You're hiring for the wrong skill.
"Go viral every week" sounds like growth. It's a treadmill. Spikes don't retain — the user who came for a meme leaves for the next one, and you start from zero on Monday.
The people who'll actually move your numbers aren't trend-chasers. They're distribution operators. They get your app embedded where your users already are: partners, integrations, communities, rails.
One good partnership beats ten viral posts. It just doesn't get a screenshot.
Hire for distribution. Virality is what happens when you do it right.
Not just being contrarian. Here's how I'd get an app users without betting on a single viral post.
Find the rails. Your users already live somewhere — a wallet, a Discord, a competitor, a newsletter, an exchange. I don't build an audience from zero. I borrow ones that already exist.
Strike the embed. Integration beats impression. Get the app inside a partner's flow so their distribution becomes yours. One integration with the right partner outperforms a month of content.
Engineer the loop. Every new user should pull in the next — referral mechanics, shareable output, status. Virality designed into the product, not begged for on the timeline.
Then amplify. Now content has somewhere to land. The spike feeds a system instead of evaporating.
Marketer vs growth operator: one rents attention, the other owns distribution. If you want both — the spike and the system — DMs open.
Whoever told you you need virality to grow lied to you
That’s a misplaced priority.
Get me wrong or not, this is the fastest way to your app’s early grave.
All you need is build trust with the 20% who are loyal to you.
Nurture and prioritize them, and watch them become your unpaid evangelists.