Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUL6q-FndRE Channel: Starter Story Build Upload date: 20260516
Right now, anybody can build a mobile app with AI, but getting people to actually download it, that’s where everyone gets stuck. >> Hey, we know how to make product, but acquiring those users is really difficult. >> So, to fix this, I invited Julia, who has generated billions of views and millions of downloads, to break down exactly how to get your first 1,000 app downloads for free. >> And this single video brought in [music] half a million dollars in revenue for them. >> In this video, we’re going to walk through how to find your exact users before you post anything, the exact type of content working right now, and how to go from zero to thousands of downloads for your app in just 30 days. If you’re building apps and you’re really serious about distribution, then this is a video that you cannot miss. All right, let’s dive in. Welcome to Starter Story Build. Okay, Julia, stoked to have you on the channel here. Can you just tell me who you are, what you build, and a little bit about your story? >> I’m Julia, I’m one of the co-founders at Playkit. We run tech UGC campaigns for companies like Substack, Quizlet, Cash App, and Flow Health. Over the last 18 months, we’ve done over 1 billion views in more than 12 million app downloads for some of the best companies in consumer tech. Around 2 years ago, we started as really the only tech UGC agency out there, but as we’ve popularized how the distribution channel works through places like Twitter and LinkedIn, we’re seeing more and more app founders want to hop on this freestyle of organic marketing. Okay, cool. So, yeah, that’s one of the reasons why I had you on is that you’re probably one of the most knowledgeable people that we could have on that understand UGC, how to create content that drives actual downloads and paying customers for your app. So, that’s what I wanted you to go over today to give us the exact playbook of how you could get your first 1,000 users for your app. >> Yeah, exactly, Pat. I feel like the one of the hardest things with, you know, building is, “Hey, we know how to make product, but acquiring those users is really difficult.” So, today we’re really going to go over exactly the zero-to-one playbook if you have an app, but you need to find your users. And the best way to do that is to make accounts on social media like Tik Tok and Instagram. I’m going to teach you exactly how you’re going to set up those accounts, how you’re going to warm them up so that they are reaching your target audience before you even have to post video, what those videos look like, how you’re going to create them, how you’re going to develop the strategy, and then eventually, once you’re ready, how to scale that as well. So you have a really consistent, sustainable, organic engine that’s constantly bringing you in new users. All right, well, let’s dive in. What would be your first step if you were starting from scratch on how to get your first thousand users and do it as quickly as possible with the least amount of friction? Step one is all about understanding your audience. The first thing you need to do is really do a deep dive understanding of who your target user is. What I often like to tell people is really break down this person. [music] So give them a name, age, pain points, wants. What is the type of content that [music] they are already consuming so that you can understand them when not only you’re making your product, but then of course when you’re making [music] your marketing materials as well. A process that should really only take 15 [music] to 30 minutes. The more specific that you can get with your targeting and your messaging and really make it feel like [music] it’s for people is how things resonate organically. >> Okay, cool. So understanding who your target customer is is such a simple thing that a lot of founders overlook. So can you get more specific with your target customer? What’s the next step? Step number two is warming up your account. So let’s go back to that again, target user persona exercise. Think about what pain points they have, what questions they might have that relate to your product. You’re going to go onto Tik Tok. And so let’s say that I am going to be marketing an AI note taker. We are not going to want to search AI note taker particularly because that’s just going to come up with a ton of other product names. [music] Instead, we’re going to be wanting to look things up like how to study for biology. And then we’re going to be able to seek here the types of content, engage with all of these videos so that your algorithm now thinks that you are that student trying to study for biology. Then those videos that you’re posting will reach other students trying to study [music] for biology. This process will take you about two to three days. Go on Tik Tok, start searching on the for you page, enjoy that you get to scroll a little bit, send comments, [music] share, kind of create community with a lot of these different creators. I think that this is the most important skill and strategy to learn, especially if you’re trying to build and get [music] customers for your app in 2026. If you are also enjoying this breakdown, then [music] I think you will also love this free resource, the mobile app growth cheat sheet. Inside this cheat sheet are real examples of how seven [music] different app founders are growing their apps right now. You will get a breakdown of each tactic, what’s working right now, and actionable steps if you want to do the same thing to grow your app. If [music] you’re ready to take growth seriously, just head to the first link in the description and you can download it for free. All right, let’s get back to the episode. This is super awesome. Your persona is not just students. It may be as specific as female biology students. So, the more specific you can get, I really think that’s such an important piece here. To understand what they would be searching for rather than just [music] the app you’re trying to build, you’re thinking like a user. What would be the next step? >> All righty, step number three is actually creating your videos. So, we’ve warmed up our account, my algorithm is targeted, and I’ve actually just had a ton of exposure to kind of the content I’m going to want to post. So, as you’re doing this warming up process, [music] I always like to jot down what are some common things I am seeing. I create this little table. I remember a while ago I was actually making content for an AI note taker in the kind of like high school niche, and I was seeing people use bruh or like the skull emoji. I caught onto it, so I jotted it down and I used it in a lot of my content, and very quickly naturally went really viral. The biggest thing that you can do to help yourself is to jot down what are these emojis? What are these phrases that maybe are a little bit unfamiliar to me? That way as you create your content, you’re kind of adapting and adapting to what is already out there. So, then when it’s time to create your first piece of content, there’s a couple of different options. There’s three different types of videos. We have hook and demo. That is a video style where first you’re showing your face, and then you’re showing a product. [music] I’ll show you an example. This is a campaign we did for doop.com. You can notice in the beginning it was a video of the girl’s face, and then now she is showing the product. the product really easy, which leads to a high conversion rate. Now, to kind of break into the nitty-gritty of what are the different types of things going on in each part of the video. So, when we’re showing that video of the face first, we don’t again want it to feel like a advertisement. Instead, we’re doing that storytelling again. And when we’re writing hooks, that’s what you really want to be leaning into. So, again with that AI note-taker example, maybe it looks something like, “Oh, how come nobody told me that this was the way that everybody was actually getting straight A’s in my class.” So, again, leaning on those pain points and not necessarily mentioning or dropping the product right away, but then let the product and how it works actually do the talking for you. Option two is this style that I like to call long text. This one is super simple. About a 6-second video of your face with some copy over it. This works really well for conversational things, text that you would send into a group chat, and you’re hoping to get a response. And those response comes in the forms of the comment section. So, when I am creating a lot of this content, we want it to feel relatable. We want it to ask questions. We want it to spark interest and excitement. A lot of times we’re not actually naming the product. The goal is to get people to comment asking questions like, “Oh, how did you do this?” or “I’ve really been struggling with this.” Essentially, teeing you up to reply with a comment with the product name. It is the highest rate of conversion because it feels the most organic. The final option for for is talking style videos. Again, what we’re going to be doing here is looking at content that is storytelling. Think about the story first and weave [music] in the product second. A good example of this is with this app Quizlet that we’re working with right now. One of our creators told the story of how she saw a video on TikTok of a girl working in a coffee shop and all these comments complaining about like, “Oh, you’re taking up space at the coffee shop.” Like, she told this whole story of how she thought it was so silly that people were getting upset with her. And I was just seeing this girl on Quizlet and it was so cool cuz she was like flipping through these flash cards. I saw the score going up. So, she naturally weaved in the product there without making it feel like an [music] advertisement, but instead making it feel like a story. That really helps with conversion as well. Cool. The one thing that I really like there cuz that’s what this video is about is how to get your first 1,000 users. It’s not about going viral. Like, it’s to have people comment, say they like the app. These are the kind of things you should be doing while you’re validating your idea. You’re trying to get your first few users and you’re trying to build something good. I really, really like that. So, you’ve posted some content. You’ve tried a bunch of different things. Let’s talk about posting sort of strategy, how much you should be posting. What’s the next step? >> After we have created some content, maybe we have these saved in our drafts in TikTok and we’re like, “Okay, I’m ready to actually press the post button.” Here’s how you’re going to want to set it up. So, before every single post, you’re going to want to scroll on the For You page for about 2 minutes where you are liking, commenting, saving, sharing, reposting. This will make your TikTok or your Instagram algorithm not think that you’re a bot. This will help get past that 100, 500 view threshold. Super important. And now it’s easy to get super trigger-happy and want to just post a ton of videos all at once. But, make sure you’re spreading each video out by at least 2 hours before you just post all of your content at once. I’m recommending posting two to three times a day when you’re getting started. You’ll find very quickly that a lot of things won’t go viral, but I want to remind you that it’s actually very common and this is how we learn. So, next I can talk about what is the right track to know that I’m on success. So, the first couple of weeks, what you really should be optimizing for is not this big viral video. Instead, you’re really going to be optimizing for conversions. We should be optimizing for messaging that is getting organic comments like, “Oh, what app is that?” Or, “How did you learn how to do this?” That’s a really good indicator that your messaging is actually resonating with audience and the people who will eventually convert to be users for you. So, the first week or two, we’re probably looking at videos in the thousands of views. By week three, we should have a good understanding of what messaging is actually converting. We get there by that really strategic data iteration and figuring out, okay, you know, this is not performing well, but some interesting comments here. All of this information I can apply for tomorrow’s video. So, by week three, maybe we’re at our first what I call a breakout video, 10,000 or more views. Week four, things start to go up significantly. Maybe we’re having three or more breakout videos, and by week five, we have our first viral video. Once you get there, you have so much data to play with, which is a really good spot to be because you can analyze the comment sections and you can understand, okay, you know, this is performing better, this one’s not performing great. How can I double down? Let me recreate this video over and over again. [music] One flag that I will share, TikTok does not like if you’re reposting the same exact [music] piece of content over and over again. You can recreate the copy, maybe change a couple of words here and there, but make sure that the video is different as well. By week eight, that’s when we should have multiple million plus view videos if we’re continuing on that iteration cycle. A couple of really great resources to see what are other people doing for their products, Social Growth Engineers, they have a great newsletter. PlayKit, we have a great newsletter as well. It’s just playkit.substack.com. And then I share a ton on my Twitter as well on, you know, formats that are working for our company. >> Okay, cool. So, success doesn’t happen right away. Thanks for sharing that timeline of what it typically looks like. And you know, it’s your system, right? You sort of see what works, what doesn’t work, double down on the things that do work. For anyone watching this, if they’re this far, they want to crack the UGC game, what would be your advice for someone watching this right now who wants to actually execute on this and they’re just getting started right now? Yeah, absolutely. I think the biggest advice I can give is just to start. I think it’s very easy to get bogged down in the details of oh, I might be shadowbanned or I’m not sure if this video is 100% going to work. Those are all totally okay things and the great thing about marketing is that honestly anybody can do it. It’s going [music] to be difficult in the beginning, but if you take every video that, you know, doesn’t hit the algorithm super well as a learning point and as you’re one step closer to getting there, that’s how you can really take advantage of this process. So, it sounds overwhelming, but it is the sure fire way [music] to grow your product organically with zero dollars spend. >> Yeah, I’ll end this with just a little piece of advice from my end, which is, you know, in the age of AI, it’s easy to build anything now. I can spin [music] up an app in 4 hours. The skill of creating content is the number one skill in the world right now. If you’re doing anything in B2B, you need to figure out how to crack content. I think [music] you came on and you shared an awesome playbook. How can I get started with just a few different videos? If you enjoyed this, put it in the comments. We’re going to [music] have Julia come back on and maybe talk about scaling. So, once you get past your first 10, 100 videos and you get your first 100,000 views, how do you take it to the next level, potentially [music] scale higher creators and things like that? So, thanks for coming on. Put that in the comments if you’re interested and we’ll see you in the next [music] one. Amazing, yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It was a blast.