Steven's first acquisition push was built on TikTok organic content. He researched the most viral vaping-related videos on TikTok, saved them to a spreadsheet, and reverse-engineered what made them work — analyzing the hook, the value delivered, and how they were shot. He then replicated the format: one video showed viewers exactly what's inside a vape (inspired by a creator with 20M+ views doing a vape teardown), with a quick 2-second call-to-action for Puff Count at the end. One such video reached 8.3 million views and drove tens of thousands of downloads. His content philosophy was "entertainment first, CTA at the end" — he explicitly avoided making product-focused sales videos, which he said perform poorly on TikTok. This organic TikTok strategy was the primary driver of early installs. He noted that for the first 4–6 months the app made no money, suggesting early users came in but conversion was low until monetization was overhauled.
Puff Count
Mobile app that helps users track and quit vaping habits
8 moves, in order
- Pre build validationMarket research app store and google trends
Used Sensor Tower to analyze competitor quit-smoking/quit-vaping apps and confirm they were generating significant revenue. Cross-referenced with Google Trends to verify vaping was a rising search topic. Scanned TikTok to confirm vape-related content was going viral, validating organic distribution potential.
Confirmed market demand before writing a line of spec or spending on development - Pre launch build99designs plus upwork
Sketched app wireframes on paper, uploaded to 99designs to crowdsource 50–70 professional UI designs. Selected a design and hired an Eastern European developer on Upwork on a per-project (not hourly) basis. Built MVP for under $5,000.
Functional MVP shipped to App Store - Launch – Months 1–6TikTok — organic
Researched the most viral vaping videos on TikTok, saved them in a spreadsheet, and replicated their formats. Created entertainment-first videos (e.g. 'what's inside a vape') with a 2-second CTA at the end. One video hit 8.3M views and drove tens of thousands of downloads.
Tens of thousands of downloads; however, $0 meaningful revenue for first 4–6 months due to weak monetization - Revenue unlock – Paywall overhaulProduct monetization hard paywall
Switched from a soft/skippable paywall to a hard, unskippable paywall requiring users to commit to a free trial before accessing any features. Combined with an extensive onboarding flow that walked users through their own problem (vaping habit), priming them emotionally before the paywall appeared.
Conversion rate jumped to 20–25%; described as 'changed my business overnight' - Optimization – Pricing AB testsSuperwall ab testing
Used Superwall to remotely configure and A/B test paywall pricing from $4 up to $12/month without pushing App Store updates. Optimized for highest LTV price point rather than highest conversion rate.
Identified optimal price point; contributed to scaling MRR - Scaling – Paid adsTiktok ads and facebook ads
Took top-performing organic TikTok creatives and ran them as paid ads on TikTok Ads and Facebook Ads. Used AppsFlyer as MMP to send attribution data back to ad platforms. Logic: if a video performed organically, it was proven creative — the algorithm would then find paying customers at scale.
Scaled installs and revenue; app reached $40K MRR (last 30 days $43K, last 90 days $112K+)MRR $40k - Scaling – Influencer contentInfluencer ugc tiktok
Sourced 'diamond in the rough' creators on TikTok to produce low-cost UGC-style content. Used this content as additional paid ad creatives to supplement in-house videos.
Mixed results — most influencers demanded high fees with no performance accountability, but select cheap creators provided scalable content - Ongoing – Analytics and iterationRevenuecat mixpanel amplitude
Used RevenueCat to track subscriber LTV and understand how much could be spent on acquisition. Used Mixpanel/Amplitude to analyze in-app behavior of paying users. Iterated on onboarding based on data showing longer onboarding increased paywall conversion.
Data-driven product iteration; maintained customer acquisition cost below LTVMRR $40k
Prior experience building viral mobile apps with 12 million total downloads across multiple apps before Puff Count. He had already developed a repeatable system for ideation, outsourced development, and TikTok-driven growth from earlier app projects.
tiktok_organic
Soft or skippable paywalls — conversion rate was low until he switched to a hard, unskippable paywall. Influencer marketing was noted as generally unreliable: influencers demanded high fees and didn't care about performance outcomes. Making TikTok videos that are entirely about the product (i.e. sales videos) also explicitly failed to perform.
How I Built It: $40K/Month iPhone App
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