Before Achieving Greatness, Learn to Sell
Original Article: https://x.com/mengkepm/status/2067507383824253019
Post Author: Mengke Wang (@MengkePM)
Last month, I served as the marketing mentor at the Apple × Zhejiang University Mobile App Incubator Camp, teaching a day and a half of classes to over 20 startup teams.
The participants all had real products. Some apps were already live, while others were still polishing their MVPs. Almost everyone arrived with the exact same question: “Once the product is built, how do we get people to know about it?”
We covered a lot in class, but here are the most frequently overlooked points that I want to share with everyone.
1. The App Store Is Not a Shopping Mall
When users open Taobao or Amazon, it’s because they want to buy something. When users open the App Store, that is no longer the case.
Today’s user journey looks like this: users scroll past content on Xiaohongshu, TikTok, or Bilibili, feel resonated with it, memorize the app's name, and then search and download it in the App Store.
The App Store is a warehouse; content platforms are the display shelves. You must appear on the shelves first before users will ever visit the warehouse to pick up the goods.
This is not an exaggeration. In 2026, the domestic growth playbook has boiled down to essentially two channels: App Store editorial features, and content platform seeding (word-of-mouth). The former is out of your control, while the latter is something you can proactively execute yourself.
2. The Essence of Marketing Is Translation
Engineering teams have their own vocabulary: “I implemented four-quadrant task management, supported iCloud synchronization, based on the Eisenhower Matrix.”
None of those statements are wrong, but users cannot relate to them.
Users only care about themselves. They do not care how feature-complete your software is; they only care about “What does this have to do with me?”
Here is how content translation works:
- Feature Layer: Supports iCloud sync.
Value Layer: Your records will never be lost—always accessible on your phone and iPad. - Feature Layer: Based on the Eisenhower Matrix.
Value Layer: Always pushed around by urgent tasks? This tool helps you clearly identify what truly matters.
Translation makes everything tangible. Every single sentence should make the user feel: “This is speaking directly to me.”
Here is a fundamental positioning formula:
We help ___ (who), at ___ (when), solve ___ (what problem).
For example: Good Happens App is not just a note-taking tool; it is “helping people who are prone to feeling down, by recording good moments, to scientifically make themselves happier.”
3. Find Concrete Individuals, Not Imagined Demographics
Instead of targeting a vague “productivity tool audience,” look for: an administrative teacher at a school who needs to write papers, teach classes, and handle various administrative errands, requiring a four-quadrant view to clearly organize priorities.
This person is real, identifiable, and might even be right beside you.
There are three dimensions to truly understanding a user:
- Contextualization (Scenario): When do they use it? Fit the feature into a user's day; you must be able to describe the exact moment they open the product.
- Emotionalization: What emotional state are they trying to resolve? When users pay, they are fundamentally buying emotional relief or satisfaction.
- Identity: Who do they become by using it? A user of Good Happens is someone who “loves life”; a user of Flomo is someone who “loves learning and thinking.” If your product reinforces a user's self-identity, making them proud to share that persona, you create the bedrock for organic word-of-mouth.
4. The Cover Image Is the Lifeline
Low content impressions are almost 100% caused by the content itself, and 90% of content issues originate from the cover image.
If the cover fails to make users want to click, everything else is wasted.
Users scan double-column feeds at lightning speed. The cover’s sole mission: trigger an impulse in under one second that makes the user think: “This is about me, I need to tap in.”
Here is a practice exercise: Browse Xiaohongshu with a “shelf mindset.” Notice which posts you tap on and why. Tap back and inspect that cover again to deconstruct what it did to your psychology. Do this often, and you will develop an intuitive instinct for covers.
5. Content Format Matters Less; Product Alignment Matters Most
Viral posts generally fall into a few archetypes:
- Highly structured information curation (dense, knowledge-packed covers)
- Persona-driven direct problem tackling (talking head, captions directly stating the pain point)
- Aesthetic-driven (visual beauty is the selling point)
- Curiosity hooks (cliffhangers encouraging taps)
No single format is inherently superior. The key is alignment with your product's vibe, followed by continuous execution validated against data.
Going viral is probability, but content creation is science. You are not betting on a single stroke of luck; you are building a repeatable mechanism that consistently produces viral elements. Once you discover working elements, don't use them just once. Break them down and recombine them: same scenario × different emotional angles, same pain point × different personas—scale production multiplicatively.
6. Search Keywords Are Clues Embedded in Content, Not Hashtags
Official data shows that 70% of monthly active users on Xiaohongshu exhibit search behavior. Users typically search requirement keywords first, followed by brand keywords. If you appear on the search results page the moment a user searches, customer acquisition costs are remarkably low.
Search keyword embedding is not about stuffing hashtags at the end of a post; it means naturally and repeatedly mentioning terms users actually search for across the cover, title, and body copy.
Core keyword categories to cover:
- Persona keywords: Office workers, students, 30-year-old professionals.
- Scenario keywords: Overtime, travel, bedtime, early morning.
- Product keywords: Your app name and its common aliases.
- Competitor keywords: Appearing when users search for competitors (provided your product is genuinely recommendable, otherwise you are directing traffic to rivals).
- Category keywords: Productivity tools, mental wellness, task management.
You do not need every keyword in every post, but cover subsets systematically. The more posts you have covering diverse keywords, the higher your cumulative discovery probability.
7. Paid Promotion Is an Amplifier, Not a Lifeline
99% of failed ad spending stems from subpar content.
When data looks bad, many developers immediately try to tweak ad delivery settings. That order of operations is backward. Advertising is merely an amplifier: great content gets amplified into greatness; poor content gets amplified into bigger waste.
Spend 75 RMB on Xiaohongshu or 50 RMB on Douyin. You are not buying massive traffic with this budget; you are buying an answer to a single question: Is this creative asset worth scaling?
If ROI is positive, double down on that creative while immediately producing similar variations that share its viral hooks. If ads fail, fix the content first before touching ad settings.
8. Clear Strategy on Official vs. Direct Creator Collaborations
Official platform collaborations (e.g., via Pugongying) involve platform take-rates (~10%) and content explicitly tagged as sponsored. Direct informal collaborations offer lower creator rates, with content presenting as authentic personal sharing.
For mobile apps, hard ads almost always perform worse than authentic, soft recommendations. In genuine sharing communities, overtly sponsored posts struggle to gain user trust. Collaborate directly where feasible, but ensure the content itself remains high quality.
Regarding Official Blue Badge Verification: For consumer app businesses, proactive verification is generally not recommended. Verified corporate accounts are often categorized into enterprise ad streams, restricting organic distribution, while app conversion flows do not rely on direct message lead generation anyway. Unless platform sales reach out directly, verification often costs more than it delivers.
9. Write a Creative Brief Before Approaching Creators
Creators are not just distribution channels; they are discoverers of product highlights. Some of the most effective value propositions are translated by creators, not formulated by founders.
Before reaching out, always prepare a clear brief: your product philosophy keywords, founding motivation, core highlights, and what you specifically do NOT want them to say. A brief is not a script to copy; it is a creative sandbox for the creator.
Match creator tiers to your growth stage: prioritize nano-creators and KOCs (under 1,000 followers) in the early days for lower costs and raw authenticity. Scale up to mid-tier creators once you have validated working creative formats.
10. The Mechanics of User Seeding
Relying solely on founder and brand accounts creates too few acquisition pipelines. Greater leverage comes from enabling diverse voices from different walks of life to advocate for your product.
The logic behind nano-seeding accounts is straightforward: individual account weight matters little; with sufficient volume, aggregate account health normalizes effectively.
Recruit creators by publishing collaboration calls: barter partnerships are the most cost-effective way to ramp volume—exchange an annual premium membership for a genuine review note from real users. That is where your first wave of user-generated content originates.
11. Base Pricing on Strategy, Not Guesswork
Many developers price their apps simply by looking at competitors and pricing slightly lower.
That logic is flawed. Pricing is an integral part of product positioning; it defines what your product represents in the user's mind.
Selling to domestic users versus US users can follow completely different pricing structures. The exact same feature set can—and should—adopt distinct pricing models across different markets and user segments.
Clarify exactly whom you are serving before deciding what to charge, rather than setting a price first and hunting for users later.
12. Private Traffic Means True User Equity, Not Just Group Chats
Platform traffic is rented. Today it is Xiaohongshu; tomorrow it might be something else. What truly belongs to you is user equity that you can continuously nurture.
For app businesses, private traffic does not have to be a chat group; it can be: usage data of App Store subscribers, a dedicated core beta testing cohort, or early users willing to write genuine long-form reviews.
Post-sale customer support is crucial: well-designed support dramatically reduces refund rates; without it, dissatisfied users immediately request refunds via Apple, leaving you zero opportunity to resolve the issue.
13. Calculate the Unit Economics
Whether content works and whether ads are worthwhile is not a matter of gut feeling; it is mathematics.
Every budget allocation must answer specific questions:
- Is this creative asset worth continuous spending?
- Are there reusable viral elements in this post?
- Can the ROI break even within two months?
For solopreneurs and OPC (One Person Company) developers, a two-month payback period is a rough yet pragmatic health benchmark. If you spend money and see no positive ROI signal within two months, either the creative assets are flawed, or the product is not addressing a genuine problem. Both require urgent attention.
Content operations should not restart from scratch every time. Build documented, reusable assets: copywriting libraries, brief templates, content component matrices, and A/B test logs. Once established, this system can be handed off, outsourced, or executed by AI.
14. Growth Starts Before Building, Not After Launch
In class, I asked all teams one question: “When did you start thinking about growth?”
Most answered: “After launch.”
Find your users before writing the first line of code. Not beta testers—find the real person who will pull out their wallet to pay for it.
“If the product is strong enough, users will naturally discover it”—this is the single most common illusion among software developers. I have walked down that path myself.
The above principles apply beyond mobile apps to e-commerce and lead-generation businesses. Hope this sparks valuable insights for your journey.