The Story
Steven built, scaled, and exited multiple mobile apps for millions in revenue. His quit vaping app Puff Count scaled to $44K MRR before being sold to a European mobile app studio. His secret? A marketing-first approach where he validated content organically before spending a dollar on ads.
As Steven explains: "Every mobile app that you build should be approached from a marketing first standpoint because as long as you can market your product, you will make money. And if your product is not marketable, you could have the best product in the world, but if no one knows about it, you're never going to make any money."
The idea came from personal experience: "Vaping was a problem that I experienced in my daily life. When I was in college, all my friends got addicted to vaping. I got swept up in the habit. So, I knew it was a painful problem. And I also saw vaping going mega viral on TikTok. It's controversial. It's viral. And I was solving a problem for people."
Key Insights
The 3-Phase Marketing Framework
- •Market Research - Understand what goes viral in your niche
- •Organic Growth - Post volume, find viral formats
- •Paid Ads - Scale winners with paid advertising
"This is exactly what I did for PuffCount. This is the entire reason that I was successful with PuffCount is because I did market research in the quit vaping niche on TikTok and I simply took inspiration from those videos."
Phase 1: The $1M Spreadsheet Method
Step-by-Step Market Research
- •Go to TikTok, type keywords related to your niche
- •Filter by "most liked videos of all time"
- •Document everything in a spreadsheet
"Before I posted a single video on the Puff Count TikTok, I scrolled for 7 days straight. I saved all the videos to the market research just like this. And after 7 days of scrolling, analyzing, and understanding what goes viral in your niche and why it goes viral in your niche, you will be so much better at creating content."
For Each Viral Video, Document:
- •The hook (first 3 seconds)
- •How they shot it (holding camera, walking, setting camera down)
- •The storyline/problem
- •The call to action/solution
"These small little details in the video are actually very important. You want to replicate and take inspiration from these as close as possible. There's a reason she started this video while walking and then set it down in front of her."
Phase 2: Organic Growth Framework
Content Structure
Every viral video has three key points:
- •Hook - Capture attention in 3 seconds
- •Problem/Storyline - Present clearly
- •Solution/Call to Action - Quick 2-second CTA
"The 2-second call to action, simply showing the product in your video, works so well because if people miss that, they have to rewatch your video again and it creates an engagement loop."
Posting Strategy
- •Volume negates luck - Post as much as possible
- •Don't be a perfectionist - "Don't worry about the time that you post the content, all the small little details of the content."
- •When a video pops off, recreate that concept - "The most viral people on TikTok, on YouTube, they do the same style of video over and over and over again."
- •Post on ALL platforms - TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Twitter
"Twitter is so slept on. Do not sleep on Twitter as a distribution."
Results
- •120,000 followers
- •50 million views
- •Hundreds of thousands of installs
- •All for $0
High-Converting Video Types
- •Public interviews
- •Simple product demos
- •Trend hijacking
- •Problem-solution narratives
"One video got 11.6 million views, close to a million likes, and it drove me close to no installs... I'm not really talking about any pain points here. There's not a lot going on. It was kind of a bad video in terms of conversions."
Phase 3: Paid Ads - The Funnel Approach
The Funnel Steps
- •Views (top of funnel)
- •Clicks
- •Installs
- •Trials
- •Subscriptions (bottom of funnel)
"When you're starting on paid ads, it's very important that you fill up each step of the funnel first before you start to optimize for the bottom."
Key Strategy
- •Start optimizing for top of funnel, work down
- •Use proven organic content for ads
- •Track CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) vs LTV (Lifetime Value)
- •Need an MMP (Mobile Measurement Partner) like Adjust or Appsflyer
Puff Count Results
- •$82K total ad spend
- •CAC: $20-24
- •LTV: $55-70
- •Cost per click: 3-35 cents
- •Scaled from $3K to $44K MRR
"We got these results almost like day one of running ads because we had this library of proven content. We knew exactly what videos we were going to upload to the paid ads dashboard because we had validated it all organically."
Platform Strategy
- •TikTok: Cheaper traffic, slightly lower quality
- •Meta: More expensive, higher quality
- •Focus on one platform first until you nail it
"For me personally, we scaled most of our spend on TikTok ads. And that was because all of our content that we used on our paid ads was made for TikTok."
The Golden Ratio
"If you can get to a 3:1 CAC to LTV ratio, congratulations. You've built a money printing machine."
Tech Stack
- •Adjust or Appsflyer (MMP for tracking)
- •Superwall (paywalling)
- •RevenueCat (subscriptions)
- •Posted (creator marketplace Steven built)
Key Advice
"Marketing should always come first. If your product is not marketable, it doesn't matter how good it is."
"A lot of people are scared of paid ads and they don't want to do it. But Facebook and TikTok are some of the most profitable companies in the world for a reason. It's because paid ads work."
Resources
- •Follow Steven: https://x.com/stevencravotta
- •Posted: https://postedapp.com/