- Steven Cravotta
- Posts
- I was about to quit TikTok but then I went viral...
I was about to quit TikTok but then I went viral...
Hey there,
I used to think if I built a great app, the downloads would start pouring in.
If I nailed every screen, every feature, every pixel - people would naturally find it and start paying.
But I was wrong.
I built Puff Count, launched it, and posted TikToks every single day for over a month.
Most videos died at 200 views.
No downloads, no revenue, no users paying attention.
I was embarrassed because my friends were watching me post cringey videos that nobody cared about.
And the doubters who said "mobile apps are dead" were starting to look right.
But I'd done my research before building and I knew “quit vaping” content was blowing up on TikTok.
I just hadn't cracked the format yet.
So instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, I asked myself: why not just recreate what's already working?
I found a viral video where someone took apart a vape and showed what's inside.
3.7 million views.
I recreated that exact format but made it my own.
Took apart a vape on camera, showed the battery and coil, and at the end I said "Check out this app if you need to quit."
That video hit 2.6 million views and drove 4,000 downloads in 24 hours.
That one TikTok kickstarted Puff Count to $10k MRR without paid ads.
Later, when I started running paid ads on that same winning content, I scaled all the way to $44k/month before selling the app to a mobile studio in Europe.
A mediocre app with great marketing will always outperform a great app with no marketing.
You could have the best, most advanced, most beautiful app in the world but if nobody knows about it, who cares?
Marketing is what creates demand, gets people to care, and turns downloads into cash.
Peace,
Steven