How to make apps go viral by Abhilash Inumella (CEO - Samosa Labs)

Summary

Abhilash Inumella, CEO of Samosa Labs, describes how to design apps that grow through genuine word of mouth, rather than by pressuring users to spam their contacts. His central idea is that viral products make communication with a user’s inner circle easier or more appealing by reducing a social inhibition or awkwardness.

Framework for Viral-Product Design

• Define virality as organic word of mouth: Users like a product enough to talk about it or naturally share what they create.
• Design for everyday communication: Consider how the product can fit into ordinary conversations and exchanges.
• Focus on close relationships: A product may help users connect with a partner or close friends—the people they most want to communicate with.
• Reduce a social inhibition: Identify what makes people hesitate to share or communicate, then design an experience that lowers that friction.
• Consider what the format makes possible: The key question is not simply whether a product uses text, photos, or audio, but what awkwardness, formality, or uncertainty that format helps overcome.

Examples

• Bobble: Turns faces into cartoons, easing concerns about how someone looks in an image.
• Snapchat: Disappearing messages can make sharing feel less formal, while filters and masks can make selfies more entertaining to send.
• Prisma: Makes photos look more polished or beautiful.
• Dubsmash and Talking Tom: Make voice-based sharing playful, reducing discomfort about hearing or sharing one’s own voice.
• Samosa: Uses audio to avoid some of the ambiguity of text, which can be misinterpreted.
• Yo: Offers a minimal way to communicate with close contacts.

Inumella sees a shared pattern among these products: they can make communication with close relationships easier, more expressive, or less awkward.

Product-Discovery Practices

• Study actual sharing behavior. Samosa’s team noticed that users frequently shared romantic clips and investigated how sharing fit into their everyday lives.
• Talk to users over time. The team asked which apps people used and what they shared from them. Inumella says the framework emerged through months of observation and user research, rather than being fully formed at the outset.
• Look for unmet expression needs. People may have many private photos they do not share, suggesting a gap between what they create and what they feel comfortable sharing.
• Use the framework as a filter, not a formula. It can help assess whether an idea addresses a meaningful communication barrier, but it does not guarantee virality or mechanically generate ideas.
• Observe everyday moments of hesitation. Situations in which people hold back from communicating with someone important may point to product opportunities.
• Account for cultural assumptions in technology. Inumella notes that product behavior may not work equally well for everyone. For example, he says camera processing can make darker-skinned people appear darker in group photos, suggesting an opportunity to improve the experience.
• Explore context-specific products. He cites the Chinese app Fenda as an example of a product that may be distinctive to its market, and encourages examining cultural context rather than assuming products will transfer unchanged across countries.

Metrics and Targets

The subtitles do not state revenue, growth, acquisition, retention, or other business targets.

Presenters and Source

• Presenter: Abhilash Inumella, CEO of Samosa Labs
• Interviewer and channel: Ravi Kanth