This resulted to obimy's new audience.

Hi! obimy's official account. Here, we'll teach app developers and marketers. In 2022, our downloads increased dramatically, so we'll share what we learned.

obimy is what we call a ‘senseger’. It's a new method to communicate digitally. Instead of text, obimy users connect through senses and moods. Feeling playful? Flirt with your partner, pat a pal, or dump water on a classmate. Each feeling is an interactive animation with vibration. It's a wordless app. App Store and Google Play have obimy.

We had 20,000 users in 2022. Two to five thousand of them opened the app monthly. Our DAU metric was 500.

We have 6 million users after 6 months. 500,000 individuals use obimy daily. obimy was the top lifestyle app this week in the U.S.

And TikTok helped.

TikTok fuels obimys' growth. It's why our app exploded. How and what did we learn? Our Head of Marketing, Anastasia Avramenko, knows.

our actions prior to TikTok

We wanted to achieve product-market fit through organic expansion. Quora, Reddit, Facebook Groups, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Apple Search Ads, and social media activity were tested. Nothing worked. Our CPI was sometimes $4, so unit economics didn't work.

We studied our markets and made audience hypotheses. We promoted our goods and studied our audience through social media quizzes. Our target demographic was Americans in long-distance relationships. I designed quizzes like Test the Strength of Your Relationship to better understand the user base. After each quiz, we encouraged users to download the app to enhance their connection and bridge the distance.

We got 1,000 responses for $50. This helped us comprehend the audience's grief and coping strategies (aka our rivals). I based action items on answers given. If you can't embrace a loved one, use obimy.

We also tried Facebook and Google ads. From the start, we knew it wouldn't work.

We were desperate to discover a free way to get more users.

Our journey to TikTok

TikTok is a great venue for emerging creators. It also helped reach people. Before obimy, my TikTok videos garnered 12 million views without sponsored promotion.

We had to act. TikTok was required.

I wasn't a TikTok user before obimy. Initially, I uploaded promotional content. Call-to-actions appear strange next to dancing challenges and my money don't jiggle jiggle. I learned TikTok. Watch TikTok for an hour was on my to-do list. What a dream job!

Our most popular movies presented the app alongside text outlining what it does. We started promoting them in Europe and the U.S. and got a 16% CTR and $1 CPI, an improvement over our previous efforts.

Somehow, we were expanding. So we came up with new hypotheses, calls to action, and content.

Four months passed, yet we saw no organic growth.

Russia attacked Ukraine.

Our app aimed to be helpful. For now, we're focusing on our Ukrainian audience. I posted sloppy TikToks illustrating how obimy can help during shelling or air raids.

In two hours, Kostia sent me our visitor count. Our servers crashed.

Initially, we had several thousand daily users. Over 200,000 users joined obimy in a week. They posted obimy videos on TikTok, drawing additional users. We've also resumed U.S. video promotion.

We gained 2,000,000 new members with less than $100 in ads, primarily in the U.S. and U.K.

TikTok helped.

The figures

We were confident we'd chosen the ideal tool for organic growth.

• Over 45 million people have viewed our own videos plus a ton of user-generated content with the hashtag #obimy.

• About 375 thousand people have liked all of our individual videos.

• The number of downloads and the virality of videos are directly correlated.

Where are we now?

TikTok fuels our organic growth. We post 56 videos every week and pay to promote viral content.

We use UGC and influencers. We worked with Universal Music Italy on Eurovision. They offered to promote us through their million-follower TikTok influencers. We thought their followers would improve our audience, but it didn't matter. Integration didn't help us. Users that share obimy videos with their followers can reach several million views, which affects our download rate.

After the dust settled, we determined our key audience was 13-18-year-olds. They want to express themselves, but it's sometimes difficult. We're searching for methods to better engage with our users. We opened a Discord server to discuss anime and video games and gather app and content feedback.

TikTok helps us test product updates and hypotheses. Example: I once thought we might raise MAU by prompting users to add strangers as friends. Instead of asking our team to construct it, I made a TikTok urging users to share invite URLs. Users share links under every video we upload, embracing people worldwide.

Key lessons

Don't direct-sell. TikTok isn't for Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube promo videos. Conventional advertisements don't fit. Most users will swipe up and watch humorous doggos.

More product videos are better. Finally. So what?

Encourage interaction. Tagging friends in comments or making videos with the app promotes it more than any marketing spend.

Be odd and risqué. A user mistakenly sent a French kiss to their mom in one of our most popular videos.

TikTok helps test hypotheses and build your user base. It also helps develop apps. In our upcoming blog, we'll guide you through obimy's design revisions based on TikTok. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

No Paid Ads Required

I had an online store. After a year of running the company alongside my 9-to-5, I made enough to resign.

That day was amazing.

This Instagram marketing plan helped the store succeed.

How did I increase my sales to five figures a month without using any paid advertising?

I used customer event marketing.

I'm not sure this term exists. I invented it to describe what I was doing.

Instagram word-of-mouth, fan engagement, and interaction drove sales.

If a customer liked or disliked a product, the buzz would drive attention to the store.

I used customer-based events to increase engagement and store sales.

Success!

Here are the weekly Instagram customer events I coordinated while running my business:

• Be the Buyer Days

• Flash sales

• Mystery boxes

Be the Buyer Days: How do they work?

Be the Buyer Days are exactly that.

You choose a day to share stock selections with social media followers.

This is an easy approach to engaging customers and getting fans enthusiastic about new releases.

First, pick a handful of items you’re considering ordering. I’d usually pick around 3 for Be the Buyer Day.

Then I'd poll the crowd on Instagram to vote on their favorites.

This was before Instagram stories, polls, and all the other cool features Instagram offers today. I think using these tools now would make this event even better.

I'd ask customers their favorite back then.

The growing comments excited customers.

Then I'd declare the winner, acquire the products, and start selling it.

How do flash sales work?

I mostly ran flash sales.

You choose a limited number of itemsdd for a few-hour sale.

We wanted most sales to result in sold-out items.

When an item sells out, it contributes to the sensation of scarcity and can inspire customers to visit your store to buy a comparable product, join your email list, become a fan, etc.

We hoped they'd act quickly.

I'd hold flash deals twice a week, which generated scarcity and boosted sales.

The store had a few thousand Instagram followers when I started flash deals.

Each flash sale item would make $400 to $600.

$400 x 3= $1,200

That's $1,200 on social media!

Twice a week, you'll make roughly $10K a month from Instagram.

$1,200/day x 8 events/month=$9,600

Flash sales did great.

We held weekly flash deals and sent social media and email reminders. That’s about it!

How are mystery boxes put together?

All you do is package a box of store products and sell it as a mystery box on TikTok or retail websites.

A $100 mystery box would cost $30.

You're discounting high-value boxes.

This is a clever approach to get rid of excess inventory and makes customers happy.

It worked!

Be the Buyer Days, flash deals, and mystery boxes helped build my company without paid advertisements.

All companies can use customer event marketing. Involving customers and providing an engaging environment can boost sales.

Try it!

Content gurus' top time-saving hacks.

I'm a content strategist, writer, and graphic designer. Time is more valuable than money.

Money is always available. Even if you're poor. Ways exist.

Time is passing, and one day we'll run out.

Sorry to be morbid.

In today's digital age, you need to optimize how you create content for your organization. Here are six content creation hacks.

1. Use templates

Use templates to streamline your work whether generating video, images, or documents.

Setup can take hours. Using a free resource like Canva, you can create templates for any type of material.

This will save you hours each month.

2. Make a content calendar

You post without a plan? A content calendar solves 50% of these problems.

You can prepare, organize, and plan your material ahead of time so you're not scrambling when you remember, "Shit, it's Mother's Day!"

3. Content Batching

Batching content means creating a lot in one session. This is helpful for video content that requires a lot of setup time.

Batching monthly content saves hours. Time is a valuable resource.

When working on one type of task, it's easy to get into a flow state. This saves time.

4. Write Caption

On social media, we generally choose the image first and then the caption. Writing captions first sometimes work better, though.

Writing the captions first can allow you more creative flexibility and be easier if you're not excellent with language.

Say you want to tell your followers something interesting.

Writing a caption first is easier than choosing an image and then writing a caption to match.

Not everything works. You may have already-created content that needs captioning. When you don't know what to share, think of a concept, write the description, and then produce a video or graphic.

Cats can be skinned in several ways..

5. Repurpose

Reuse content when possible. You don't always require new stuff. In fact, you’re pretty stupid if you do #SorryNotSorry.

Repurpose old content. All those blog entries, videos, and unfinished content on your desk or hard drive.

This blog post can be turned into a social media infographic. Canva's motion graphic function can animate it. I can record a YouTube video regarding this issue for a podcast. I can make a post on each point in this blog post and turn it into an eBook or paid course.

And it doesn’t stop there.

My point is, to think outside the box and really dig deep into ways you can leverage the content you’ve already created.

6. Schedule Them

If you're still manually posting content, get help. When you batch your content, schedule it ahead of time.

Some scheduling apps are free or cheap. No excuses.

Don't publish and ghost.

Scheduling saves time by preventing you from doing it manually. But if you never engage with your audience, the algorithm won't reward your material.

Be online and engage your audience.

Content Machine

Use these six content creation hacks. They help you succeed and save time.

Elon's rides start rough, but then...

Elon Musk has never been so hated.

They don’t get Elon.

• He began using PayPal in this manner.

• He began with SpaceX in a similar manner.

• He began with Tesla in this manner.

Disruptive.

Elon had rocky starts. His creativity requires it. Just like writing a first draft.

His fastest way to find the way is to avoid it.

PayPal's pricey launch

PayPal was a 1999 business flop.

They were considered insane.

Elon and his co-founders had big plans for PayPal. They adopted the popular philosophy of the time, exchanging short-term profit for growth, and pulled off a miracle just before the bubble burst.

PayPal was created as a dollar alternative. Original PayPal software allowed PalmPilot money transfers. Unfortunately, there weren't enough PalmPilot users.

Since everyone had email, the company emailed payments. Costs rose faster than sales.

The startup wanted to get a million subscribers by paying $10 to sign up and $10 for each referral. Elon thought the price was fair because PayPal made money by charging transaction fees. They needed to make money quickly.

A Wall Street Journal article valuing PayPal at $500 million attracted investors. The dot-com bubble burst soon after they rushed to get financing.

Musk and his partners sold PayPal to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. Musk's most successful company was PayPal.

SpaceX's start-up error

Elon and his friends bought a reconditioned ICBM in Russia in 2002.

He planned to invest much of his wealth in a stunt to promote NASA and space travel.

Many called Elon crazy.

The goal was to buy a cheap Russian rocket to launch mice or plants to Mars and return them. He thought SpaceX would revive global space interest. After a bad meeting in Moscow, Elon decided to build his own rockets to undercut launch contracts.

Then SpaceX was founded.

Elon’s plan was harder than expected.

Explosions followed explosions.

• Millions lost on cargo.

• Millions lost on the rockets.

Investors thought Elon was crazy, but he wasn't.

NASA's biggest competitor became SpaceX. NASA hired SpaceX to handle many of its missions.

Tesla's shaky beginning

Tesla began shakily.

• Clients detested their roadster.

• They continued to miss deadlines.

Lotus would handle the car while Tesla focused on the EV component, easing Tesla's entry. The business experienced elegance creep. Modifying specific parts kept the car from getting worse.

Cost overruns, delays, and other factors changed the Elise-like car's appearance. Only 7% of the Tesla Roadster's parts matched its Lotus twin.

Tesla was about to die.

Elon saved the mess as CEO.

He fired 25% of the workforce to reduce costs.

Elon Musk transformed Tesla into the world's most valuable automaker by running it like a startup.

Tesla hasn't spent a dime on advertising. They let the media do the talking by investing in innovation.

Elon sheds. Elon tries. Elon learns. Elon refines.

Twitter doesn't worry me.

The media is shocked. I’m not.

This is just Elon being Elon.

• Elon makes lean.

• Elon tries new things.

• Elon listens to feedback.

• Elon refines.

Besides Twitter will always be Twitter.

America should avoid BRICS

Vladimir Putin has watched videos of Muammar Gaddafi's CIA-backed demise.

Gaddafi...

Thief.

Did you know Gaddafi wanted a gold-backed dinar for Africa? Because he considered our global financial system was a Ponzi scheme, he wanted to discontinue trading oil in US dollars.

Or, Gaddafi's Libya enjoyed Africa's highest quality of living before becoming freed. Pictured:

Vladimir Putin is a nasty guy, but he had his reasons for not mentioning NATO assisting Ukraine in resisting US imperialism. Nobody tells you. Sure.

The US dollar's corruption post-2008, debasement by quantitative easing, and lack of value are key factors. BRICS will replace the dollar.

BRICS aren't bricks.

Economy-related.

Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa have cooperated for 14 years to fight U.S. hegemony with a new international currency: BRICS.

BRICS is mostly comical. Now. Saudi Arabia, the second-largest oil hegemon, wants to join.

So what?

The New World Currency is BRICS

Russia was kicked out of G8 for its aggressiveness in Crimea in 2014.

It's now G7.

No biggie, said Putin, he said, and I quote, “Bon appetite.”

He was prepared. China, India, and Brazil lead the New World Order.

Together, they constitute 40% of the world's population and, according to the IMF, 50% of the world's GDP by 2030.

Here’s what the BRICS president Marcos Prado Troyjo had to say earlier this year about no longer needing the US dollar: “We have implemented the mechanism of mutual settlements in rubles and rupees, and there is no need for our countries to use the dollar in mutual settlements. And today a similar mechanism of mutual settlements in rubles and yuan is being developed by China.”

Ick. That's D.C. and NYC warmongers licking their chops for WW3 nasty.

Here's a lovely picture of BRICS to relax you:

If Saudi Arabia joins BRICS, as President Mohammed Bin Salman has expressed interest, a majority of the Middle East will have joined forces to construct a new world order not based on the US currency.

I'm not sure of the new acronym.

SBRICSS? CIRBSS? CRIBSS?

The Reason America Is Harvesting What It Sowed

BRICS began 14 years ago.

14 years ago, what occurred? Concentrate. It involved CDOs, bad subprime mortgages, and Wall Street quants crunching numbers.

2008 recession

When two nations trade, they do so in US dollars, not Euros or gold.

What happened when 2008, an avoidable crisis caused by US banks' cupidity and ignorance, what happened?

Everyone WORLDWIDE felt the pain.

Mostly due to corporate America's avarice.

This should have been a warning that China and Russia had enough of our bs. Like when France sent a battleship to America after Nixon scrapped the gold standard. The US was warned to shape up or be dethroned (or at least try).

Nixon improved in 1971. Kinda. Invented PetroDollar.

Another BS system that unfairly favors America and possibly pushed Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia into BRICS.

The PetroDollar forces oil-exporting nations to trade in US dollars and invest in US Treasury bonds. Brilliant. Genius evil.

Our misdeeds are:

• In conflicts that are not its concern, the USA uses the global reserve currency as a weapon.

• Targeted nations abandon the dollar, and rightfully so, as do nations that depend on them for trade in vital resources.

• The dollar's position as the world's reserve currency is in jeopardy, which could have disastrous economic effects.

• Although we have actually sown our own doom, we appear astonished. According to the Bible, whomever sows to appease his sinful nature will reap destruction from that nature whereas whoever sows to appease the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.

Americans, even our leaders, lack caution and delayed pleasure. When our unsustainable systems fail, we double down. Bailouts of the banks in 2008 were myopic, puerile, and another nail in America's hegemony.

America has screwed everyone.

We're unpopular.

The BRICS's future

It's happened before.

Saddam Hussein sold oil in Euros in 2000, and the US invaded Iraq a month later. The media has devalued the word conspiracy. The Iraq conspiracy.

There were no WMDs, but NYT journalists like Judy Miller drove Americans into a warmongering frenzy because Saddam would ruin the PetroDollar. Does anyone recall that this war spawned ISIS?

I think America has done good for the world. You can make a convincing case that we're many people's villain.

Learn more in Confessions of an Economic Hitman, The Devil's Chessboard, or Tyranny of the Federal Reserve. Or ignore it. That's easier.

We, America, should extend an olive branch, ask for forgiveness, and learn from our faults, as the Tao Te Ching advises. Unlikely. Our population is apathetic and stupid, and our government is corrupt.

Argentina, Iran, Egypt, and Turkey have also indicated interest in joining BRICS. They're also considering making it gold-backed, making it a new world reserve currency.

You should pay attention.

Thanks for reading!

Dharmesh Shah co-founded HubSpot. WordPlay reached $90,000 per month in revenue without utilizing any of his wealth.

His method:

Take Advantage Of An Established Trend

Remember Wordle? Dharmesh was instantly hooked. As was the tech world.

HubSpot's co-founder noted inefficiencies in a recent My First Million episode. He wanted to play daily. Dharmesh, a tinkerer and software engineer, decided to design a word game.

He's a billionaire. How could he?

1. Wordle had limitations in his opinion;

2. Dharmesh is fundamentally a developer. He desired to start something new and increase his programming knowledge;

3. This project may serve as an excellent illustration for his son, who had begun learning about software development.

Better It Up

Building a new Wordle wasn't successful.

WordPlay lets you play with friends and family. You could challenge them and compare the results. It is a built-in growth tool.

WordPlay features:

• the capacity to follow sophisticated statistics after creating an account;

• continuous feedback on your performance;

• Outstanding domain name (wordplay.com).

Project Development

WordPlay has 9.5 million visitors and 45 million games played since February.

HubSpot co-founder credits tremendous growth to flywheel marketing, pushing the game through his own following.

Choosing an exploding specialty and making sharing easy also helped.

Shah enabled Google Ads on the website to test earning potential. Monthly revenue was $90,000.

That's just Google Ads. If monetization was the goal, a specialized ad network like Ezoic could double or triple the amount.

Wordle was a great buy for The New York Times at $1 million.