You Built the App. Now Give People a Reason to Try It.

0:00 I came across a video about AI killing the app economy. And it left me with a different question. If we're getting better at building apps, why do we leave finding users until the very end? You

0:10 fix the bugs, polish the interface, finally hit publish, and then you're staring at a link. The thing exists, but somebody still needs a reason to click it, and there's a lot more arriving

0:20 alongside it. Revenue Cat's 2026 report puts new subscription app launches at around 2,000 a month in January 2022. By January 2026, that was more than 14,700. That's roughly seven times as many new

0:34 subscription apps entering each month. It doesn't mean every category is hopeless. It does mean the act of shipping tells us very little about whether people will notice. Now, the

0:43 other half of this story needs care. Sensor Tower reports that worldwide app downloads actually grew slightly in 2025. Spending on paid apps and inapp purchases grew, too. So, a crowded

0:54 market isn't the same thing as a dead one. that made me want to try the part after building. Could I take a simple app idea, explain its value, and make a few different pieces of content around

1:04 it, something useful enough to watch before asking anyone to care about a product? Higsfield is sponsoring this experiment. I'm using its plug-in inside ChatGpt to work through the ideas and

1:14 generate the images and videos. You'll see the early attempts, the changes I asked for, and the results I still wouldn't call finished. The setup starts on Higsfield's connection page. It

1:24 points you to the plugin in chat GPT where you add it and sign in. Mine is already available here so I can start a conversation with Higsfield selected. For the product, I used a fictional app

1:35 idea called Next Session. You leave yourself a note about where you stop coding. Save the useful links and write down what to do next. No working app behind this. I'm testing how to

1:44 communicate the idea. It's a small problem, but a recognizable one. You return to a side project and spend the first few minutes trying to understand what past you was doing. Even your own

1:54 variable names start looking suspicious. So, my first prompt explains who this is for and what they're struggling with. I asked for three content angles, then an actual promotional image through

2:04 Higsfield. I wanted something I could react to beyond a list of suggestions. The suggestions stay close to that problem. Reopening a project, leaving a note for your future self, and finally

2:15 finding time to code on a Sunday. I went with the first angle because you can recognize the situation before you've heard the app's name. Here's the first image. Where was I? Big headline, dark

2:26 desk, orange light, and a note beside the laptop. You get the idea quickly, but the look is quite dramatic for a tool that's meant to make an ordinary workday a little easier. I still tried

2:36 turning it into a video. In the same conversation, I asked Higsfield to use that image as the reference, start with reopening the project, and finish with the next step. This is the 12 second

2:46 result. [music] The image has become a little sequence. The laptop opens, the question appears, and then we get the note and the app

3:05 name. But it still feels more like an animated poster than a person dealing with the problem. I wanted to try a different visual direction. So, I went back to the image first. My message was

3:14 pretty simple. I didn't like how styled the previous one felt. Could we try natural daylight, a believable workspace, and a developer actually sitting at the laptop? This is the new

3:24 image. It's much closer to the mood I had in mind. The desk, the notebook, the window light. There's a person you can connect the situation to. It's generated imagery. Of course, this isn't a

3:35 customer endorsing a real app. For the next video, I gave it a more specific sequence. Push toward the laptop. Pause on the developer. Then introduce where I stopped, useful links, and next step.

3:46 After that, bring the three ideas together under next session and pull back. That gives the camera move a job. We're moving closer while the problem becomes clear and widening again when

3:56 the next action appears. Here's how that request came out. [snorts] I prefer this direction, but it still needs work. Some of the movement feels

4:18 staged, and those floating labels aren't a finished product demonstration. They're helping explain a concept. I'd make the next pass simpler and check each transition before using it in a

4:28 real campaign. Part of that is on my brief. I asked for camera moves, graphics, timing, and a particular feeling all at once. If the result feels busy, saying make it more professional,

4:38 doesn't tell the tool which part to fix. I need to point to the shot that's bothering me. Then I tried a different kind of post. Instead of starting with the product, give someone a useful

4:48 habit. Before you close your editor, leave yourself three things. Where you stopped, the links you'll need, and your next step. I kept the same person and workspace, so it still belongs to the

4:58 same campaign, but the opening now promises a tip. The prompt asks for a short voice over and an example for each item. Here's the full 20-se secondond version with its generated sound. Before

5:11 you close your editor, leave yourself three things. Where you stopped, useful links, the links you'll need, and your next step. That's the idea behind next session,

5:25 making it easier to pick things back off. The examples make this easier to understand. Fixing login tells you where you stopped. O documentation is the

5:35 link. Test the redirect is a concrete next action. You can try that habit with a notebook, even if this app never gets built. There's also something to clean up here. The generated voice repeats

5:45 part of the link's instruction. That's the kind of detail I'd catch before posting. The image, text, movement, and sound all have to agree. A video file being ready doesn't mean the edit is

5:55 ready. For me, this is the more useful content angle. It gives the viewer something first, and the app idea follows naturally from that. Whether it gets more attention is still a question.

6:04 I haven't published these or measured how people respond. Finally, I asked for launch images. Three separate directions using the same headline. Leave tomorrow you a starting point. One led by the

6:16 photo, one by typography, and one showing a simple concept card. Same message, different ways into it. Here they are together. The photo version gives you the person and the setting.

6:27 The typography version makes the promise the first thing you read. The concept version shows a small piece of how the idea could work and it labels that as a mockup. I'd start by testing the photo

6:37 version alongside the practical explainer. They feel like they belong together. The textled image could be useful when the headline needs to do more of the work. That's an editorial

6:46 choice for now, not a performance result. What helped was keeping the core problem steady while changing how I showed it. The first attempt was a dark stylized desk, then a person in a

6:56 natural setting, then a useful tip, and finally a few launch layouts. Each gave me something specific to compare. These are still drafts. I wouldn't claim I've made a great campaign just because I've

7:07 exported a handful of files, but I do have a clearer sense of the message, what I like visually, and what needs another pass. That's a useful place to get to. If you try this for your own

7:17 app, start with one person and one problem. Show the problem in a way they recognize. Make something helpful around it. Then see whether people respond. The comments and actual visits can tell you

7:27 what the next version needs. And that brings me back to the launch. Publishing an app gives people a place to go. It doesn't explain why they should go there or why they should come back. You still

7:36 have to earn that with the product and the way you communicate it. The Higsfield plugin is available directly inside ChatGpt. You can install it through my link in the description and

7:45 try this workflow yourself. Generation uses Higsfield credits. So, check the cost for the model you choose. The link is also in the pinned comment. I'm curious which direction you'd try first,

7:55 the cinematic clip, the practical tip, or one of the launch images. For my next pass, I'd work on the practical version. Clear message, fewer moving parts, and one real problem to solve.