Jack and Charles Winston are two brothers who built a productivity app that’s driving 30K monthly downloads by mastering two simple viral formats on TikTok.
BePresent, a screen time management app launched in 2022 has driven organic impression growth with a simple strategy: Creating founder-led TikTok content. The App is currently generating $20K in MRR, and their strategy offers valuable insights into social distribution that you can recreate for your app.
The Multi-Account Network
The Winstons operate a network of 6 TikTok accounts and 2 Instagram accounts, with their founder profiles driving the majority of their 58M+ total views:
- @screentimejesus (Jack's personal account) - 4.4M views
- @chazwins (Charles' account) - 147K views
- @bepresentbros (joint founders account) - 53.3M views
- @el.bepresent (UGC creator account)
- two additional brand accounts with varied content
Three High-Converting Content Formats
Their strategy revolved around consistently deploying three simple, highly replicable formats:
1. Text-on-screen
- Format: Founders recording themselves (not talking) or using B-roll with trending audio and a text overlay
- Hooks: "the average person spends 6 hours a day on their phone"
- Performance: Multiple videos exceeding 7M views
2. Founder Talking Head Content
- Format: Founders recording themselves talking about a specific benefit or problem their app solves
- Spoken + Text Hooks "Three signs you need a dopamine detox"
3. Cover Selfie Slideshows
- Format: First slide shows creator selfie with hook text overlay, following slides display in-app screenshots
- Execution: Recycling the same cover photos across multiple slideshows
- Efficiency: Extremely replicable (5 selfies can produce a week's worth of content)
In addition to the two formats above, they seemed to briefly test a few other formats such as talking head and reaction videos, however, these formats don’t seem to have picked up enough traction in the short period they were trialled and were thus abandoned. Perhaps it could be worth exploring this angle a bit more in the future to see what will stick.
The Strategy in a Nutshell
- Founder authenticity - The brothers put themselves front and center, proudly putting their product forward which instantly builds viewer trust and relatability.
- Problem-solution pairing - Content directly addresses the pain point their product solves
- Content recycling - Reusing winning hooks and cover images across multiple videos
- Format consistency - Sticking with what works rather than constant experimentation
- Multi-account testing - Using separate accounts to test format variations
Growth Opportunities
Despite slowing their posting cadence in recent months, BePresent's strategy reveals untapped growth potential through:
- Creator expansion - Scaling their creator network beyond the @el.bepresent test case
- Hook optimization - Leveraging the data from their past approach to double down on proven hooks
- Cross-platform repurposing - Systematically adapting viral TikTok content for Instagram Reels
- Multi-format experimentation - Experimenting with a variety of different formats to discover new opportunities for engagement
This strategy proves that even a relatively simple app can achieve significant traction through founder-led content that directly addresses the problem the product solves. The Winston brothers' approach proves that consistent execution of winning formats is a valid strategy, but experimentation in bulk is also key.
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