Focus Tree App: From 2K Users to 105K Users in 15 Days

In a world where mobile apps fight for attention, Focus Tree found a way to stand out.

Focus Tree, the productivity app for students founded by Laurent Boulin and Gabin Marignier, went from a few hundred users to over 110,000 weekly active users in just 2 months.

It also grew from 2K Users to 105K Users in 15 Days.

Laurent Boulin shared their entire strategy distribution strategy on In The Pit podcast.

TikTok's Algorithm Created a New Distribution Channel

TikTok transformed content distribution by switching from audience-based to content-based algorithms.

This fundamental shift allows creators to gain massive visibility based solely on content quality, not existing follower counts.

With TikTok, you're only as good as your last video. This democratization of reach enables unknown creators to go viral after just 2 or 3 videos.

The impact extends beyond TikTok itself. Instagram launched Reels, LinkedIn introduced shorts earlier this year, and X now features short-form video content—all racing to adapt to this new short-form video paradigm.

The proof of TikTok's universal appeal comes from unexpected places. Laurent's parents, who never engaged with Facebook or Instagram, now spend 3 hours daily on TikTok.

Focus Tree Built Strava for Studying

Focus Tree positions itself as the "Strava for studying"—a social productivity app that transforms solitary study sessions into shareable achievements.

The core mechanics are simple yet engaging: users earn "tiles" for completed focus sessions, which they use to build virtual gardens visible to friends.

This combination of utility, gamification, and social validation creates a compelling user experience.

What makes this approach powerful is the habit-forming loop it creates. Just as Strava users feel that "if you didn't record your run, you didn't really run," Focus Tree aims to make students feel that studying without the app is somehow incomplete.

Mobile Apps Are Experiencing a Renaissance

The mobile app industry is seeing a resurgence driven by TikTok's distribution power. This renaissance began with e-commerce entrepreneurs who found success on TikTok Shop, then realized mobile apps offered better margins and scalability.

The mobile app space remains relatively untapped compared to e-commerce, with only about 20-30 people actively sharing strategies on platforms like X.

This gap between opportunity and competition creates a land-grab moment for entrepreneurs who understand the new landscape. While e-commerce has dozens of conferences and established playbooks, the mobile app growth space remains in its early stages.

Media Validation Precedes Product Development

Focus Tree inverted the traditional product development sequence. Rather than building first and marketing later, they validated demand through media channels before significant development.

In a telling example, the founder created a mock design of the app, took a photo of it on his phone, and posted it to Reddit. The post went viral with users eagerly asking for the app's name and download link. This provided clear market validation before investing heavily in development.

This "media-first, product-second" approach solves a critical challenge in consumer apps: creating great products requires user feedback, but attracting users typically requires a polished product. By validating with media first, Focus Tree broke this cycle.

However, Focus Tree wasn't an instant success. They spent 2 years in development before its rapid growth phase.

Then the founder saw Blake Anderson's Cal AI strategy and replicated it for Focus Tree on November 2024 and got 3 months of explosive growth and blew up from there.

Offshore Creators Charge Less and Deliver Incredible ROI

Focus Tree's breakthrough came from working with creators outside the US and Europe, particularly from Brazil, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

These creators produce high-quality content at a fraction of the cost of US-based talent.

Laurent doesn't like to hire US creators as they charge absurd prices.

For example, a TikTok creator w/ 4K followers and 2K avg view requested him $100 for every month the video stays live on TikTok + 500$ fees.

You can reach US audience without hiring a US creator with TikTok. Oren John mentions how TikTok is precise with its targeting and Instagram needs manual control to reach the US audience from other countries.

The pricing structure for Laurent's creators is straightforward: $20 per video with performance bonuses for videos that perform well. This model aligns incentives while keeping base costs manageable.

The results speak for themselves. Before implementing this strategy, Focus Tree paid $11.50 per download using traditional ads. With creator-led marketing, costs plummeted by 95% to approximately $0.10 per download.

A single video from one creator reached 10 million views, driving exponential growth. This efficiency makes it nearly impossible for competitors using traditional marketing to compete on equal footing.

Creator Selection Requires Specific Performance Metrics

Finding the right creators represents the most critical element of the strategy. Focus Tree evaluates creators on several specific metrics:

First, they examine a creator's "average low" performance. Even when a creator's content underperforms, it should reach at least 10,000 views. Creators averaging 5,000-10,000 views on their poorest-performing content are considered decent, while those under 5,000 raise concerns.

Second, they assess viral frequency. The best creators have a "hit rate" of at least 20% (1 out of 5 videos going viral). Focus Tree has a standardized viral playbook.

Third, they evaluate niche understanding. For the study talk niche, understanding aesthetic elements like color palettes proves crucial since the audience is approximately 80% female and highly responsive to visual aesthetics.

Focus Tree's strategy evolved from hiring many creators to working closely with fewer, higher-quality creators who deeply understand the niche, enabling category domination rather than broader but less effective reach.

Focus Tree gets 12,000–14,000 daily downloads driven by just 7 top-tier creators.

However, retaining top-creators is no joke.

#1 App Store Conversion Killer: No Ratings

Laurent says, "If your app has no ratings, you’re not converting 2/3 of your potential users."

Content Formats Require Constant Innovation

Identifying effective content formats drives ongoing success. Focus Tree's team immerses themselves in TikTok, studying their niche to understand subtle codes and audience preferences.

The comment section is really where the gold is. Comments reveal untapped pain points and content opportunities. For example, a comment stating "I would like to focus, but my friends don't let me" inspired new video hooks addressing this specific challenge.

Format lifespans depend on niche saturation. In the competitive study talk category, winning formats typically last only 2-3 weeks before effectiveness declines. Less saturated niches might allow effective formats to run for up to 3 months before requiring refreshment.

Creator Management Demands Systematic Communication

Focus Tree built an efficient system to manage their creator network using 2 full-time coaches who were previously top-performing creators themselves. This ensures guidance comes from people who understand both content creation and the specific niche.

Their communication structure includes multiple layers:

• 1 WhatsApp group exclusively for posting videos and tracking

• A separate WhatsApp group for feedback and discussion

• 1-on-1 chats between coaches and creators

• A Skool.com community with comprehensive onboarding materials and winning CapCut templates

Coaches provide creators with complete templates for successful videos, allowing them to replicate winning formulas while adding their unique touches. This systematic approach enables scaling content production without losing quality.

User Onboarding Prioritizes Education Over Speed

Focus Tree discovered that SMS-based authentication dramatically outperforms email verification. Through user testing at locations like McDonald's, they observed that students couldn't remember 6-digit email verification codes between app screens.

SMS verification allows iOS to automatically suggest the code, keeping users within the app and eliminating a major drop-off point in the funnel.

Against conventional wisdom about minimizing onboarding steps, Focus Tree found that a slightly longer onboarding process improves retention.

Their comprehensive onboarding includes collecting basic information, school selection through a custom-built database, contact synchronization for social features, and core concept explanation. Each step builds both functional utility and emotional investment in the app.

Focus Tree has nailed its onboarding.

Social Features Create Habitual Usage

Focus Tree draws inspiration from Strava's powerful habit-forming capabilities. Strava users typically won't run without recording their activity because the app has become integral to their identity as runners.

It's almost like if you run but you don't have Strava, you didn't really run in a way. Focus Tree aims to create this same psychological dynamic for studying.

The social layer allows users to showcase their study sessions to friends, creating both accountability and status recognition. Students can see friends' study gardens, creating subtle competitive motivation.

The target demographic—students aged 13-22—represents a particularly valuable user base since students acquired in early high school potentially remain users throughout their entire academic journey.

The social app king says that it is important to target teenagers for building any social app.

Whatever the teenagers do, adults follow. Look at Facebook or TikTok.

Venture Backing Enables Growth Over Monetization

With over $2 million in venture funding, Focus Tree prioritizes user acquisition over immediate revenue. Their north star metric focuses on user growth rather than monetization.

Their goal is to really go after the 500 million students in the world and just build the biggest thing ever. With customer acquisition costs at approximately $0.10 per user, the economics support aggressive growth before monetization.

This approach aligns with venture expectations for consumer apps: establish mass adoption first, then introduce monetization once network effects and user habits solidify. The global student market provides an enormous addressable audience.

Their current focus is on reducing CAC even further with the help of Nikita Bier by enabling sharing the app with friends Dropbox-style.

Product Ideas Come From Social Listening

Focus Tree discovered significant insights through careful observation of TikTok trends and user comments. This social listening revealed that while numerous focus apps targeted productivity-obsessed professionals with minimalist designs, mainstream students wanted something more gamified with vibrant colors.

Laurent built a typical black, minimalist productivity app and showed it to students and the students hated the minimalist hacker colors.

This insight revealed the opportunity to create an app specifically for mainstream students rather than productivity enthusiasts.

They observed that Forest, their main competitor, maintained popularity despite an outdated interface for 10 years because it better understood student preferences. This social listening approach identified a gap between existing products and user desires.

Untapped Niches Present Major Opportunities

Several markets remain ripe for this approach. Laurent specifically mentioned astrology apps as promising, noting apps like Co-Star that have created social mechanisms influencing real-world interactions.

The relative immaturity of the app growth space presents substantial opportunities. While e-commerce has dozens of conferences and established playbooks, the app growth space remains in early development.

The combination of TikTok's algorithm, improved app development tools, and creator-led marketing creates a perfect environment for capturing niches that traditional app developers overlook. The best opportunities exist where passionate communities lack well-designed, modern tools.

Saturation Creates New Challenges

The rapid growth of study talk apps has led to increased competition and faster saturation of winning formats. When Focus Tree identifies an effective content approach, competitors quickly copy it.

This compression requires constant innovation and close creator relationships.

In saturated niches like study talk, winning formats now last only 2-3 weeks versus 2-3 months in untapped categories. This acceleration demands faster iteration cycles and broader creator networks to maintain growth momentum.

Success Requires Media Immersion

For entrepreneurs interested in this space, deep niche understanding proves essential. Laurent spends at least 3 days on TikTok just scrolling through content for 8 hours straight just to understand the niche.

This immersion helps identify the subtle codes and preferences that make content resonate with specific audiences. Understanding color schemes, video pacing, caption styles, and trending sounds becomes as important as the app's functionality itself.

The most successful approach combines media expertise with product development, rather than treating them as separate concerns. The product becomes an extension of the media strategy, with features designed specifically to capitalize on the content that drives acquisition.

The Future Belongs to Media-First Applications

The combination of TikTok's algorithm changes, efficient app development tools, and creator-led distribution represents a fundamental shift in consumer app development. This approach democratizes app building by drastically reducing both development costs and customer acquisition expenses.

Focus Tree exemplifies how small teams can rapidly scale consumer applications by leveraging these trends. Their growth from a few hundred to over 110,000 weekly active users in 2 months demonstrates the potential of this approach.

For entrepreneurs willing to master both media and product aspects of this strategy, the potential for creating category-defining apps remains substantial. The current state resembles the early days of e-commerce—full of opportunity but not yet crowded with established players and standardized playbooks.

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