Tactic
Time-bomb your app to sneak dirty content past Apple review
Cody Ko's iCapThat caption app kept getting rejected for inappropriate content. He wrote code so the offensive captions stayed hidden until 7 days after launch, knowing Apple's review took about a week. It passed clean, then unlocked the dirty version and hit #1 in the App Store.
“So then basically after 7 days, it would release all the dirty captions. So I got by the Apple review system. Amazing. And then everyone was like, oh my God, this app is so wild. Like, look at this, like swear words in it. And it just blew up. It was the number 1 app in the App Store.”
Steal thisIf a platform's review will block your edgy content, ship a compliant version that time-unlocks the real thing after the review window closes.
Story
#1 in the App Store above eBay and Google, $0 on marketing, no idea how to monetize
Cody Ko's caption app hit #1 in the App Store with zero marketing spend while he was still on campus. He had no clue how to make money from it and didn't know the first thing about setting up an ad SDK, which set up his decision to sell.
“Above like eBay and Google. And it was number 1 and I paid $0 for marketing. Right. And I'm on campus like, I don't know what to do. 'Cause I know I should be making money from this, but I'm not. And I have no idea how to make money or anything about business.”
Story
Sold his app for $50K, then his paid version made $200K in days
A Palo Alto mobile ad network acquired Cody Ko's iCapThat app for about $50K (half cash, half stock) and hired him. His first task was building iCapThat Plus, the paid version, which immediately made $200K, making him realize he should have done it himself.
“They acquired the app. I think it was like for $50K, half in cash, half in stock, which was great for me. It was a nice like lump sum to get a lump sum, sorry, to get like apartment and furniture and stuff. And then my first job was to make a sequel that was a paid version. Or no, actually, no, my first job was to make an iCapThat Plus, which was the paid version. Right. And we, we launched it and immediately it made $200 grand. And I was like, damn it.”
Story
Sold his app for $50K, then his paid version made $200K in days
A Palo Alto mobile ad network acquired Cody Ko's iCapThat app for about $50K (half cash, half stock) and hired him. His first task was building iCapThat Plus, the paid version, which immediately made $200K, making him realize he should have done it himself.
“They acquired the app. I think it was like for $50K, half in cash, half in stock, which was great for me. It was a nice like lump sum to get a lump sum, sorry, to get like apartment and furniture and stuff. And then my first job was to make a sequel that was a paid version. Or no, actually, no, my first job was to make an iCapThat Plus, which was the paid version. Right. And we, we launched it and immediately it made $200 grand. And I was like, damn it.”
Take
Treat the thing as an art, not a job, and the sincerity sells
Cody Ko grew his Vine audience by making videos daily as a hobby while programming paid the bills. He never tried to make it a job and treated it like an art, and credits the sincerity behind that for why audiences connected.
“Like, just was genuinely like, didn't try to make it a job. I just was like, programming is my job, this is my hobby, and I'm going to treat it like an art, right? Sort of. And that, that sort of paid off because I— people, I think people liked the sincerity behind it.”
Take
There's no trick, you just get good through reps over time
Asked how he got good at podcasting, YouTube and music, Cody Ko says there's no secret beyond consuming a lot of the form and doing it repeatedly. His first podcast episode was 'complete garbage'; everything improved through reps and learning to enjoy the 0-to-1 phase.
“But I mean, like the number one thing you can do is just do it. You just learn by doing, at least for me. Um, so that's, that's how I've gotten good is just reps over time. Because like, if you go and listen to my first episode of my podcast, it was complete garbage, right? It's just something I've gotten better at.”
Tactic
Never talk over your co-host: let each other speak and breathe
Cody Ko says the biggest thing he and Noel improved on with their That's Cringe videos was not interrupting each other. They riff hard but never step on each other's jokes, because audiences hate hearing people talk over one another.
“And like, that's one thing that I think we're really good at now is we never speak over each other. Like, we never interrupt. We're really good at riffing, but like, because we're innately just conscious of like, you know, the audience and what they want to hear. And no one likes to hear people interrupting and stepping all over each other's jokes, you know?”
Steal thisOn a multi-host show, let each person finish; stop interrupting and stepping on punchlines.
Tactic
Own the product you advertise so you capture all the upside
Cody Ko reasoned that sponsors like ExpressVPN, who pay year after year, must be earning far more than they spend, so the creator should own a product they promote and keep the full upside. The hard part was finding something that fit comedy, which solved itself once he got into endurance sports.
“But their return on investment must have been way higher, right? Otherwise they would then be crazy to rebuy the ads year after year. So I'm like, why don't we just like— it just makes sense for us to own something that we're promoting because then we see all the upside, right?”
Steal thisInstead of renting your audience to sponsors, build or buy the product you'd promote and keep the margin.
Number
Cody Ko's rap song 'Broke Bitch' has 50M+ streams, 'Walkman' near 85M
What started as comedy songs led to a deal with Arista. Cody Ko and Noel's track 'Broke Bitch' has over 50 million streams, and 'Walkman' is around 80-90 million, close to certified gold.
$50M
Streams of 'Broke Bitch' · streams
“we signed a music deal with Arista, and we released 2 songs with them, one of them being Broke Bitch, which now has like over 50 million streams. I think Walkman has like 80 million or 90 million.”
Idea
Shark Tank for creators: judges fund channels and take 10% as manager
Riffing on a 'Shark Tank for creators' format, the twist they land on: contestants pitch a channel or TikTok idea, and a winning judge funds it while becoming the creator's manager, taking 10% of everything they make going forward.
“And then you'd maybe like, as a judge, you'd be like, okay, now I get like 10% of, I'm your manager now. I get 10% of everything that you make in the future. That's a good idea.”
Steal thisRun a creator pitch show where judges fund the channel and earn an ongoing manager's cut instead of equity.
Story
Cameo was built in his living room and he passed, then bought into the Series A
Cody Ko's friends built Cameo right next to him and he dismissed it as not cool, choosing to go record a YouTube video instead. It blew up and he ended up paying a higher Series A price to invest, anchored to having watched it being built beside him.
“Then I go record a YouTube video like that's any cooler. And, uh, and then it blew the fuck up and then I ended up investing in Series A. Right. And I was like, these guys were building this beside me.”
Idea
AI tools that make creator thumbnails look weird enough to stop the scroll
Cody Ko sees a big opportunity in AI tools for creators, starting with thumbnails and titles. He's noticed people blend AI-cartoonized elements into thumbnails so something looks subtly off, which is what actually makes them eye-catching rather than blending in.
“I think AI like has kind of revolutionized. I mean, like it has everything, but I think it's, there's a lot of potential there to help creators, whether it's with like thumbnails, something as simple as a thumbnail or a title. Right. Like I've noticed people using AI to make their thumbnails stand out in crazy ass ways.”
Steal thisBuild an AI thumbnail tool that makes images look subtly 'off' and eye-catching rather than just high-contrast.
Take
Good thumbnails don't win on contrast, they win on looking different
Cody Ko argues the conventional thumbnail wisdom of contrast and bright colors actually causes thumbnails to blend in, because everyone does it. The real goal is to look different enough that viewers sense something is weird about it.
“Which is what it takes to stand out. It doesn't, like, you know, people think that a good thumbnail is like contrast and colors and it's like a lot of times that ends up blending in, right? You just want to look different.”
Idea
Train AI on a podcast's back catalog to write and voice the ads automatically
Cody Ko's most obvious AI opportunity in podcasting: feed an AI the transcripts of 500 episodes so it learns how the hosts speak, then have it write ads in their voice and synthesize their voices to read them, so they never record again. He thinks the ad version should happen immediately.
“The most obvious to me being like just, you know, training some, you know, AI on how we speak, just feeding it the transcript of our 500 episodes, right? And then having it write the ads for us in our own voice and then actually synthesizing our voices and reading the ads for us so we don't actually have to record anything. Right. And then eventually just doing the whole podcast.”
Steal thisTrain a voice model on a show's full transcript archive and auto-generate host-read ads in their cloned voice.
Story
Lemon drops with Post Malone, then a 2am summons to Elon's empty party house
Cody Ko's wildest night: Post Malone DM'd him, they got drinks at the Rainbow Room, and mid-night Post got a text from Elon Musk saying 'come over.' They drove to Elon's furniture-less party house where Elon and Grimes greeted them on the driveway with lanterns.
“And then he showed us his phone. It was like Elon Musk. He was like, come over. And we were like, and he was like, he was like, should we go over to his house? And we were like, uh, yeah. I mean, you can't really say no to that. Yeah. And so we got in cars and drove to his house and, uh, we got to his house and him and Grimes are like standing on the driveway with lanterns. Like, welcome to my house.”
Story
Cody Ko unlocked product-market fit
After roughly 6 months of failing to find product-market fit with pro athletes, co-founder Devin suggested putting his roommate Cody Ko (3M YouTube followers) on the platform. The moment Cody joined, Cameo took off, with ex-Vine stars becoming the first great talent.
“Cassius Marsh, who was my co-founder Martin's client and is an NFL player, he was the first talent to come on very quickly after about 6 months of not finding product market fit with pro athletes. Devin one day was like, hey, I think Cody, his roommate with 3 million followers on YouTube, and people like Cody, Cody Ko, would do really well on this platform. And the second we put Cody on, that's when it really kind of blew up”