Viral for Other Startups

67 Water is a canned water company founded by Shaan Puri that achieved viral success through innovative marketing and positioning strategies. The company was discussed on the My First Million podcast where Puri shared insights on how he turned canned water into a viral hit through strategic marketing from the ground up.

Dan Porter built OMGPop, a gaming company that created the viral mobile game Draw Something (originally Draw My Thing). The game exploded to 25 million daily active users and 1 million drawings every 5 seconds, leading to Zynga acquiring it for $200M just 6 weeks after launch—a remarkable exit driven purely by viral growth and viral mechanics.

I'd Cap That is a viral app created by Cody Ko that hit #1 in the App Store. The app gained massive traction through organic viral growth, with Cody leveraging his existing YouTube audience and content creator background to drive adoption.

Chip and Joanna Gaines built Magnolia from a small design store into a billion-dollar lifestyle powerhouse by combining authentic storytelling with television exposure. Their HGTV show Fixer Upper became a cultural phenomenon, turning their renovation and design work into a movement that expanded to include a network, retail stores, restaurants, books, and magazines. Despite nearly going bankrupt during the 2008 housing crash, they persevered and strategically walked away from peak TV success to own their own network and brand.

Snapchat began as a Stanford design project by Evan Spiegel and rapidly became one of the world's most-used social media platforms. The company achieved such significant traction that Mark Zuckerberg made a multi-billion dollar acquisition offer within two years, which Spiegel declined. Today, Snap is valued at over $13 billion with ambitions extending beyond its flagship mobile app.

Hero Cosmetics (Mighty Patch) launched in 2017 as a single acne patch product on Amazon, inspired by similar patches founder Ju Rhyu discovered while living in Korea. Built by Ju Rhyu and co-founders Dwight and Andy Lee, the company grew from a niche offering to a cosmetics sensation, with teens and young adults across social media proudly wearing the patches. The viral popularity and word-of-mouth momentum led to a $630 million acquisition in 2022, establishing Hero as the number one selling acne treatment brand in the United States.

American Giant was founded by Bayard Winthrop in 2011 to manufacture and sell clothing made entirely in the United States, reversing the industry trend of overseas outsourcing. The company achieved viral traction when a media article called their flagship hooded sweatshirt "the greatest hoodie ever made," generating such massive demand that it took nearly three years to fulfill the backlog. Today, American Giant has expanded beyond hoodies to offer a full line of basics including t-shirts, denim, flannel, and accessories, all still produced domestically.

Liquid Death is an edgy water brand launched by former ad-man Mike Cessario that packages spring water in aluminum cans designed to look like beer or poison. The brand's entertainment-focused, irreverent marketing approach built a strong moat and attracted customers outside the typical bottled water demographic. Seven years after launch, Liquid Death has grown into both a water and entertainment company with annual revenue well above $100M.

Joel Simkhai bootstrapped Grindr into a global phenomenon starting in 2009 by leveraging the early potential of GPS-enabled iPhones to help gay men connect based on proximity. Despite having no background in coding or app design, he grew the app into one of the most popular dating apps in the world, though he later faced challenges with technical issues, safety concerns, and toxicity on the platform. After Grindr was sold, he launched Motto, another queer hookup app.

Yuga Labs, co-founded by Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow, launched the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection in spring 2021. The collection achieved explosive growth, attracting major celebrities like Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg, and Madonna, and rapidly propelling the company to a $4 billion valuation within a year—making it one of the fastest companies to achieve unicorn status. The founders plan to expand their vision into the metaverse.

Zcash is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that adds enhanced data security to Bitcoin by protecting transaction confidentiality and preventing pattern analysis. Founded by Zouko Wilcoxie, it raised $3 million from Silicon Valley angels and launched as an independent blockchain in October 2016, quickly achieving global adoption with daily transaction volumes around $20 million across 15-20 international exchanges. The project has gained significant traction through mining accessibility worldwide and strategic partnerships including JP Morgan's blockchain security solution.

TBH was a viral polling app that allowed teens to give each other anonymous positive feedback. After 15 failed app launches over 4-5 years, Nikita Beer's team finally hit product-market fit with TBH, which reached 360,000 installs per day at its peak and was the #1 app in the United States within 9 weeks. The app was acquired by Facebook for over $30 million.

This is not a startup pitch but rather an interview with Ray Cao, Global Head of Monetization Product Strategy and Operations at TikTok, discussing how TikTok operates as a company, its culture, and strategies for success on the platform. TikTok is valued at over $80 billion with parent company ByteDance valued at over $200 billion, generating nearly $10 billion in advertising revenue. The conversation covers TikTok's unique culture principles like "context no control," their global product development approach, and insights on creating successful content and ad campaigns.

Foam Party Hats is a novelty merchandise company founded by Grace and Manuel Rojas that creates custom foam hats for events and sports occasions. The company gained massive viral traction when Chicago Bears wide receiver DJ Moore wore a custom cheese grater hat (a play on Green Bay Packers' cheese heads) during a post-game celebration that went viral with 2.2 million views, resulting in 10,000 orders in a week (~$500k in revenue). The founders appeared on Shark Tank and secured $100k for 25% equity.

Mad Realities is a media company founded by young creators (including a former NYU student) that produces original TikTok shows. In their first month, they launched multiple shows including "Buying Time" (14M views, 2M likes on one show with a $2,100 budget) and "Keep the Meter Running" (2.4M likes). The company demonstrates viral growth potential through organic TikTok engagement, though monetization strategy remains unclear.

Nikita Bier, who previously sold his viral high school app TBH to Facebook for $40-100 million, launched a new app called Crush designed to replicate that success with a monetization twist. The app uses a $6.99 weekly subscription ($28/month) model to reveal who voted for you in anonymous polls, and was geofenced to specific high schools in Georgia and Alabama. The app went viral within its targeted high school networks but faced controversy with rumors of misuse, leading to app store takedowns and rebranding efforts.

Tabs Chocolate is a DTC chocolate brand founded by young entrepreneurs (including Oliver and Jake, a University of Michigan freshman) that went viral on TikTok through a brilliantly executed ad campaign. The ad featured a college-age woman using suggestive copywriting and implications to market the product without explicitly stating its benefits, achieving 650,000 likes and generating approximately $500,000 in sales within a couple of weeks.

Bitcloud is an invite-only, blockchain-based social network that lets users buy and sell 'creator coins' tied to people's reputation and popularity. Pre-loaded accounts for the top 15,000 Twitter influencers with founder rewards (ranging up to $50k+) have driven viral adoption among early adopters, who report 5-10x returns in days. However, the platform currently has no withdrawal mechanism, causing skepticism about whether it's a long-term protocol or speculative bubble.

Clubhouse is an audio-based social app in beta that exploded in popularity among Silicon Valley tech executives and VCs in early 2021. The app allows users to join audio rooms and either speak on stage or listen as audience members, creating a real-time conversation experience. Despite rapid viral adoption among tech elites, the founders expressed skepticism about its long-term viability as a business, comparing it to similar failed apps like Blab and HQ Trivia.

Hot or Not launched in 2000 as a simple photo-rating site and became one of the first viral web products, reaching 30,000+ IP addresses on day one and becoming a top-20 most trafficked website within two months. The founders stumbled into a sustainable freemium business model (converting 5-20% of users to paid dating features) that generated $10,000-$20,000+ daily revenue by the early 2000s, ultimately scaling to $6M in annual earnings before selling around 2008.