Beyond Virality: What It Really Takes to Build Apps That Last w/ Jonathan Maxim | S2E9

Full Episode Transcript

This is the full recorded conversation from The Human Protocol Podcast, published by The Human Protocol Group. © 2026 The Human Protocol Group. Please link to and attribute the original episode when referencing this conversation.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (00:01.47)
And welcome to the Human Protocol, the podcast about staying human while building the future. I am your host, Mykel Salomon. Today's episode is for founders who are tired of chasing spikes. Instead, they want to build something that actually lasts. Because in the AI era, shipping an app, it's easier than ever. Getting attention also may be easier than ever.

And going viral, it's also easier than probably ever. But yet, most products still fail, still disappear. My guest today is Jonathan Maxim. And Jonathan, thank you for coming to the Human Protocol. It's a pleasure to have you on.

Jonathan Maxim (00:47.522)
excited to be here. Thank you so much, Michael. Ready to rock.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (00:50.19)
Awesome, appreciate you. And just for our audience, I would like you if you can give us a brief introduction of who Jonathan is.

Jonathan Maxim (01:02.848)
Absolutely. So I'm the app launch guy. My job is to help founders. You know, just imagine you had an app. It's my job to get 10,000 users and 20 investment deductions for your startup. So I've launched over 300 apps at this point since 2014. Very familiar with the process. My process actually goes product marketing, sales, virality, and capital raising. And you can see that virality is actually stage four of the process. And that's because we're so focused on building the fundamental engine, the product

first, then the growth engine, is marketing, and then the sales engine so that when we go viral, it's a profit printer, right? We don't want a product to go viral that has no monetization, for example, 100,000 users paying $0 is still $0 for the business. So heavily focused on helping founders scale profitably, get their product into market, get real honest feedback from users, and optimize a product around those users and really solve problems for people. That's what it's all

about. So that's what I do. with the advent of AI, there's so many new apps that are coming out here today. You can literally develop an app in an afternoon for about $25. So this has just opened the world. It has created massive opportunity for founders in every corner of the world, no matter where you come from, no matter how much money you have, you can create an app successfully and launch it to 10,000 users.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (02:13.837)
Ryan?

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (02:28.662)
Yeah, it's amazing what AI can do today. But it's also amazing how many new apps are being created and how many apps are failing, right? And I think you briefly touched on the reason why, but I want us to get started from the very beginning. So you've seen a lot of app launching, right? And maybe succeeding, probably succeeding, not maybe, probably succeeding, but also failing.

Why do you think it's that and what does not virality do for those?

Jonathan Maxim (03:01.744)
Well, a lot of people think of virality as either getting a million views on Instagram, for example. But if you look at, say, one of my videos that's gone viral, it gets about 1,000 profile engagements for a million reach, and then about, I don't know, 200, 300 link clicks, which only results in about 100 downloads.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (03:21.166)
A thousand profiles.

That's what you said for a million views.

Jonathan Maxim (03:26.992)
A million views, thousand profile visits, and a few hundred link clicks. So the numbers, just because you're getting seen by a lot of people doesn't mean they're actually engaging with your Instagram profile and downloading your apps. So.

Virality doesn't really mean a lot in that regard. You have to be getting constant millions of reach to get those thousands of downloads. So I really try to refocus people on the numbers that actually count, which is how many people are downloading the app and actually engaging with it and getting value from it. So it's just a very different thing. There's this lottery mindset that a lot of people, including myself, fell into in the early ages of tech where you make an app, you post it on the app store and it goes viral, but...

That's very rare these days. doesn't just happen by chance. It's not just this gold mine, this gold rush. Nowadays you have to really engineer it, but that's also a good thing because if it can be engineered, anybody can do it. It's just a system and a process that we have to do.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (04:28.334)
And when you say engineer for people that may not be as familiar as probably you on this. So where I'm seeing, for example, I created this podcast six, seven months ago. It's hard to get it out there. It's hard to get people to reach out to people. And what you're saying is exactly that. It's not as probably easy as it used to be.

to make something that is seen by a lot of people. And I think Instagram and all these other platforms, they're making more, they're making harder for our content to really reach out mass amount of people, right?

Jonathan Maxim (05:10.64)
But like I said before there is a recipe and if you follow the recipe it will work Whether that's for launching an app or whether that's for going viral on Instagram for example on my personal page We just started posting there about 20 days ago had two videos go viral ones at 4.3 million and another ones at 1.5 million reach right now and all we did was Deconstruct the most viral videos in my niche Broke out the pieces. What's the hook? What's the concept in the content?

What's the editing style? What's the audio and what's the caption? So we just reconstructed videos that had already gone viral before. Now that process of breaking down a viral system or, you know, let's just say reverse engineering somebody else's video can be applied to apps too. If we follow the steps of improving the product and the user experience, if we build a growth engine, marketing engine for that app, and if we put monetization and we activate the sales component,

The input and output of users downloading, giving you money for your app and sharing it with their friends is a virtuous cycle. And so that's something that will automatically perpetuate and grow on its own. Whereas a lot of people, when they come to launch an app, they think, I just got to like post this on social media and go viral there. But then they don't get any engagement or sales or downloads because there's more to it than that. There's really those five components. And I think that's what people need to understand when they get into, let's just say you've made an app with AI.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (06:38.989)
Hmm.

Jonathan Maxim (06:39.042)
It's not just as simple as posting a few videos, even if they do go viral, it's not gonna make your app itself go viral. What makes the app go viral is having a referral component built into it. Meaning the users cannot get the maximum value from the app unless they share it with a friend. So either they unlock features or they get a discount, for example, a month free of premium. You wanna build those logical levers so that users by nature of using the app,

share with their friends.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (07:10.658)
Right. And that's the referral engine that you're saying it's like really what makes the dream work, right? In a way, that's where the magic is.

Jonathan Maxim (07:20.548)
Yeah, and that's where it grows on its own, where you don't have to exert additional effort, where you don't have to spend a ton of money. Once the users are marketing the platform for you, then it grows on its own.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (07:33.262)
So what would you tell to those people that are trying to invest money in ads or any of those other tools and processes that people do to try to go viral?

Jonathan Maxim (07:46.404)
Well, that's actually a great question because a lot of people will wonder, like, should I use ads? Should I pay to get users on this platform? And the answer is yes, kind of. You want to use them at the beginning because that helps accelerate the process of getting to those first 10,000 users. When you get to that first 10,000 users, then you've got enough data, enough volume of users to really understand whether this product's solving their problem, how profitable it is, what's my customer acquisition cost, how much lifetime value does a user generate?

All those metrics will show through once you get to that first 10,000 users. So what we do is we use ads to get to those first 10,000 users, and then we bring in the organic component and we have them work together and an engine that complements itself, right? So all the content that we're putting out on social media to go organically viral ends up becoming our ads because stuff that does well in organic social media also performs well in ads. again, becomes a virtuous cycle, which again, you have to follow the process and what

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (08:40.078)
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Maxim (08:46.224)
What gets a lot of founders tripped up is they try to do all of this at once. They try to build the referral engine while monetizing, while building the product. And really you should only do one thing at a time. Focus on the main constraint of the business. If the product is not strong, that's what you should be working on only. Not worrying about marketing, not worrying about sales, not worrying about capital raising. Just focus on fixing the product. So what I really try to encourage founders to do so that they don't become overwhelmed because most...

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (08:50.444)
the beginning right right

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (09:07.682)
Yeah.

Jonathan Maxim (09:16.324)
You just like you starting this podcast, right? You see that there's a distribution component. There's an editing component. There's a writing component. It's a lot of work. If you try to do everything all at once, like getting the biggest guests in the world when you're still working on what your author voice is, that's going to cause a, it's going to create tension in your mind. It's going to be difficult. Same thing with founders. You can't be boiling the ocean, right? You just work on one core component of the product at a time, whether that's sales marketing.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (09:41.386)
It's a step by step process, right? At the end of the day.

Jonathan Maxim (09:45.698)
And that process requires focus. You can't get distracted.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (09:48.558)
Yeah. And while you were saying the 10,000 number, just from my understanding, where the 10,000 metric comes from, why is that number?

Jonathan Maxim (10:06.02)
Well, it started from investors asking for it. If you're a founder and you got an app and you say, hey, I want to get investment, they're going to say, come to me when you have 10,000 or more users. And the reason they are asking for it is because they want to see statistically significant data. So they don't want to see five or 10 users. That's just not enough volume to say, hey, this works at a small scale. It's going to work in a large scale. When we get into the thousands, then that's real data that can take statistical analysis seriously.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (10:09.179)
got it.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (10:23.768)
Hmm.

Jonathan Maxim (10:33.764)
That's why they do it. The reason why we do it is because we want to get enough users on the platform so we can understand how profitable it is. Usually by 10,000 users, we can get the platform profitable. And so that's what really unlocks everything because if we know we invest $10 to get a user and they give us $20 in revenue, we invest everything that we've got in it. Why? Because it's doubling our

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (10:57.026)
Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for explaining that because I was curious to understand where the number comes from and that makes total sense. And yeah, I totally agree with you. think for anyone starting a business or an idea, yes, at the beginning, we really want to achieve everything all at once. And I also find myself, from a personal point of view with the podcast, it's really a step-by-step process. There's so much time.

during the day that you can dedicate to something and you really need to try to deconstruct the outcomes in smaller pieces where you can actually focus on achieving those pieces until you can get to the bigger goal, right, on what it is. So that makes total sense, especially when you're getting started. You are limited in resources. You are limited in time.

you have to focus on what's going to add value on the steps that are going to get value and going to get you closer to achieving your goals.

Jonathan Maxim (12:01.944)
Yeah, it's a real game of patience because we see all these opportunities like, I should be on TikTok. I should be on LinkedIn. I need to have a founder led brand. All of these are essentially distractions and they may be real opportunities, but in comparison to like what, like what's the biggest priority right now? And a lot of founders, that's the biggest issues. They don't know what to prioritize early on. That's why I'm so focused on saying, hey, let's do it in this order.

so you don't get overwhelmed. I'll give them a clear expectation around how much budget you need to make this happen so that if they don't have that budget, they can wait until they can either get investment or they can save up the money so they can do it right and not be scrambling and panicking. There's a quote that I love that goes, most people overestimate what they can achieve in six months and underestimate what they can achieve in six years. And the reason people say that is because

In those first six months, you're so excited. You want to get everything done. I'm sure you felt this when you first started the podcast, like I'm trying to do it all and working nights and weekends and all this stuff. But what really pays off is the long-term game because you know, when you're trying to do all of everything in those first six months, what happens to most people is they get burnt out. It's too overwhelming. It's too much responsibility. They're not making much progress because they're spread so thin. And that's really sad because people come in with pure intent. They really want to make an impact on the world. Just like you, you know, you're

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (13:00.686)
You

Jonathan Maxim (13:22.672)
with their podcasts is I wanna help other people out. I wanna empower the world. I wanna share my voice and share my experience, save other people time and effort. So people come from a good place, but if they don't go and look at who's done it before and see what mistakes they can learn from, they end up doing what I did, which was trying to do too much, trying to do it all at once, and then ended up having a panic attack.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (13:46.254)
Hmm.

Jonathan Maxim (13:50.384)
you know, having a breakdown on my first startup, ended up getting into meditation and yoga to kind of deal with that stress. Yeah, but it doesn't have to be that way is what I'm saying. Like that was, you know, that was my own crash and burn.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (13:56.622)
I hope you all, yeah.

It doesn't. Well, we start with so much energy, right, Jonathan? We start with these dreams and we want to conquer the world and we're saying, my God, this is the idea that is going to make it. And then we get started and then we try to make it and then reality kicks in.

Jonathan Maxim (14:19.6)
Yeah. And reality can hurt a lot, right? For me, that reality hit when I had invested the a hundred thousand dollars that I had saved up from working corporate. I burned through all of it, getting users. And this is my own personal experience. I didn't have monetization built into the app. So my app went viral two or three times. One day it got 14,000 downloads. Another day it got 11,000 downloads and total we got 46,000 people on the app.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (14:33.677)
Right.

Jonathan Maxim (14:44.336)
but I didn't have monetization going. So I was making no money on that. And then at some point I ran out of my own savings and I was out of luck, right? And at that point I had to sell the company wholesale to my old co-founder because I couldn't sustain to run the company any longer. However, in today's world, if I were to go back and do it again, just imagine that I had a premium program for 10 bucks a month in that. And we're converting 5 % of my users to five times 40,000, let's just say.

2000 paying users paying 10,000 $10 a month. You're talking about $20,000 a month of recurring revenue So if I was making 20k a month back then with my app I would have easily Continued and there would have been a major success to this day because I would have been able to work on it for the last 10 years so again, like just as little tweak in my understanding if I had just had the chance to talk to somebody who had done it before and said like You know, what do I need to do now? That's gonna save me later and I would have told myself monetize those users

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (15:37.154)
Hmm.

Jonathan Maxim (15:41.476)
You paid $100,000 in marketing to acquire 50,000 users essentially, and you're giving those users value. They should be paying you for it so they can sustain the company to continue building an app that solves their problem.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (15:53.518)
And when you say monetize those users, you mean users paying for subscription or paying to access the app? Is that what you mean?

Jonathan Maxim (16:03.362)
Either paying for in-app upgrades, either paying to remove ads, subscriptions, premium services.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (16:08.61)
Right.

Upselling or cross-selling, whatever it is within the gacha. Yeah.

Jonathan Maxim (16:16.11)
Yeah, and if a lot of founders say, I don't want to charge my users because I want to give it to them free. I want to have the platform start spreading and go viral.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (16:24.812)
Well, how sustainable is that, Jonathan?

Jonathan Maxim (16:28.098)
It's not really sustainable because I mean, you just look at my personal story. Eventually it cleared me out and ended up leaving me in debt at the time. And nobody wants that. So I always encourage people, unless you're a company coming out of Silicon Valley that's got $20 million in seed funding and has everything, all the stars aligned in your favor, 99 % of founders are not operating like that. 99 % of people like me and you who live in cities outside of Silicon Valley,

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (16:35.468)
Yeah.

Jonathan Maxim (16:56.688)
who need a real practical plan that can scale with them where they actually make money. And if a founder says, I don't want to charge my users, I tell them, well, then you're not providing enough value. If the customers are not willing to pay for it, if it's free, then somehow you're not providing enough value. So they need to go back to a drawing board and figure out how to provide more value in the app.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (17:08.782)
Yep.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (17:18.05)
And yet we see so many apps that a regular user like me, for example, or anyone else, it's free to download. So where is the money coming from on those companies? Are coming from investors? They're just trying to get more users and trying to scale and see what's going to happen next because there is a lot that you don't have to pay for.

Jonathan Maxim (17:41.205)
Yeah, that's a good point. The bottom line is most of those are backed by investors, especially if they're popular enough that pretty much everybody is using them. They're using investor money to do that. Now, in a lot of cases, those products are actually valuable. Like I would pay for Gmail, for example. That's an app that's really valuable. would pay for it, but you can use it for free. So a lot of companies, it's like apples and oranges. Companies that have the budget.

in the capacity to run a software for free at a multimillion user scale, those ones are, that's a different category company. They're coming from a company like Google that has billions of dollars dedicated just to innovation and they go and back founders. Whereas if you're an everyday founder and you don't have multimillions in the bank, then that strategy is simply not going to work. It's just a pipe dream. And that's why I share this message because 99 % of founders are not going to hit a lottery.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (18:11.906)
Mm-hmm.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (18:29.688)
Right.

Jonathan Maxim (18:38.704)
they're going to have to work their way up brick by brick. And in practice, that actually makes a good businessman because what makes a good businessman is managing the inflow and outflow of money. So when you're really good at business, you're not only bringing in good revenue, but you're managing to create margin. And so it creates a good business practices out of that founder for somebody who's maybe never done it before. Most people who create apps are first time founders.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (19:03.574)
Yeah, it's great that you went over that because really sustainable growth, especially when you are getting started, we all need to have in mind that sustainable growth will be boring, right? And that's probably the point while we're learning what's working, what's not working. And it's not all the shiny stuff. my God, you know, we're going to just go viral. We're going to get just these millions of money tomorrow. That's not the point. You have to know your business. You have to see where you're adding value.

And it's a step-by-step process, right? It's like...

Jonathan Maxim (19:38.478)
Yeah, I really wish that people take that seriously. I will tell them that, you know, it's actually a good thing when it starts to get boring because that means that you've figured out processes that work and you're optimizing them.

And if it's boring for you, that means it's boring for everybody else who got to that stage of the business. So what's the difference between the winners and the losers? Well, the winners are the ones that stick through the boring or the painful or the difficult times and fight through until the other side. But when what most founders, including myself, experiences.

After the initial six months, that's the honeymoon period when you start a business. Then the reality starts to set in. You start running out of money, start dealing with really difficult product or customer issues. And then you say, this isn't working. And then you throw in the towel. And I've done that multiple times. You know, I've probably started five businesses that, you know, never really made it off the ground because when it got difficult, I thought that meant there was a flaw in the business model. But what really meant was now I'm doing this thing in at scale and volume.

And it's a lot of repetitive processes. So I need to start making automations and SOPs to automate those processes. So just a lot of people will quit when the going gets tough. And in my own particular business, the going was tough for about a year between year one and two was really difficult because even though we were making good money, we were spending it on growth. And so I was constantly fighting to keep the company profitable. And

If you would have looked at a snapshot of the business at that time, you would have said, this business is not profitable. It's not a good business. But now you look at it over the whole trajectory of three years and it's extremely profitable. Why? Because I fought through that boring phase. I got to the other side and about November of this year, things clicked, got really profitable, and then just started rocket shipping between November and December. Our revenue doubled. So, you know, we spent two, three years getting up to this, you know, stair stepping up to this revenue level and then boom, all of a sudden it doubled in a month.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (21:18.989)
Right.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (21:36.406)
It's like real growth, right? It's quiet until you reach that point that you're saying it's like, okay, now we have the engine very oiled and it's working as it needs to be. And now we need to focus on really what's coming next.

Jonathan Maxim (21:52.516)
Yeah. And it's, really critical to think about it like an engine because the engine has all these components to it. The car has all these components to it. The engine is the marketing, but you still need wheels and axles and a drive train for this thing to work. And that's really operations, finance, all of the processes and systems that make the company work. And a lot of people don't think about that as an app founder. think I got a cool product and this product is going to sell and it's going to go viral. Yeah. But literally it's one fifth of the business. got product marketing sales.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (22:14.574)
And that's everything I need, right?

Jonathan Maxim (22:23.612)
HR, finance, executive strategy, customer support, tech support. People don't think about these things and those are all boring. HR, boring. Tech support, boring. Customer support, boring. Or maybe these are things that you're not good at. They might not necessarily be boring, but you might not be good at them. I don't know what Mike, what your total experience looks like, but for me, I have never done HR before I was a founder. I had never done financial projections before I was a founder.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (22:25.432)
Support and Amen.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (22:49.998)
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Maxim (22:53.838)
That's what makes it difficult. It's not that the business model is broken. It's that you simply don't know how to do that stuff. And yeah, there's only one way to learn and that's to do it wrong first.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (23:04.11)
Totally. you know, everybody that starts a company or starting as a startup, for example, you have to wear multiple hats. And what you were saying that there is a lot of things that when you are a founder that you don't know, and it is still your responsibility to figure it out. Right. It's a it's not that you have someone. OK, what I do now? No, for the most part, founders, they need to figure it out themselves.

Jonathan Maxim (23:09.38)
Thank

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (23:30.322)
or start finding people that can help you on this journey, right? Because they're bringing the skills that you as a founder may not have at the moment and your company needs. But it's also a great learning experience. If you're going through that, there's a lot that you learn from all these different departments and all these different activities that any company needs to be successful on, like HR, like managing people.

operations, marketing. So it is an exciting opportunity if you like learning and trying to figure out things, especially if it's your company. But at some point, yeah, you're probably going to need help, right, to take you to the next level. Absolutely.

Jonathan Maxim (24:19.682)
Yeah, I just, I empathize with people because how could you know what to expect? How do you know that it's going to have all these curve balls? But I look at that as the blessing because if you want to get the most out of life, you take on a challenge with an unpredictable outcome and you fight through the storm and you come home champion and a winner. That's what makes life rewarding, not making money. like a lot of times, and by the way, obviously making money, it makes sure it brings up your happiness levels a lot.

but you should be doing it for the personal fulfillment that you get from it because it makes you humble. You get brought to your knees. Sometimes you get your back broken, but other times you're on a stage in shining lights and you're getting all the acknowledgement from a thousand people in the audience. But by the time you've gotten your back broken and know, God's brought you to your knees. When you get on that stage, it's funny cause I'm feeling goosebumps right now. Cause I've had such visceral experiences like this. When you get up there on stage, you don't even,

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (25:02.19)
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Maxim (25:20.046)
Your ego is not, it doesn't do much for your ego. Let me put it that way. All it does is put you in a state of gratitude because you're like, wow, these people don't know that I was like sleeping on the floor in a one bedroom apartment, broke, shit out of luck four years ago. And they all think I'm some hero, but in practicality, I started lower than any of these people are right now. And so that's, that's why it's so beautiful because it, if you're, if you're willing to be humbled, will create, it will craft such an incredible human out of you because

You learn to manage people, you learn empathy, you create culture. There's so many beautiful components to it. But of course, our mind skips ahead to, wanna be rich. And so everything not related to that, it doesn't feel fun, but if you just stick through it, that becomes the fun.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (26:01.624)
Yeah. Yeah.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (26:08.686)
It's a reality check, I used to tell my friends and family. So for me, life well lived, it's one that you have many scars in you because every single one of those scars, it taught you something. It makes you a better person. It makes you a better professional, a better business owner, for example. So that's everything that we have to go through because life is not,

just fanciest stuff as we see on social media. It is not. Before, know, the perfect baddies, the perfect people that we see in social media, there is a lot that is happening that they don't show. And that's what real life means, right? And that's why this type of conversation at Jonathan, it's for people to understand that having an idea is just the beginning. What comes next is really the real work.

That's where really you need to be willing to put in the work and make it work, only most of the time, not only for you, for your family, for the people that depends on you, for the people that work for you. So there is a lot more into consideration that just getting started and then just trying to become a millionaire, as you were saying that some people, just want to do that as soon as they're getting started.

Jonathan Maxim (27:31.48)
Yeah, once you get into it, you realize that it's not actually the goal. But you know, before we got on the show, you had talked about the importance of authenticity. And this is why authenticity is now so important because social media, the content that's going viral, I'm sure you've seen it, but like, Hey, they end the life of a nine to five accountant. Somebody's literally going through their boring life because it's just so relatable and authentic. And that's what's going viral these days. People saying, I can't get reach is because

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (27:45.848)
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Maxim (27:59.652)
They're not engaging the way that users, that people want to see content. And this is a great opportunity. You might think that you have no story. I hear this all the time. what am I going to make content about? I've got no story. Well, make content about your boring life. Apparently, that goes viral too.

when we're a founder of a company, there's an easy opportunity to just document your journey. Here's the day in the life of the tech founder starting his first business, day 33. Pitched for investors, all of them said no, ended up getting a hundred downloads to the app. So there's that relatability component and the polished airbrushed images and the perfect bodies and perfect lifestyles are actually not. Like if you scroll the Instagram Reels feed these days, I don't see much content like that. And if you do see content like that these days, that's going viral,

It's usually secondary. So somebody would be walking to their car and getting into it might be a supercar or something like that. But what made it go viral is the message on the caption, not the content. So the idea that we need to have the perfect image and the perfect life and all this stuff is that that era has passed us. One of the founders of Instagram just released a post the other day that said like, that content is not working anymore. All that's working is like authentic real content.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (28:53.784)
Mm-hmm.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (28:59.096)
Hmm.

Jonathan Maxim (29:15.746)
If you can just drop all of your expectations about who you need to be and just start coming out as honest and creative and awkward and weird and funky as you are, you're more likely to go viral than the guy with a Lamborghini who's, you know, posting a flex picture in Miami. It's just, that's, that's not winning anymore.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (29:35.082)
as real as possible. think that's where people want to see lately, to your point. It's a matter of supply and demand. What are the people demanding to see? And that's where the reach is going to take you. That's where the algorithms will kind of put your content out there. Because yes, I have noticed that myself. think lately people are thirsty for more real and authentic content.

And it doesn't matter if you're looking at the camera without any effect, very imperfect, just talking to it. If the content is good, that's what people nowadays, they just want to get to the more real part of being human, which to be honest, from my point of view, I love that because I really want humanity to get back to just appreciate humans the way they are, you know?

just the way they are with that the fancy stuff, with the fancy videos and addition, just try to support real people. And I think we need more of that.

Jonathan Maxim (30:43.192)
Yeah, it's been an interesting shift because a lot of good, wholesome content is showing up in my feed, stuff about fathers with their daughters and, taking off of work and going and spending a day with your daughter, stuff like that, is actually getting more reached these days. And it's really driven by the Gen Z not wanting to see that fake plastic lipstick style content. They want to see the real stuff. And it's...

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (31:00.77)
Yeah.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (31:06.595)
Yeah.

Jonathan Maxim (31:10.948)
you know, for a while I was concerned about the state of social media, because I'm like, this is all just vanity and it's almost like getting, you know, this pornographic effect and it shifted over to much more of like family oriented people just being in connection with each other, like this state of minimalism and gratitude, which is like way, way more what society needs that state of I'm grateful for what I have. I have a boring nine to five job, but I'm grateful for that.

That just makes humanity and culture so much better. I'm so glad to see that shift. And it's also calming for me as a creator because I'm like, I don't have to go buy a Lambo. I don't have to go be in perfect shape. I don't have to do all these things. My videos that have gone viral were none of that. It was no flex content. It was me playing with my daughter in a park or me working on my computer. Zero production. Shot on an iPhone.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (32:03.318)
Yeah, it is refreshing. I have to be honest with you. I really like this shift. Like anything in live and we've seen it in social media in the past two decades. We don't know how long it's going to last. I hope it lasts long enough because it is refreshing to see kind of people wanting to see that this type of content more and more for sure.

Jonathan Maxim (32:28.75)
Yeah, it's a shift toward intellectualism, which is great. It kind of like you asked like, what comes next? Like, where does that go from here? Hopefully it goes more toward, you know, depth, intellect, honesty, truth. And we don't know, but as, as founders, if you're, if you're thinking about creating an app, first understand that you can go to Replet or lovable or one of these platforms and you can build an app by the end of this podcast. One, two, you can start producing content from your house.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (32:32.035)
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Maxim (32:58.542)
with an iPhone and go viral. And you can do everything that you need to do with next to no money. All you need is a little bit of time and commitment. And what I think a lot of people go wrong, they get intimidated by social media, myself included. I didn't post for like a year and a half because it's like I can't handle the pressure and the stress of creating content that people actually want until I, I just wasn't posting, I wasn't posting to my feeds.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (33:20.834)
So you were offline for a year and a half.

Jonathan Maxim (33:27.448)
And when I was posting, it wasn't doing well. that was embarrassing me and I didn't want to post. but, but the, but the piece that changed the game for me was when I hired my content specialist and, brand manager, he showed me. Go to sort feed. It's like this app that sorts Instagram posts by the one that had the most reach. Figure out the content is winning in your niche. So for example, me, I go to a tech page and I sort the videos by the most viewed videos.

And then I take the top three videos and I deconstruct them. Is this a meme? Is this a talking head video? Is this a mashup? Is this an AI video? And then I break it down and recreate it. now for the majority of our posts, that's what we're doing. You you don't even have to innovate to come up with stuff that's going to go viral. And again, the stuff that's going viral is like maybe like a seven second looping clip of somebody getting into a car. It's again, it's not difficult to do. And so when you, when you

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (34:21.966)
Hmm.

Jonathan Maxim (34:25.934)
What my hope is that anybody who's listening to this realizes that you can pick up your phone, go on Instagram right now, look at the top profile in your niche, find the top videos by sorting Instagram now offers the feature to sort by most viewed and then grab that video and recreate it. So it really doesn't have to be difficult. It's all process at this point. That's what I'm saying. It can be engineered. And I want to impress that upon people because to me, when I first tried Replet the app, I was like, I've made six apps now at this point.

And most of them took me like a half hour to an hour to do. I was like, oh my God, this is a gold mine. This is so much easier than I realized. And I had been preventing myself. I've been procrastinating for a year on it I'm like, I can't handle the commitment of creating a new app at this point. And then when I actually did it took me like a half hour to do. And so now I'm building all kinds of apps for my clients, for our own team internally. And it's really inspiring. I encourage everybody to do it. And I don't get paid to say this.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (35:01.632)
It is. It is.

Jonathan Maxim (35:23.554)
I don't have a partnership with Replet or Lovable.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (35:24.192)
No, it is amazing. I even said it myself multiple times here in the show as well. What Replit and these other apps are doing that are kind of enabling, you know, our creative selves to be able to put products and our idea out there. It's amazing. Before you have to have money to pay someone to develop and build your idea. Now these products are doing like you were saying, 20, 30 minutes. I mean, it is amazing, right?

It's still, it's your idea, the creative part of it comes from you, of course, but that first part from creating to building and to having something that you can visualize and say, okay, this tell me something, this is kind of, even if you continue to work on it and improve it later, that first step is really mind blowing, Jonathan. It's like one of the best thing that AI it's bringing to the table today. Yeah.

Jonathan Maxim (36:22.929)
Have you done it? Have you created an app with Replo?

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (36:25.318)
I have, yes. Apps and websites. It's just amazing. It's just amazing. That combination of replicates and then using an LLM like Chai GPT or Claude to talk between them and making it better and put your thoughts on that. think that's a winning combination and it's just mind blowing. Yeah.

Jonathan Maxim (36:27.298)
It's magical, right?

Jonathan Maxim (36:47.568)
That's why I wanted to tell your audience, like, it is so inspirational. The first time you do it, you're just like, my God, I'm like a superhuman. can do anything now. Yeah.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (36:56.61)
You feel a superhero.

Right

Jonathan Maxim (37:00.546)
And then I've asked people like my friends who are developers, product guys, and they'll be like, I haven't tried them. And I'll be like, why? And they've just procrastinated. I'm like, don't you understand that somebody way dumber and way less experienced than you has built more apps than you have, even though you're so technically smart? So.

Yeah, a lot of people like if you have that hesitation, just give it a try. You can get started for free. And it's, I just think that when people see it, they're going to become so inspired and that will just elevate the energy of society so much because anybody can, can make their dream come true literally in an afternoon. If you can use chat GPT, you can make an app on rep.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (37:40.898)
And it makes your creative self come out more and more because you now your brain, it's like in this constant thinking of what is it that I need to do to make it better? What is it that I want to create? What is it that I am thinking on that it can be a great idea? doesn't mean that you're going to succeed off it or the business will, you know, it will be a success, but

Once you get started, and that's what happened with me and probably with you and others that are using this tool, you get into this creative, you know, and continual and active think about what is it that I'm going to create next, how I can make better, whatever I built, right? Based on what I've seen. it's just amazing. It's mind blowing for me. It's a, it gets my creativity every day thinking about or improving what I have out there or thinking about

what I may think I can create next.

Jonathan Maxim (38:40.58)
Yeah, and I think because the economy has been bad and we've been working long hours, everyone's gotten so stuck in this do, do, do mindset that our creative channels have been closed. And for me, I have to take a day at the spa and go sit in the sauna for 30 minutes before my creative juices start flowing. That's the level of isolation and quiet that I need to channel into my divine creativity.

Now you can pick up an app and it will start channeling it quickly because it's building everything. You know, you can start with a simple prompt and a lot of people are, they get like caught wrapped up around the axle in their mind. They can't get out of this analytical state. but when you pick it up and just start doing it, then it's so much easier than you realized. And it's so much faster and more fun and rewarding that instantly that created switch flips. Now founders overthinking stuff is like, an epidemic, right?

So I almost applaud the founders who are less intellectual, less hardworking in a lot of ways who are just like, hey, let me try this. And that is such, I think about all the time why these founders are self-sabotaging themselves. 99 % of the time it's because they're overthinking stuff. They're not just like getting out and doing. And so I really encourage, if you're thinking about building an app, just go try it because.

that might open a door for you to channel inspiration and your whole life could change off of one impulse rather than doing what I used to do. When I first started developing apps, I'm a UI and a UX designer by trade in my undergraduate. I designed wireframes, mockups, flow charts, UI screens, handed those to developers. And then I had to have PRDs, product requirements documents written for all of the different features of the app.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (40:21.838)
Mm.

Mm.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (40:32.462)
Hmm.

Jonathan Maxim (40:32.538)
So if you think about the amount of time it took me to construct that, months of work to get the logo and the icon and the color scheme and the font and the layout of the app all to be what I wanted it to be took months.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (40:44.238)
So many things to think about back then, right?

Jonathan Maxim (40:47.728)
Yeah. And then, and then the engineers are asking, okay, what's the, the syntax with the database? What, what button does this, you know, data access, and then how does it relate to this other item in the database? How do we, you know, prevent these from overlapping with each other and crossing wires? All those considerations, you don't have to think about any of that anymore. For me, I've passed all of those documentation to the developers. They spent six months building the app, the first version of the app. cost me $14,000 at the time. And.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (41:15.352)
There you go.

Jonathan Maxim (41:16.982)
I could build a better app today in 30 minutes with 30 bucks.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (41:21.656)
I was talking to a good friend of mine, he's a developer, these past few days, and I was telling him, and we were joking about three, five years from now, when no one is actually coding anymore, we're gonna look back and we're gonna say, how developers have to spend all this time writing code? know, like, what happened with the humanity? Because that's where we're getting next. It's like, we're not gonna have to write code.

down.

Jonathan Maxim (41:53.584)
It's great. mean, it's going to make it easier for everybody to get rich. All you have to have is the drive enough to like get started. And for people who are intimidated by the prospect, let's just say your friend who's an engineer who writes code.

The developers, let's say you're charging $50,000 to manually develop an app. Now you can charge 10,000 bucks, but you can do it in two days instead of 10 months. Yeah, so be the guy that uses AI, not the one that gets replaced by AI.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (42:19.032)
Yeah, the business opportunity is there for sure.

Jonathan Maxim (42:27.118)
Because when you are a founder and you're building an app with an AI tool, there are going to be certain functionalities and limits to it that a developer has to do. You'll eventually need to bring in a developer, which is okay because they're the ones who actually understand all the code that you've written with AI and they can take it, package it up and make it into an app that can be deployed. there's the, it's, it's an opened up opportunities for everyone.

If you're willing to look past the fear narratives around AI, don't get me wrong, I think that there's a lot of bad that can happen from AI, but when we're talking about apps specifically, it's a lot of good, and it's going to enable a lot of developers, a lot of product people, a lot of founders. And if there's any time to strike gold, it's now because it's early. It's like being in Bitcoin 10 years ago. This is the precipice. This is the moment before...

It blasts off.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (43:23.102)
And you know what, Jonathan, I also like to extend on top of what you just said. Historically, those in tech like us or coming with some sort of tech background had a leg up in life because of better jobs, maybe more opportunity, high paying jobs.

This is kind of leveling playing the level field right now because people without any coding experience or tech experience can leverage this tool and bring their ideas to life, which I think is one of the benefits among, you know, and yes, there are probably a lot of bad things that can happen with AI. But when I look at the benefits and then I look at people without any coding experience and not a lot of money can bring their ideas to life.

that in a nutshell that's something that it's a benefit for all of us. You just need to use it.

Jonathan Maxim (44:24.034)
Yeah, and I think we can prevent a lot of the bad by starting the good. So if we focus on building software, like when I see an AI meditation app, when I see an AI therapy app, when I see a tool that creates music with AI, I think these are things that are all contributing a positive impact to society and good can outweigh bad, right? Like if we all go and build something that, you know, maybe our heart's been set on making an impact on, whether it's through charity or through business.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (44:28.11)
Yeah.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (44:43.426)
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Maxim (44:51.212)
This opens that door for that. that's, it's just another reason why people listening and both me and you need to be building our dreams because, you know, I'm a, I'm a believer in God. think that God gives each of us a purpose. And if you don't fulfill on that purpose, then you've not only not taken the gift that God has given you, but also everybody who stands to benefit from you starting a business has now

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (44:58.945)
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Maxim (45:18.168)
not benefited, right? If I never started this business, there's a thousand, sorry, 300 apps that we have launched. So 300 founding teams that we have helped move from A to B. And if I hadn't started this business, would be 300 less founders on their way to success. And so if we think about it like that, it's like, this is your mechanism to make an impact. And the funny thing is after you do something good like that and make an impact, then you end up getting put on a stage in front of a thousand people and the shining lights and you

sparklers and fireworks going off around you. That's a result of that that you didn't even necessarily plan or expect, but that's society and God's way of repaying you for your good work.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (46:01.6)
Absolutely. And it's about, you know, taking that first step and that chance and yourself, right? It's like, if you doubt, don't doubt, just take the first step. And I know the first step is usually the hardest because even when I was starting on the podcast, would, you know, I thought multiple times, should I be doing this? You know, it's, I wasn't one that was born to be in front of camera or

to have the best voice tone, for example. So I thought a lot about myself. But once I took that first step, I then noticed that it's really about the message and what you're building, and the legacy that you want to leave behind. That's really all that matters. The rest is just noise. And we have to just live without the noise, for the most part.

Jonathan Maxim (46:52.622)
Yeah, and I really respect you for taking what seemed like lot of headwinds, a lot of reasons not to do this and just taking a swing at it. And you're probably experiencing some of the difficulties of running a podcast, which is essentially like a business. And I encourage you to fight through them because you get to the other side. Joe Rogan just filming in his basement with his friends for 10 years and he didn't get popular literally until 10 years after filming content.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (47:20.27)
Yeah.

Jonathan Maxim (47:20.544)
And it was just a matter of not quitting. And that's the case with a lot of people, just a matter of not quitting. When you have a podcast and your message starts to connect with people and it starts to get reached organically, pretty soon you're bringing on sponsors. You can charge people to come on the show. There's a lot of ways that you can make crazy money on this. And because of how easy it is to go viral these days,

you know, you could make this show really, really big and make a ton of money off of it all because in the first place you had an intention to do something good. You wanted to share your message with the world and, everything else is just like a container for it. Like the way you look, the way your voice sounds, the production, all that stuff is just like the, the container that this stuff sits in. What really matters is your message. And that's why I'm proud of you because

your message, each person is given a special message to share and yeah, I respect you for sharing yours.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (48:15.308)
Yeah, thanks for that. That's what keeps me moving, right? But it hasn't been easy, as you know, and as we discussed earlier today, the beginning is rough and you try things and they don't work. you know, I'll keep the focus on the long term and what is the legacy. the main reason why I started this show was to become a millionaire or become famous. I want the message to connect to people.

and I stick to it and that's what I will continue to because that's the main goal. Everything else will be an addition to it, right? So that's the most important part.

Jonathan Maxim (48:54.704)
Yeah, and when I'm in that situation that you're in, I am reading books, a lot of books. I mean, you can't see, but I have two full bookshelves over here. I'm constantly reading. Yeah, and I'm constantly hiring coaches, buying courses. Most of the time, you you're paying thousands of dollars to pay a coach or to take a course.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (49:02.99)
I have to.

Jonathan Maxim (49:15.152)
And 99 % of the content might not be relevant, but if you learn one thing that changed the direction of the company and has, know, in my experience, it's usually one major learning that I get from each coach or course that I buy. And then I implement it and it has a massive impact. Like there's a coaching I bought last year in January, paid $15,000 for one month and.

90 % of the content I already knew wasn't really usable to me, but there was one thing increasing my pricing. was changing my pricing strategy. And not only did we double our revenue between January and March of that year, but we also doubled the number of clients that we were closing. So by increasing our price, we made more money and more clients. And so these kinds of things you learn from bringing in a specialist. So had I, and I used to have a podcast like you, so

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (49:42.509)
Hmm.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (49:46.382)
Hmm.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (50:03.747)
Yeah.

Jonathan Maxim (50:06.648)
Had I gone back and redone that podcast, all I would have done is studied the greats just figured out like, how are they getting reach? How are they clipping their videos? What is the messages that they're saying that are resonating? Can I recreate those messages? Can I recreate those clips that went viral? And just trying that because...

Again, at some point it's gonna click, you're gonna have content that goes mega viral. Like I've had videos that got 12 million views, nine million views. And when that happens, you get like a thousand, 2000 followers in a day from something like that. So you just have to stick with it. And that's the thing I think that a lot of people...

They underestimate their capability to overcome those challenges because they've never seen those challenges before. But just in my mind, the way I think about it is like, be dumb enough where you're not going to like overthink it too much. Just fight through it. You know, just box through the situation and right hook, jab, jab until you, you know, knock out your opponent, whatever that opponent is. And it'll definitely be successful.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (50:45.496)
Yeah.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (51:05.55)
Yeah, great message, because learning, it's a never-ending activity. It should be a never-ending activity for us human beings on the personal side or even on the professional side. On the personal side, we're always trying to find ways to grant us as humans more and more via spirituality, yoga, you name it. What is it that is going to us healthier, live in healthier lives? On the professional side,

coaching and those type of activities that teach you something. And I love that message that you just brought on because there's always something that you can learn. And sometimes we kind of close the door on that one thing because we think we know the rest. And that happens with experiences. Sometimes we think, I'm not going to go through that because I know most of it. Well, most is not everything. There may be one thing that may change your life, the direction of it.

And I think it's important for us to be willing to go through it and give us that opportunity as well, for sure.

Jonathan Maxim (52:08.974)
Yeah, I hope that for people listening to this that this has been the sign that you need to see to take that swing at something because it is way easier than you think. But even if it is more difficult than you think, again, difficult things are good because that means you're dealing with something that not many people could solve. So when you solve it, you end up getting rewarded for it.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (52:17.73)
Hmm. Yeah.

Jonathan Maxim (52:34.294)
So, you know, whether it's easier, whether it's hard, it's always rewarding financially and emotionally. And yeah, I think that's just a great place to live your life from too.

to constantly be seeking challenge and breaking your own belief system. oftentimes, like I said, that course, 90 % of it wasn't relevant. the few percentage that were relevant had a massive impact on me. And so it just always pays a good ROI to be learning and listening to the show. So go and listen to all of Michael's shows, guys. Go on to his YouTube.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (53:04.243)
Absolutely.

And I promise I'm not paying Jonathan or he's not even he's not paying me today. Okay, we're not at that level.

Jonathan Maxim (53:14.92)
Yeah, I don't like I want to see other creators when I think I think that, you know, you're going to unlock people's lives and people are going to message you and they're going to say, Hey, I listened to this episode. really inspired me. I want to you know that, you know, my life has changed in the last six months since I started listening to you. And, that's just so good. You know, that's such such a, I think that karma will always reward you for for doing that.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (53:31.745)
Agree.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (53:41.996)
I'm a big believer in that as well. The better we all do, I think the better for everyone, to be honest, right? It's one more people that is successful in life or in a way that fulfills their dream is one less person that we need to worry about as a human being. And that's why we need to try to help each other as much as we can for us to...

you know, be as successful as we can and bring in as many people as we can as well. Because that's really what life is about.

Jonathan Maxim (54:14.404)
Yeah, and everybody listening can have that impact. I have 25 employees right now and one, it was his birthday two days ago and he messaged me. He's like, I'm a little drunk, but I just want to let you know I'm so grateful. My life has completely changed. I helped my mom pay off her house and I bought a car and like my life has completely changed since working with you. And to me, this is just like another person on my team who, you know, I've been mentoring and helping.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (54:29.39)
You

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (54:37.39)
Amazing.

Mm.

Jonathan Maxim (54:42.618)
But that's the kind of impact that happens when we, when we pursue our dreams. so not only are the 25 people who work for me now feeding their families and living for something bigger than, you know, the, their selves or a day job. All 300 founders who we've helped along the way have, you know, made progress toward their, toward their goals. And so that's, that's why we can all be such an instrument for change. So whatever that changes, you know, be the change you want to see in the world, right?

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (55:10.514)
Absolutely. It has to start with us. If we really want to change into a better place. But Jonathan, thank you for being with us today. It's been an amazing conversation. Cannot appreciate you more for being today, okay?

Jonathan Maxim (55:24.9)
My pleasure, Michael. And I appreciate you bringing me on and this great intellectual conversation. And it's always reassuring to know that there's other people who are doing it for the right reason and who are going to make a splash and make an impact. And we might make mistakes, but at the end of the day, we're making progress for ourselves and for society.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (55:37.442)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for sharing some of your personal experience, your professional experience. There's a lot that I'm learning myself. I'm sure everybody that will be listening will be learning something about it. But the most important message is just get started. Try to create something and push yourself to get out of your comfort zone. And I'm sure that will be valuable and it will be a great thing for your life.

for sure.

Jonathan Maxim (56:12.816)
Yeah, and just some final thoughts. If anybody wants help launching an app or...

building an app, feel free to reach out to me. My handle on Instagram is it'sjmaxm and I have a one hour internal training that I made for my team, but I started sharing it and people were loving it. goes through the whole process of zero to 10,000 to a hundred thousand to a million users with an app. So if you want to just DM me a training, then I will give that to you for free. No email or anything required. Just let me know. I'm happy to hook you up with it and hopefully, you know, you become a founder too.

and have that success that you really deserve.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (56:47.086)
Yeah.

Awesome. Thanks for that offer. I'm also going to make sure that I put your contact information on the episode and so forth. So, yeah. Thank you, Jonathan. And thank you, everyone, for watching us and listening to the episode today. And I hope if this episode challenged you how you think about growth, send it to a founder who's chasing attention but wants meaning. This is what it is about. Thank you all, and talk to you next week. Bye, everyone.

Jonathan Maxim (56:58.071)
Excellent.