Dawson Gibbs

CEO @ / owner of @overcomer_app

[Dawson Gibbs @dawsbg]

Anybody can now build an app with AI.

There are 14 year olds launching apps in 30 days.

Building has never been easier, yet not many can execute on distribution.

Apps that execute on distribution (mass UGC) are the ones that will dominate their category.

[Dawson Gibbs @dawsbg]

A marketer at a big enterprise brand posted on LinkedIn about the prices of content.

They were bewildered by the range of prices.

High of $8K and low of $500 per post.

In reality, they were comparing apples to oranges.

They were comparing creator and influencer prices and calling them the same.

Creators and influencers are NOT the same.
Creators are NOT influencers, but all influencers are creators.

Influencers have real influence and have large followings.

Creators are people who have small followings <20k, but can create viral content about almost anything.

Avg cost of an influencer is $5,000 PER POST.

Creators and influencers have totally different CPMs, CACs, and CPIs.

The brands that 10x their MRR are the ones that understand this fundamental and crucial difference.

The brands that throw money at influencers might as well burn it instead.

[Dawson Gibbs @dawsbg]

That's the viral content machine behind the 1B+ views and hundreds of thousands of downloads I have generated for consumer apps.

We ran this exact system for 200+ apps and brands.

Let's talk if acquiring users at <$2 CPI with viral content sounds like a good idea: https://t.co/N6gs1aYSeb

[Dawson Gibbs @dawsbg]

If I were launching an app from zero today, here's how I'd promote it and get my 10K installs in less than 60 days.

Zero paid ads.
Zero spend on influencers.
Zero time wasted.

And I would acquire users at &lt;$1 CPI with CPMs in the pennies.

Here's what I would do:

[Dawson Gibbs @dawsbg]

6. Scale

After getting traction I would hire more creators to create viral content for my app.

I would do more research so that my creators would never run out of viral formats to post.

[Dawson Gibbs @dawsbg]

So believe it or not, UGC is great at getting downloads 🤷‍♂️

[Rork @rork]

https://t.co/mLt76klWDc

[Dawson Gibbs @dawsbg]

Let’s go

[Drew Mazza @drewmarkets]

Meet the right group of guys and you will be unstoppable.

There is always more to learn. Intelligence means nothing if you’re not putting it into action.

Time is everything. I’ve been up before the sun every morning, gym, Bible, priorities set before the world wakes up. Allows my brain to think clear and set the day right.

Take care of your body no matter where you are. You can’t perform if you’re not fueling right.

Listen more than you speak. I’m naturally curious, so I leaned into asking better questions to people who know more than me in areas I want to grow.

Met a group of guys who are all absolutely locked in.
@evomarketingg

[Dawson Gibbs @dawsbg]

Facts

[Jake Castillo @jakecastilloooo]

People overcomplicate building a great company.

I won’t pretend I have it all figured out, but I know this much:

The best ability is availability.

Your team doesn’t need the perfect strategy, speech, or system every time.

They need you in the room.

They need you paying attention.

They need you to not miss the moments that matter.

Everything else is a distant second.

[Dawson Gibbs @dawsbg]

Goat

[Drew Mazza @drewmarkets]

12.5M views. 1.9M likes. 18% engagement rate.

here's exactly why this video worked

the hook "DO NOT book another flight (before watching this)" triggers loss aversion immediately

people don't scroll past something that feels like a warning

it's not "here's a cool app" it's "you're about to make a mistake"

that one reframe changes everything

then the content delivers. real person, real reaction, no production budget, no script that sounds like a script

1.3M saves tells you everything, people aren't just watching, they're coming back to it

and 400K shares means they're sending it to people they know who book flights/want to

that's not an audience. that's a distribution network

this is what UGC is supposed to do

[Dawson Gibbs @dawsbg]

If your consumer app is still burning budget on untested creatives and you want to lower CPI?

This is exactly what we do at EVO. We help apps acquire new users with viral UGC.

Want to see how this works for your app? Let's chat here: https://t.co/MN0f4c2Hg4

[Dawson Gibbs @dawsbg]

Half the internet thought this consumer app was a cryptocurrency.

Less than a year later, it more than doubled its revenue.

Here's exactly how this "boring" step tracker app cut its CPI by 53% and hit 60M users:

[Dawson Gibbs @dawsbg]

The biggest challenge for all consumer apps is acquiring users at the lowest cost.

Sweatcoin was having the same issue before it exploded with new users.

It was able to acquire users with traditional paid ads, but its CPI would always remain high.

Sweatcoin's growth stayed linear until it decided to try a new strategy.

And that strategy was mass UGC marketing.

Sweatcoin partnered with creators and created organic feeling content. High volume testing of viral hooks and formats.

It took these winning viral pieces of content and turned them into Spark Ads.

UGC powered paid media.

Sweatcoin never had to burn ad spend by guessing on creatives when the creatives were already proven to convert and get engagement.

Sweatcoin 10x'd it's ROAS using this viral content made by creators.

Hiring tons of creators and ad spend sounds costly, but in reality, Sweatcoin was able to lower its CPI by 53%.

In fact, on Apple Store Sweatcoin had the lowest CPI possible.

60 million users acquired.

And it all started with one shift in thinking.

Mass UGC + UGC powered paid media = 📈 🚀 user acquisition

Stop guessing on creatives.

Let the market tell you what works.

Then put money behind what's already proven.

Organic tests it. Paid scales it. Simple as that.

[Dawson Gibbs @dawsbg]

Lately

[Dawson Gibbs @dawsbg]

Most app content is just entertainment, but people call it "growth".

It gets views. It gets likes.

It makes the team feel like “organic is working.”

But when they see how many installs came from it…

Uh oh.

Content without a conversion mechanism is not acquisition.

Users, trials, conversions, lower CPI, and MRR are your north star.

A repeatable organic system that compounds over time is how consumer apps are scaling faster than ever before.

If your UGC goes viral but nobody downloads the app, it failed.

If your content gets engagement but does not create install intent, it failed.

Because the goal is not to entertain the market.

The goal is to turn attention into demand.

At EVO, we think about viral content differently.

Every video needs a job.

One video creates awareness.
One video hits the pain point.
One video makes the viewer feel understood.
One video shows the product solving the problem.
One video drives the comment.
One video drives the app search.
All are designed to hit the viewer at every awareness stage.

All created to drive the install.

That is how content becomes acquisition.

You need hooks that hit real pain points.

You need scripts that teach the problem before selling the product.

You need creators who feel native, not like paid actors.

You need volume so you can find winners.

You need tracking so you know what actually drives downloads.

Otherwise, you are just posting.

And “posting” is not a growth strategy.

Stop treating content like entertainment.

Start treating it like a user acquisition engine.

[Dawson Gibbs @dawsbg]

Stop posting free entertainment for people who were never going to download your app.

This is where most consumer apps get organic wrong.

They chase viral videos.
They chase likes.
But views are not the scoreboard.

Installs are.

How to shift from entertainment to acquisition: