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Date(s) - June 30, 2024 - December 31, 2024
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Last night I was sent a code for a $75 gift card for an app I hadn’t heard about before called Flip. Before I swiped it to junk thinking my friend lost her phone (or her mind), she followed it up with a message assuring me its not a scam and I should try it out. I was intrigued. Who can resist digging into a good GTM hack?

🅶🅴🆃🅵🆁🅴🅴 𝐂𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐊 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄

Before we get into it, think of Flip as  – Shoppable short-form videos that are basically product reviews with an attached in-app marketplace.

It’s not groundbreaking for companies to offer monetary incentives to acquire customers – tale as old as time. What struck me is Flip’s added nuance to this classic GTM strategy. When I went on the app myself, the section where it prompted me to link my contacts and send similar codes to my friends was very surprising.

Instead of a standard cash reward for all, Flip is using a graded incentive model. The value of the cash you can send to a contact is directly proportional to how connected that contact is within the Flip community. I had friends ranging form $30 (0 friends on Flip) to $150 (100+ friends on Flip). ‍

Flip’s strategy isn’t just about acquiring users; it’s about acquiring the right users. By offering higher incentives for users with a stronger network connection, they are trying to kickstart the network effect from a cold start. It is intuitive that users with many connections on the platform are more valuable to a company because they’re more likely to stay engaged – I’ve just never seen someone ascribe a clear $ value to this delta before! They double up your likelihood to invite these higher value users by giving you the same $ incentive as the friends you invite to the platform via a give-to-get tactic. This has got to be very expensive for the company; I wonder if it is equally effective.

The downside with this classic approach has always been that whenever users can cash out immediately (as one can with Flip), retention plummets post the initial bump. That was the genius behind Robinhood’s incentive system – they offered customers a free stock which was captive on their platform and ensured engagement for users to benefit from it. When you can easily use up the cash bonus, the conversion rate on these hacks is abysmally low.

But Flip is very clearly focused on higher incentives for users that have higher likelihood of sticking around because of the power of community. I’m very curious to see how this goes vs one-size-fits-all cash offers.

They’ve definitely caught people’s attention, now will they get the retention?What do you think?