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A Game of Thrones on My First Million

A Game of Thrones was mentioned 5 times on My First Million in 5 episodes.

“it's like these guys standing at this giant table moving these chess pieces around like talking about conquering that's him but the chess pieces are like high schools and he's moving them yeah it was like uh it's like James Bond villain of High School uh you know quizzes if that's such a by the way there's one key twist to the whole thing it's TBH again but he's like this time we're not trying to be the next Snapchat we don't care about the retention we're just gonna put a in-app purchase that says pay to see who voted for you and he's like they're gonna pay and we're like well I get well will they pay they're gonna pay and it's like the thing is a freaking 699 Weekly subscription so this is basically 28 a month this is double the price of Netflix to see who voted for you and he's like yep so if we're converting you know whatever four percent of people and we can take over this state Georgia Georgia high schools each high school has this many students and yeah 1.8 million dollars a month okay good yeah let's go that's basically like my reenactment of how they're thinking about this and at this with TBH he had raised a little bit of money he had raised money from Founders for on Fund in Greylock and like the the when you do that it says uh you know you I've got to build the next Snapchat this way with this new company he just basically says dude I'm self-funded I've got 400 Engineers living in my La house right now we're just trying to like make it big make it fast and uh what do they say on South Park like uh scale up no start up get big cash out bro down you know like that like that's exactly what he's trying to do he's trying to just get in get the bag get out and just maybe return two idea for you yeah not uh and so anyway about 10 days after it launches I'm just making these numbers up but it's around a week maybe two weeks he starts saying like oh man people are starting to spread these rumors that this app is being used for human trafficking and we laugh that off and he goes so I changed it to no he was like he's like yeah it's like annoying like as hell like we're getting a bunch of deletions okay oh it's gonna die and we were like what the thing that like you called your shot you're like I'm gonna build an app that goes viral it's gonna make 10 million dollars in like 90 days and that's a ludicrous thing to say you spend like two years plotting he went through a bunch of different ideas to think about what it could be decides you know what it's TBH with a paywall launch it like spends you know it has these like seven Engineers living in his living room you know the place smells like you know Ramen and Old Spice and he's like all right we build the app after a few months we launched this thing in these pockets of Georgia it goes viral but then this whole you know this hoax starts saying this is for I don't know what the sex trafficking human sex trafficking which I didn't even understand but I didn't even understand but I shouldn't even say those words YouTube's gonna like de-prioritize this algorithm like and we're out of the algorithm now like because I said that out loud and he says that he's like well it's actually it's just like a couple reviews but I have a feeling that these couple of reviews are gonna like spread someone already made a video on Tick Tock this is just how things work and so I'm like it's whatever like that I don't understand that entirely that sounds like you're just being like neurotic but sounds good so he changes the name to crush right yeah so app starts getting deleted or no it gets taken down in the App Store Apple takes down or something like that he's like oh we're gonna petition blah blah we're gonna re-upload as crush and he sends us hey guys like new brand and it looks exactly like yeah exactly like crush the soda like like the grape flavor it sends it in the text and I I got so thirsty like you know like the pavlovian dog response I saw that and I was like I need orange soda on my tongue right now and uh I hadn't had orange soda in like a decade if I saw that thing and I was like I need that relaunches again in like you know Alabama this time he's like okay we're going south and they attacked Alabama with their four High School launch strategy they do they have this like thing set to a T and by the way like he had he had wrote a memo inside Facebook once about how TBH was launching high schools effectively he's like we created basically his theory is basically for a social app the most valuable thing you can have is a reliable way to test your app so like can you get this into a a small Network like like a high school where most people know each other or know of each other of a thousand people quickly because if you could do that you could test it in one high school see what the data says and then you could tweak the app launch in another High School do it again he's like that reliable like petri dish to test in is the most valuable thing so they had come up with a strategy which was they put this memo got leaked when he was at Facebook which was like they would create Instagram accounts like you know Crush you know um you know archipelago High you know and it's like they they take the high school name and they take the brand name of the thing and they would make the account private and they would go follow every kid who had like you know class of whatever 2022 um in that high school they would follow all of them so then the kid would say who followed me uh it has my high school name in it they click it it's private to find to see the profile you've got to follow back so they would they would request to follow so a whole bunch of people requested to follow he's like but we would not accept anyone and it's like this is like you know the Dennis system on all of a sudden he's like you know first we demonstrate value then we take it away and he's like then at 4 pm on the day before launch which uh the day of the launch when everybody gets out of school you know we have a guy in a truck watching people leave the school as soon as they do we hit accept requests we accept everybody's request everybody gets a notification at the same time and then they go to it the bio basically says download the app see who likes you you download the app and then he's like we would instantly go with Ireland in high school so he had this like launch strategy which which was I thought pretty pretty great pretty tactical so he's doing that again now with crush crush gonna go it's gonna launch like that and it starts to work and we're like wow dude you did it again like the first one wasn't a fluke you did it again all of a sudden it totally attracted a different demographic because of this like stupid Orange Soda logo and the name crush and so he's like oh God you know to cut all right let's move the scene around change the name again and he comes back for act three and this time it's called gas and by the way this hole so he'd been working on this for many months maybe more than a year I don't know but this whole thing that we're describing takes place over two to three weeks and it gets to the point where he starts making up phrases like uh we are acquiring new users at this rate per hour you know a lot of times we talk about saying like ARR annual recurring revenue and what a lot of companies will do is they'll take like their monthly run rate and multiply that by 12 to say this is what they're doing he was basically doing that at a per hour base so he's like oh we're you know we're we're acquiring a thousand users per hour which means our uh our rate of like a new users is like 365 million whatever and yeah he was like he's like if you look Dawn day over day it's like you're just measuring the period of like the sunrise day over day what's your what your numbers are that's insane and so gas starts like taking off similar to the original one but this time even even more and in a matter of like seven days I believe he starts tweeting out the results and letting us know and basically within like seven days give or take five days I don't know exactly it was doing a million daily it had a million daily users was adding 30 000 new users an hour users were answering 3.2 million polls per hour in a brown like 10 days I believe he's hit a million dollars in sales and are also around 10 days in it was number one in the App Store and he had been telling us it's going to be number one in the next handful of days it's gonna be number one and they totally called it and we're talking number one like above Tick Tock above Instagram above Facebook yeah totally this is all true and he said he tweets out he goes ladies and gentlemen after a five-year Hiatus I'm no longer a one-hit wonder introducing gas the number one app in the app store and this is when it turns to the point where it's incredibly hard for us to compliment him and a root for him because clearly this guy has a chip on his shoulder clearly for the last five years he was mad that he sold too soon or didn't become like huge or didn't become wealthier or didn't become whatever his his Target was but he fell short it felt like and now he's proving that he is the man because here's what's hap here's what here's what starts happening and he gets hilariously cocky about it which I I I love I love I love it makes me like him even more but I love and so like here's an example a really popular VC tweets out uh his name is Josh Gelman momentum growth is a powerful feeling and it could also go away really quickly I have been surprised I have been surprised how many things with seemingly Unstoppable momentum have slow crawl this past year zooming out growth without deep duration adoption and habits doesn't count and Nikita replies just at me and so basically he just starts going around anyone online on Twitter who's a big shot who starts talking about high growth stuff Nikita just pops out and said what are you talking about me and it's hilarious it is so funny and so Abram this time though the rumors start happening again about human trafficking and he starts tweeting and sharing the craziest stuff and this gets so big that Ashton Kutcher is retweeting who Ashton Kutcher didn't entirely know this but like his whole like philanthropy thing is human trafficking and so these rumors of human trafficking start happening again and Ashton Kutcher retweets Nikita and says something like Nikita sends us a screenshot it's Ashton Kutcher DM again and he's like he just he's just screenshotting us these like big shot people that are just dming him like wink face instead of even saying hi they're just like it's like is this how this guy like slides into DMS that's interesting that wasn't Ashton Kutcher but like uh but Ashton also retweeted it I'd love to meet I'd love to meet you I'd love to help you know uh this thing is a hoax because basically what Nikita is saying is he's like the scene is taking off like you wouldn't believe that you know it's going viral the K factor is two and then K factors too what that means is for every person who joins you know virally they invite two more right so it's like you know you thought covid spread fast watch how fast the gas app is gonna spread it's got a a incredibly High uh viral coefficient that just basically means for free it's gonna take over whatever demographic it is until that until that coefficient starts to go down because either it's saturated or hits a new market where it's less viral and so it's going viral um ashcrutcher's like I'll help you try to fight these hoax rumors because on tick tock on Snapchat you just see story after Story of somebody saying guys uh delete this gap gas app it's suss as hell I downloaded it and a white van started following me around my neighborhood and people are like oh my God oh my God share share just keep it keep our sis like our school safe uh and it's like girls like girls do not download gas app like like you ever seen the show you on Netflix say no more and it's like it's like the people are just spreading this thing and so it's like what the hell like where is this coming from and he doesn't know and he's like it's got to be a competitor and we're like okay what like what kind of combat I mean you've just launched like two weeks ago how are they doing this coordinated like social like psyops attack on you and your user base and he's like then he's like we've we've located the source of the hoax uh or or it originated in China he's like well here's what he says here's what he says it's this is the most official tweet ever it's so funny he goes after an investigation our team found several indications that the gas app that uh the gas app human trafficking hoax was planted by an entity or person originating in China our data shows users connecting from China when the app first began growing and the fake fake review the first fake review were posted that same day and so basically he's accusing something or someone in China who starts she's accusing the country yeah and so this is just taking off from I want to make 10 million dollars I want to get in and get out to China is trying to actively bring me down and he just tweeted out dude I am calling for a total and complete ban of Chinese Goods in entering the United no I'm just joking you need to go lean in way more because what he's doing in his PR push he's like the the the the hoax the false hoax is being spread about gas app human you know trafficking blah blah blah and um and I'm like bro you need to go full Trump you need to be like China the China virus is trying to take down this American success gas app is it you know Tick Tock is not only stealing your data they're trying to take us down because we are the number one app for teens China is doing this this is anti-china I was like you should be leaning in way more to this child I was like I don't know if it's true not true but like this is your only hope is to get this like you should stop saying your app's name with the words you know human trafficking and you should start saying uh you know why is China trying to you know spread fake news about this that is that is my my official recommendation to you and it's and it's totally working and so this entire story that we just spent 30 minutes on this entire story we're talking like 20 days and this is the roller coaster that we've been in and he would say what he says today yes but that's my point he says these things in this group chat and when it's on your phone when it's just on this small thing you think this is just limited to us six guys in this thing this is just no big deal but then you turn on Fox Business News and our Fox News business and he's on there you go to Wall Street Journal and he's on there you go to Business Insider uh Bloomberg all these places and it's real I go to tick tock and I open up and there's a video about this app and basically as much as I don't like saying this because I like Nikita but he is so smug he has 100 called his shot and he hit it he nailed it this is this is one of the most epic stories that I've seen behind the scenes in real time in a very long time it's been quite amazing to watch this entire thing play out in just 20 days yeah he's smoke as hell but I uh you know the same reason I find Conor McGregor very entertaining in the UFC right this cocky guy who tries to call his shots and then tries to pull it off like um I I'm thoroughly entertained and I'm here for the entertainment uh and like you know good for him made it happen this this matters to him he got really pumped about this and he made it happen and it's like I feel like you know you know Bane when he's like uh you know he sees other people like you know I felt like Nikita for like four years would see other people try to build social apps and he would just like [ __ ] on them or he would be like uh you know or people building apps and be like you know if your app doesn't let you you know flirt with someone buddy it's never gonna work you know like or be like unless you built the number one app in the app store like you know don't talk to me type of type of attitude and um and I find it you know pretty awesome that like you know like Bane when he's like oh you know you know whatever the line is he's like you know you uh you you trained in the dark I was born in the dark like that's him with these like teen viral apps he's like you know oh you're trying to make a social lap I was born to make social apps the fact that he just relaunched the save app is hilarious to me in so many ways um he probably had just like a countdown timer to like when the non-compete ends because I talked to him in between and he was considering all these like other ideas you're considering this one real estate idea it's considered this other idea and then it was just like like you know it's sort of all like Harry Potter the wand chooses the wizard it's like it's just pulling me back in just what I think I'm out I gotta go do this app again like who fucker's Really Gonna Let do this again and then he did it again yeah this is pretty amazing it also goes to show that uh it shows a few things it kind of breaks a lot of narratives which I actually like which is a like you don't really need like a mission you know all the time like and and I think that like with us you don't need a noble mission 10 million dollars for three months that's a great Mission and I do actually think that maybe there is something we're like oh it makes teens feel good or whatever maybe that's like there but like I think what's there really above all else is get big fast because that's exciting and just like play the puzzle it's just a puzzle and I think that that's like kind of the dominating Factor behind what's driving him and I think that that's the funny thing he goes on Fox News and he's like doing the interview you know they have the person talking and then the background they're showing screenshots of the app and so he's saying he's like well the thing we wanted to do was bring positivity to teens you know teens feel really bad from whatever like you know Instagram what positivity wanted an app where there's you know it's Anonymous but there's no bullying there's no um there's no like sort of negativity and the screenshot is a poll question that says want to steal them from their boyfriend it's like okay he's like you know we just want it he's like I get messages every day from teens saying you know uh you know I was gonna do something bad to myself but this app came out and now you know I'm running around in a field full of uh flowers and it's like it was just hilarious the whole thing is is like straight Silicon Valley HBO show like it's so funny to me it is so funny and it's so exciting another thing is that basically when you're building these apps like the really good folks are just like maniacal about these little small numbers and just tweaking them and just just being obsessed with these little small things when most people are carried about or worrying about design or branding or the logo or just these things that don't matter it's like dude all I care about is making this K Factor like more than one and so and when it's not when it's 0.99 it's we're screwed we gotta totally redo this and I just thought that it's a really interesting story and this has been like a roller coaster and one of the cool things that's happened in a long time I just love following along this yeah props to him uh great great job thank you for the thank you for the entertainment um all right do you want to do any more or should we save it for the next I'll tell you in one more I do have one more but um we should save that one it sounds too interesting okay let's save it same for the next one that's it we're out of here [Music]”

How To Build A Viral App & Make Millions From It (#379) · My First Million

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