Plutus Media

How Tea went from days away from shutting down to #1 in the US App Store, with 13,060,428 downloads at $0.03 per install

One accidental viral video showed the product worked. Plutus built the engine that made it happen on purpose.

13,060,428downloads during the partnership, ~98% in the US

#1
US App Store within 60 days, ahead of ChatGPT and Threads. Held for 2 weeks straight.
290.9M
views on Plutus creator content
10
creators, each posting multiple times a day
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Results

Business outcomes

13,060,428
downloads during the partnership, ~98% in the US
$0.03
cost per install
~$800K
peak MRR
Third-party store intelligence, last 30 days at peak: $2.33M revenue, 13.06M downloads, 98% United States.
Third-party store intelligence, last 30 days at peak: $2.33M revenue, 13.06M downloads, 98% United States.

Qualified acquisition

#1
US App Store within 60 days, ahead of ChatGPT and Threads. Held for 2 weeks straight.
Paid ads off
organic volume got so strong Tea turned off paid ads so the servers could breathe

Channel performance

290.9M
views on Plutus creator content
1B+
additional views from people talking about Tea on X and other platforms, ~500M on X alone, none of it paid for
The spillover on X: 43.4M, 7.9M, 4.8M and 1.7M-view posts from people who loved the idea, hated it, and everything in between. All of it turned into awareness and installs.
The spillover on X: 43.4M, 7.9M, 4.8M and 1.7M-view posts from people who loved the idea, hated it, and everything in between. All of it turned into awareness and installs.

Execution proof

10
creators, each posting multiple times a day
16,914
posts

Client snapshot

App
Tea · women-only dating-safety app where users anonymously share information and warnings about men (Social / Dating)
Audience
Single women in the US
Stage
Solid product, under 200K users, days away from shutting down
Existing channels
In-house UGC (~100 videos, almost all died at 200–300 views) and paid ads. Neither produced growth.
Starting point
One accidental video hit 3 million views and flooded the app with downloads. The product was fine. Distribution was broken.

Hear Sean’s story directly from him (40-minute interview)

In their words

“Honestly the campaigns have been kicking ass for us! It’s been largely hands off for me and my team entirely.”
Sean Cook. Founder & CEO, Tea
Sean’s message to the Plutus team the night Tea hit #2 in the US stores.
Sean’s message to the Plutus team the night Tea hit #2 in the US stores.
“I can’t say enough good things about this team. (…) I was pretty nervous going into this. I thought it was too good to be true.”
Sean Cook. Founder & CEO, Tea

The problem

Tea had shipped a product people wanted, but nobody was seeing it. About 100 in-house UGC videos died at 200 to 300 views each.

Why now
Sean, the founder, went camping ready to come back and turn the lights off. While he was off the grid, one video did 3 million views and the app filled up. Within 48 hours it was obvious: the app was fine, distribution was broken. He needed that moment to happen on purpose, not by luck.
What success meant
Turn attention into US installs and MRR at a cost a bootstrapped app could survive, fast enough to catch the wave before it passed.

Objective

Primary objective

US installs, driven by repeatable organic reach rather than a single viral spike

Supporting metrics

  • App Store chart position in the US
  • Cost per install vs. what paid would have cost

What Plutus did

  1. Creator system

    Hand-picked and onboarded 10 creators matched to single women in the US. Switched the style from polished, expensive videos to raw, low-fi clips that feel like real word of mouth.

  2. Testing system

    Each creator posted multiple times a day, testing hooks and angles fast. If something worked, the team did more of it. If not, they killed it and moved on. 16,914 posts in total.

  3. Optimization system

    Used the TikTok comment section on purpose. Creators prompted people and sparked debate, so every video became a conversation. At peak, comments asking for the app passed 100K likes. That fed the algorithm and pushed the winning formats further.

24.6M views on TikTok

7.8M views on TikTok

7.6M views on TikTok

A user comment asking for the app: 114.9K likes. When strangers start asking for your product in the comments, the market is telling you what it wants.
A user comment asking for the app: 114.9K likes. When strangers start asking for your product in the comments, the market is telling you what it wants.
It got loud enough online that CNN, AP News, Essence and Fox picked it up.
It got loud enough online that CNN, AP News, Essence and Fox picked it up.

The learning

The biggest lesson was that raw, low-fi creator content posted at high frequency beats polished content posted occasionally, and that the comment section is a distribution channel in its own right. Prompting debate turned each video into a conversation the algorithm kept pushing, which carried Tea past a one-off spike into sustained chart position. This gave the client a decision: stop treating virality as luck, run creators as a daily testing system, and switch off paid spend because organic was outperforming it.

What happened next

Still on a monthly retainer, running since May 2025.

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