6 months ago I published this blog post.
It outlined a rad traffic and viral sharing strategy that the team over at Sumome was using.
The basic gist was this:
- They gave away free access to a course called Traffic1m
- To get it you had to give them you’re email
- Once you gave them your email they offered you free VIP access to the course (a slack group and resource guide)
- To get VIP access you needed to share the Traffic1m course on Twitter and email an invite to one friend
- ^^^ This generates a tight little viral loop where for every person that signs up several more people find out about it and get invited to the course as well.
Here is it in action:
Smoooooooth idea!
Only problem is there is no app out there that does this.
So, today we’re going to build it.
The goal =
- Build a functioning app we can use on Videofruit by the end of the day
- Bonus Points: Make it so that others can use it too
- Extra Bonus Points: Make it free to everyone
We started last night at 8pm and will finish out the app no later than 8pm CST tonight.
Stay tuned throughout the day for updates.
Update #1: 8:00am
Since the basic idea of the app has been floating around in my head for 6 months we already had some designs whipped for the front end of the app.
They follow pretty closely to the one used on Traffic1m.
Here are our mockups:
Screen #1: This is what you’d see immediately after optin in for the original giveaway (your ebook, video course etc)
Screen #2: This is what you’d see after tweeting it out
Screen #3: This is the screen you see after unlocking the bonuses
We also did a kickoff call with Harris and Jonathan (the devs) this morning.
We’ll do another at 12pm CST and 5pm CST today. So follow us on Blab to get notifications of those
Update #2: 12:00pm
Over the last 4 hours we’ve made significant progress.
Harris and Jonathan were able to get the entire app up and built.
Our 911 designer was able to splice out the PSD design files into a nice batch of HTML/CSS that the devs could use to skin the app and make it look pretty.
And I got the domain stuff setup, wrote a few emails and watched a handful of Bill Wurtz videos (I advise you doing the same)
A few pretty things you might like…
Here is the mockup of the landing page (sexy! right?):
Here is a recording of our 12:00pm update call with the devs:
We’ll check back in around 5pm CST. With out last update.
Update #3: 5:00pm
Alright, we are SUPER close to having this thing shipped.
The app itself is fully functional.
The landing page is setup and tested (and it’s one of the prettiest landing pages I’ve ever seen)
I’m filming a few tutorial videos as we speak and the devs are going through and making everything look pretty on the front facing piece of the app.
For example, here is a pic of the live app vs.the mockup.
We’re down to the little things. The polishy stuff that really makes a difference.
Anyhow, I fully anticipate releasing this thing by 6:30pm tonight (we have dinner with some friends at 7pm). So, stay tuned for instructions on how to start testing it then.
Thanks for following along on these crazy adventures.
Update #4: 6:30pm
It’s aliiiiiiiiive!
YAY!
It’s up and running folks!
Go to SmartBribe.com to try it out for free.
Also, as you signup you’ll see the app in action as we’ve used it in the signup process of the app itself. Which means the app is free for now, you’ll just need to tell a friend or two about it to sign up.
🙂
Obviously we built this in 24-hours so there are going to be the occasional bug and feature request.
If you have any to report, please do that here.
Also, if you test this out on your site, please leave a comment in this blog post to let me know.
I would love to see this in the wild and to feature some of you to the list tomorrow morning when we email everyone about it.
Y’all are awesome!
Chat soon…
…
PS: Any questions about the app or ideas on how we can make it better? Post them in the comment below.