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How Coconote Grew
AI note-taking app for students
How did Coconote grow?
Summary of the sourced claims below
Coconote grew by focusing on customer retention through strategies like offering trial extensions to prevent cancellations, which helped retain about 25% of users who attempted to cancel. They optimized conversion rates by moving the login screen to after the paywall during onboarding, reducing a 10% drop-off at the start. Coconote also leveraged organic social media growth by building a team of part-time content creators and partnering with TikTok creators, some of whom generated hundreds of millions of views, emphasizing content quality over follower count.
Channels
15 channels · grouped by how Coconote grows
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Organic social media
· 8 mentions · 8 sources“But to get that revenue without paid ads, they had to master organic growth. If you wanna grow via social media, most people assume the best option is to hire influencers with huge followings. But Zach quickly figured out that was the wrong approach for Coconut... You don't need to buy an audienc...”
highShow 7 more quotes
“When tech products are targeting people on TikTok with brainrot content, naturally they’re going to post promotional videos on TikTok.”
medium“Coconote, the viral AI note-taking app and study assistant trusted by more than 1.5 million students nationwide, announced today that its premium version is now free for all educators nationwide...”
medium“Four full-time engineers and 12 part-time content creators currently make up the team, with the content creators playing a crucial role in putting Coconote in front of the app’s target audience online.”
medium“How short-form content became Coconote’s primary growth engine”
medium“Instead, they went all-in on organic content, building a small, agile team of about 25 part-time content creators. Their insight was that in an algorithm-driven world, the quality of the content matters more than the size of the audience.”
medium“So in the early days, it was very obvious that we were going to use social media to grow. I think we live in this really interesting time where it does not matter, generally speaking, how many followers you have on short form video. It just matters if you make great content.”
high“Traffic Sources Direct58.12%Search30.91%Referrals5.19%Social3.30%Mail0.45%Paid Referrals0.11%”
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Influencer partnerships
· 2 mentions · 2 sources“why you should be hiring content creators, not influencers. Follower counts are irrelevant in the age of algorithmic distribution. Look for creators with 5K followers and a Gmail address, avoid influencers repped by an agency.”
highShow 1 more quote
“And then I would say we worked with easily 30 content creators of various types in the early days, I would say in the first two months.”
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Customer retention
· 2 mentions · 2 sources“And we were able to retain like 25% of people from canceling, which we felt like was pretty big. And to do that, we tried three things. One of them is like your standard discount offers. ... Another one is pausing. ... And then the last one was trial extensions. ... that was the most successful o...”
highShow 1 more quote
“They found that many users weren’t canceling because of the price; they just hadn’t had enough time to fully experience the product’s value. “We’re able to retain 25% of people from canceling,” Brett noted. “And [the trial extension] was the most successful one by far, and it really keeps people ...”
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User Generated Content
· 2 mentions · 2 sources“One of the struggles with UGC and this playbook is generating content that converts versus generating content that just gets a bunch of views.”
highShow 1 more quote
“So much of what you did was UGC and trying to go viral ...”
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Pop-up stores at events
· 1 mention“Turning viral attention into real revenue with better messaging”
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Content marketing
· 1 mention“Content that positions your app as the answer to a real problem converts; content that makes it look fun and novel does not.”
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User feedback
· 1 mention“One of the best things that we did, we just asked our customers, how would you describe Cocoa Note? ... Pulled straight from user interviews and put right on an App Store screenshot.”
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Referrals
· 1 mention“this approach to building AI tools has helped them build a viral, bootstrapped app already used by well over a million users.”
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Paid social ads
· 1 mention“Alex Vech burned $800K on Meta ads that didn't work. Not total spend, just the wasted portion. The other $700K helped him build Boost App Social to $100K MRR and sell it for seven figures.”
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Industry interest
· 1 mention“And then I would say we worked with easily 30 content creators of various types in the early days, I would say in the first two months. And really, three of them ended up making a huge difference. One of them in particular ran the main Coconote.app account and generated hundreds of millions of vi...”
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SEO
· 1 mention“Traffic Sources Direct58.12%Search30.91%Referrals5.19%Social3.30%Mail0.45%Paid Referrals0.11%”
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Video content
· 1 mention“And really, three of them ended up making a huge difference. One of them in particular ran the main Coconaut.app account and generated hundreds of millions of views.”
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Brand Authenticity
· 1 mention“Frame your product as a solution, not a toy Content that positions your app as the answer to a real problem converts; content that makes it look fun and novel does not.”
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Optimize conversion rates
· 1 mention“Coconote’s growth wasn’t just about marketing; it was also driven by a relentless focus on product optimization. The team ran numerous experiments to improve their onboarding flow, and two changes, in particular, stood out.”
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Automation
· 1 mention“And we ran a test trying to basically double the length. I think our onboarding is 15 screens or something. It really works. It really works to get people a bit more invested into what they're doing and feel like it's more personalized, show them some social proof. And it increased our trial star...”
high
How 2,645 businesses grow
Of businesses with mapped growth channels, the share using each —
Coconote’s highlighted.
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Referral/Word-of-mouth68% ◀
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Social media57% ◀
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Search/SEO57% ◀
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Email47% ◀
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Community33%
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Content/Inbound31% ◀
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Partnerships30%
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Events24%
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Paid ads24% ◀
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Press/PR18%
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Outbound/Sales16%
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Marketplaces/App stores8%
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Brand Authenticity2% ◀
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Customer interviews2%
