49. 1:47lot of cooking apps. And like, if you
50. 1:49see any
51. 1:51cooking apps out there doing anywhere
52. 1:53between 50 to 100k MRR, then it's
53. 1:56probably a good niche to follow. I know
54. 1:58a lot of people they want to compete in
55. 2:00really saturated markets like health and
56. 2:02fitness and stuff like that. For me, I
57. 2:05would usually stay away from it just
58. 2:07because you can't really come up with
59. 2:09super new ideas if you keep doing that.
60. 2:13And for me, I usually come up with viral
61. 2:16niches and strategies by just
62. 2:19researching either what's already in the
63. 2:21niche that's going viral, maybe a
64. 2:22certain hug, maybe a certain keyword, or
65. 2:25researching
66. 2:27apps,
67. 2:28not necessarily in the same niche but
68. 2:30with the same target audiences, and what
69. 2:33they're doing for content and what
70. 2:35they're doing to go viral.
71. 2:37>> Was there a feature in Glam Up that
72. 2:38you're like, "Okay, if we Do you come up
73. 2:40with like five different features that
74. 2:42you think could go viral?" Because
75. 2:43obviously you're not going to be 100%
76. 2:45right. Or do you And then what is that
77. 2:48one feature in Glam Up that you're like,
78. 2:49"Hey, this helped it really go viral."
79. 2:52>> Yeah, we we usually will have like a few
80. 2:56features to test. We always have a
81. 2:58spidey sense of what works and what not.
82. 3:01When it comes to Glam Up,
83. 3:04I have to dig back into memory lane
84. 3:06because I don't even remember how the
85. 3:07first version looked like. It was brown.
86. 3:10It was like really It was just It looked
87. 3:13really bad, but I remember the first
88. 3:16feature was probably you scan your face
89. 3:19and we give you certain like
90. 3:21tutorials or it's very text-based, and
91. 3:24we realized that doesn't really work on
92. 3:26social media and like I've literally
93. 3:28tried for like 3 4 months at that point
94. 3:31doing influencers or faceless account
95. 3:35doing being my own UGC creator, Reddit
96. 3:38marketing, Discord. I've tried
97. 3:40everything. And then we realized
98. 3:43making it more visual. So, you can scan
99. 3:46your face and you can see the before and
100. 3:48after of how you would look like with
101. 3:51certain makeup looks. That works really
102. 3:53well for TikTok, so we just started
103. 3:55going really viral with it. The good
104. 3:57thing is if a feature doesn't go viral
105. 3:59and you've already tried different
106. 4:00variations and a bunch of different
107. 4:02methods to make it go viral, if it's not
108. 4:05going viral,
109. 4:06your answer really quickly. And once you
110. 4:09do find a viral feature, usually it will
111. 4:11work like 10 times better. You You would
112. 4:13know within the first week if it works.
113. 4:16>> Have you ever tested a feature before
114. 4:18building it? Tested it to see if it'll
115. 4:20go viral before you build it?
116. 4:22>> Oh, yeah, for sure. For my new apps now,
117. 4:24I would say most mostly that's what I
118. 4:26would do. I would So, for the newest app
119. 4:29we work with, probably like active 800
120. 4:32creators. It's in stealth. I don't want
121. 4:34to talk about it, but
122. 4:37yeah, but a lot of the times because we
123. 4:39have the distribution system set in
124. 4:41place, a lot of the times if we want to
125. 4:44experiment with a new feature, we will
126. 4:46build it out in Figma or our own content
127. 4:49creation portal first, have people do
128. 4:51it. If it goes viral, then we can put it
129. 4:53into the app. Instead of wasting time
130. 4:56building it out and knowing that's not
131. 4:58knowing if it's going to work.
132. 4:59>> How do you How do you test new app ideas
133. 5:01on TikTok and Instagram without having a
134. 5:03distribution network?
135. 5:04>> You can test ideas out. I wouldn't test
136. 5:06like 100 ideas out at the same time
137. 5:08because it's very confusing to your
138. 5:10mind. I think
139. 5:12instead of looking at distribution,
140. 5:13there's so much more to having an app as
141. 5:16well. Like I will usually instead of
142. 5:18posting on TikTok or Instagram on day
143. 5:21one, my day one is probably more focused
144. 5:23on researching the entire niche, the
145. 5:25entire market, the competitor apps. It's
146. 5:28a lot of work that you need to put in if
147. 5:30you don't want to waste time posting
148. 5:32about several different app ideas. So,
149. 5:34yeah, just a lot of research, a lot of
150. 5:36understanding the industry. Most of the
151. 5:39apps I've built, I don't really
152. 5:40understand the industry when I just
153. 5:42built it. So, you know, it takes time to
154. 5:44to learn about it, to be a student as
155. 5:46well. Yeah.
156. 5:48>> What's day two, Nicole?
157. 5:50>> Day two is
158. 5:52probably
159. 5:54Figma. I usually go on Figma and and
160. 5:57draw my ideas down a little bit. And
161. 6:00when it comes to Figma, it's not really
162. 6:02the onboarding flow. I will talk about
163. 6:04the onboarding flow. It's actually very
164. 6:06important. I learned a lot from from
165. 6:08your YouTube channel, too, when it comes
166. 6:10to onboarding. But but more like the
167. 6:12screen that I want go going by at all on
168. 6:15social media. Like I will try to make
169. 6:18that maybe different variations, think
170. 6:21about how that will be, research
171. 6:23other apps in the niche, maybe taking
172. 6:26some lessons from them, some design
173. 6:28components, or you know, even apps that
174. 6:31have nothing to do with my niche. Like I
175. 6:33will I'll research a lot about it.
176. 6:36>> [music]
177. 6:37>> Hey.