RE-A Distribution: reverse-engineer how a competitor grows
See how your competitors get their users, then run the plays that work for them
studio gives you a team of AI helpers with a computer of their own. We asked its research helpers to take apart how two fast-growing AI startups, Town and Wajo, get their users: their sites, sign-up flows, ads, search traffic and social posts. Below are the ten tactics (we call them plays) they found, each with the exact words to hand your own helpers.
How RE-A Distribution works
Your helpers do the digging in three steps, and you choose which plays to run.
1
Name a competitor
Give your team a company name or website.
2
Helpers take it apart
They read the site's code and sitemap, trace the sign-up and pricing, and pull search, ad-library and social data. Every finding is marked as seen or inferred.
3
You get a playbook
A page like this one: what's working for them, with proof, and a ready ask for each play so your helpers can start on it today.
The two case studies
From what we could see, both grow mostly through their product reaching people who don't use it yet and through the founder's own posts, with paid ads a smaller part.
Town
AI work assistant across email, calendar and chat. Launched June 3.
$108MSeries B, announced Oct 19
227Kviews on the founder's raise post
228ads in Meta's ad library
Town grows because every assistant has its own email address and joins threads with people who don't use Town, and its trial ends when either the days or the credits run out.
Wajo
Fo, an agent that calls and texts to get errands done. About eight weeks old.
1.02Mviews on one founder post
241sign-ups for its launch hackathon
9errand landing pages, one per job
Wajo grows through an invite-only tier you unlock with a friend's invite or a post about Fo, and through group texts that bring in people who aren't on Wajo yet.
Their paths, from first touch to sharing
Get noticed
Town: the founder's posts, podcasts, press, ads on three networks
Wajo: the founder's posts and a quote-post hackathon
Sign up
Town: Google or Microsoft sign-in, no card, partner links with a longer trial
Wajo: a waitlist and invite codes
First win
Town: connect your inbox, get a morning briefing
Wajo: text Fo an errand
Pay
Town: $15 to $199 a month, the trial ends on days or credits
Wajo: free for now, a $99 Pro tier marked "coming soon"
Share
Town: the assistant emails outsiders, credit referrals
Wajo: group texts with non-users, badges, invites
Ten plays you can copy
Each card shows who does it, the evidence, and the request (the ask) to give your studio helpers. Press Copy, paste it into a chat with that helper, and fill in the brackets.
Play 1Town and Wajo
Let your product reach people who don't use it yet
Town's assistant joins email threads with outsiders, and its group-text launch post got 114K views. In group texts, Wajo's Fo can text up to 8 people who aren't on Wajo yet.
Effort: mediumFirst result: 2 weeksCost: build time
Ask your Researcher
List every moment where [my product] touches someone who doesn't use it yet: emails, invites, shared links, receipts, calendar invites. For each, draft one line that tells them what it is, and a link that lets them try it without signing up.
Play 2Wajo
An invite tier you unlock with a post
The free plan, Fo Mini, has a daily limit. "OG Fo", the unlimited invite-only tier, comes through a friend's invite or a post about Fo. Mini can't send texts to other people or connect Fo to other AI apps.
Effort: smallFirst result: 1 weekCost: free
Ask your Growth helper
Design an invite-only tier for [my product]: what it unlocks, how a friend's invite or one public post unlocks it, the limits on the free plan, and a ready post template people can share.
Play 3Wajo
A launch challenge where every entry reposts your launch
Wajo's hackathon drew 241 sign-ups, and every entry had to quote-post (repost with a comment) its launch post. The founder's launch post that day reached 1.02M views.
Effort: smallFirst result: 1 weekCost: a prize
Ask your Growth helper
Plan a one-week challenge around our next launch post: the rules (every entry quote-posts the launch), the prize, the event page copy, the judging, and 20 people in [my space] to invite first.
Play 4Town
One public page per use case
Town publishes 79 routine templates and 53 integration pages, each one a page people can find and start from.
Effort: mediumFirst result: 1 weekCost: free
Ask your Developer
Make a page for each of these use cases of [my product]: [list]. Each gets a one-line promise, a short example of the result, and a "Try this" button. Publish them as a sharenow site and send me the link.
Play 5Town
A trial that ends on credits, and referrals paid in credits
Town's trial ends after 7 days or when its credits run out, whichever comes first. A referred friend gets a 14-day trial, and the person who referred them gets 2,000 credits.
Effort: smallFirst result: 1 weekCost: credits
Ask your Growth helper
Propose trial and referral rules for [my product] in credits: how many credits a trial includes, when it ends, what a referrer and a friend each get, and the cap. Compare them with Town's and estimate what they'd cost us per new paying customer.
Play 6Town
Partner links with a better trial
Town gives communities their own link (for example /join/clay-ama) with an extra week of trial and double the credits, and ran an AMA in that community.
Effort: smallFirst result: 1 weekCost: free
Ask your Researcher
Find 10 communities where [my buyers] gather: Slack groups, subreddits, newsletters, Discords. For each, note its size and rules, and draft a partner offer with its own link and a longer trial.
Play 7Town
One promise in every ad
Town has 228 ads in Meta's ad library, and nearly all of the 60 we sampled lead with the same thing, the morning briefing.
Effort: smallFirst result: 2 daysCost: ad spend
Ask your Writer
Find the one-sentence promise of [my product] that a buyer cares about most. Then write five ad variants that all lead with it, each with a headline, a line of body text and a call to action.
Play 8Wajo
One landing page per job customers hire you for
Wajo publishes 9 job-specific pages (plumber, movers, vet appointment and others) under the page its Meta ads send people to.
Effort: mediumFirst result: 1 weekCost: free
Ask your Designer
Make one landing page for each of the top three jobs customers hire [my product] for: [jobs]. Each page shows the job done, one proof point and one button. Publish them and send me the links to use in ads.
Play 9Town and Wajo
A launch every week or two, from the founder's account
Both companies grow through the founder's own posts: Town's raise post got 227K views and Wajo's MCP launch 1.02M.
Effort: smallFirst result: this weekCost: free
Ask Concierge, your team's coordinator
Set up a routine: every other Monday, look at what we shipped since the last post and draft a launch post for me in my voice, with one image idea. Hold it for my OK before anything goes out.
Play 10Town and Wajo
Measure the sign-up path before you buy ads
Wajo's app records 21 onboarding events, and Town's site loads 6 to 7 tracking tags, so both can likely see where people drop off.
Effort: smallFirst result: 3 daysCost: free
Ask your Developer
Add events for each step of [my product]'s sign-up and first use (landing, sign-up, first action, first result, invite sent). Build one funnel in our analytics and send me the drop-off at each step after a week.
Two things to skip
The helpers noted these too.
Counters that look live but aren't
Wajo's join page shows figures such as "286 tasks completed" that are fixed values in the page's code, not a running count. If a visitor checks, a number like that can backfire.
Ads everywhere, before you can measure
Town runs ads on Google, Meta and LinkedIn with $108M behind it. A small team does better measuring first (play 10), then putting money on one channel.
Run RE-A Distribution on your competitor
Name a company and your studio team returns a playbook like this one, with proof for every play and an ask for each of your helpers.
Ask your Researcher
Reverse-engineer how [competitor.com] gets its users: their site's tracking and sitemap, sign-up and pricing, ads, search traffic and social posts. Mark each finding as seen or inferred, then give me the ten plays most worth copying, each with the ask I'd give my helpers. Publish it as a sharenow page I can share.