"What App Is That?" - The Product Validation Hack That Beats All Market Research

You post a TikTok carousel showing your daily routine. The comments flood in: "What app is that?" "Where can I get this?" "Link please!"

That moment? You've already won. Not because you made a sale. Not because you went viral. But because you've achieved something far more valuable: you've generated curiosity-driven engagement that validates market demand while simultaneously triggering algorithmic amplification.

Here's the insight most founders miss: "What app is that?" comments serve dual purposes - they're both a product validation signal AND an algorithm boost mechanism. Even better? You don't need a finished product to start generating these signals.

When someone comments "what app is that?" on your TikTok or Instagram content, two critical things happen simultaneously:

Traditional market research asks hypothetical questions. Social media curiosity reveals actual intent. Someone typing "link?" in your comments has already invested time and attention - they're pre-qualified leads showing you exactly what resonates.

Curiosity-driven content works because it creates an information gap. When viewers see something intriguing in your TikTok or Instagram post but don't have complete information, their brain demands closure. This drives engagement in three powerful ways:

1. 1Comment Engagement: Viewers ask questions, driving up your engagement rate and signaling value to the algorithm
2. 2Save Rate: People save your content to come back later, another strong algorithmic signal
3. 3Share Rate: Users share your content asking "do you know what this is?" to their networks, exponentially increasing reach

The algorithm doesn't just count engagement - it evaluates the quality. A comment thread full of genuine questions about your product demonstrates that you've created content valuable enough to spark conversation. That's exactly what TikTok and Instagram want to promote.

Here's where this strategy becomes truly powerful: you can start generating these validation signals before you build anything.

Traditional startup advice says: build product → launch → market → hope people care. The social media validation approach flips this entirely: create content showing a solution → measure genuine interest → build what people prove they want.

Real-World Example: Concept to Validation

Imagine you think busy professionals need a better way to track daily habits. Instead of building an app first, you create TikTok content showing:

• A beautifully designed interface (created in Figma or with Hook Studio)
• Someone checking off their morning routine
• Stats showing 30-day streaks and progress
• A satisfying animation when completing all daily tasks

If your comments fill with "what app is this?" and "when can I download this?" - congratulations. You've validated market demand without writing code, raising funding, or spending months building something nobody wants.

But if people scroll past without engaging? You've learned equally valuable information: this particular angle doesn't resonate. Pivot and test a different approach.

Generating curiosity-driven engagement isn't accidental. Here's how to deliberately create content that prompts these validation questions:

1. Show, Don't Tell

Instead of explaining your solution, demonstrate someone using it naturally within a broader context. Film a "productive morning routine" where your habit tracker appears briefly. Create a "how I organize my day" post where your app is visible but not the focus.

People are more curious about things they discover than things being sold to them. Make them feel like they've stumbled upon something valuable.

2. Design for Curiosity Triggers

• Unique UI/UX: Make your interface visually distinctive so viewers think "I've never seen that before"
• Unexpected Outcomes: Show results that seem too good to be true, prompting "how did you do that?"
• Satisfying Interactions: Beautiful animations and smooth workflows naturally generate "what is this?" questions
• Partial Reveals: Show enough to intrigue but not enough to fully explain, creating information gaps

3. Use Hook Studio to Test Rapidly

The key to this strategy is volume and speed. You need to test multiple angles, formats, and messaging to discover what generates curiosity. Hook Studio enables rapid content creation so you can:

• Create 10+ different content variations showing your concept from different angles
• Test which presentations generate the most "what app is that?" comments
• Iterate on winning formats before building anything
• Generate multilingual content to test global market interest

Traditional product development might take 6 months to learn if anyone cares. With TikTok and Instagram content testing, you can validate (or invalidate) ideas in 7 days.

Not every comment represents genuine product validation. Here's how to distinguish between algorithmic success and actual market demand:

Track the ratio of curiosity-driven questions to total comments. If 40%+ of your comments are asking about your product, you've struck gold. If it's under 10%, keep testing different angles.

Once you've generated consistent "what app is that?" engagement across multiple content pieces, you've de-risked your build. Now you can develop with confidence because you're building something the market has already shown they want.

But don't wait until your product is perfect. Use the lean approach:

1. 1Create a waitlist: Capture those interested commenters before you build
2. 2Build an MVP: Develop the minimum version that delivers on your content's promise
3. 3Beta launch to your engaged audience: Give early access to people who commented asking for it
4. 4Continue content creation: Use your growing product as content fuel for more "what app is that?" moments

Your early TikTok and Instagram audience that asked "what is this?" becomes your beta testers, your advocates, and your initial customer base. They're pre-qualified because they discovered you organically and expressed unprompted interest.

Here's why this strategy creates a compounding advantage: engagement breeds more engagement, which signals to the algorithm to show your content to more people, which generates more engagement.

When your TikTok or Instagram content consistently generates curious questions:

• The algorithm categorizes you as a creator who sparks conversation
• Your content gets shown to similar audiences who engage heavily
• Your reply to comments generates secondary engagement, boosting the post again
• The algorithm tests your content with progressively larger audiences
• Eventually, you hit the viral threshold where reach explodes exponentially

Traditional marketing fights for attention. Curiosity-driven content gets attention handed to it by the algorithm because genuine engagement is exactly what platforms want to promote.

Many creators accidentally sabotage their own curiosity-driven content. Avoid these pitfalls:

Consider the typical journey of a founder using this strategy:

Week 1: Creates 10 TikTok carousels showing mockups of a productivity app designed for ADHD adults. Three of them generate significant "what app is this?" engagement. Total reach: 50K views across all content.

Week 2: Doubles down on the winning format. Creates 15 more pieces of content focusing on the specific features that prompted the most questions. Engagement rate increases. Reach grows to 150K views.

Week 3: Launches a simple landing page with a waitlist. Starts responding to "where can I get this?" comments with the waitlist link. Converts 3% of engaged commenters to waitlist signups: 450 people.

Month 2: Builds an MVP focused specifically on the features that generated the most curiosity. Launches beta to the waitlist. 30% convert to beta testers: 135 active users providing feedback.

Month 3: Uses actual user videos as social proof content, generating even more "what app is that?" engagement. Opens paid tiers. Converts 40% of beta users to paying customers: 54 paying users before spending a dollar on ads.

This founder validated demand, built an audience, and generated revenue before traditional competitors finished their market research surveys.

The most sophisticated version of this strategy involves testing multiple product concepts simultaneously through content:

• Create content showing 5 different potential app concepts
• Measure which generates the most "what app is that?" engagement
• Double down on the winner, iterate on the others, kill the clear losers
• Build the concept with proven demand while continuing to validate others

Hook Studio makes this multi-concept testing possible by enabling rapid content creation at scale. Instead of spending weeks creating one perfect demo video, create 50 test pieces across multiple concepts and let the market tell you what they want.

Traditional market research asks people what they might want. Social media validation shows you what they actually want through revealed preferences and genuine behavior.

A focus group participant might say "yeah, I'd probably use that" - which tells you nothing. But someone who voluntarily stops scrolling, types out a comment asking "where can I get this?", and waits for your response? They've shown genuine interest through action.

This is why "what app is that?" comments are more valuable than a thousand survey responses. Surveys measure stated preferences. Social media engagement measures revealed preferences. And in business, revealed preferences are the only ones that matter.

Ready to test this strategy? Here's your week-long sprint to validate a product concept through curiosity-driven content:

1. 1Day 1: Identify 3 problem-solution concepts you could build. Create simple mockups or workflows for each.
2. 2Day 2-3: Use Hook Studio to create 5 pieces of content for each concept (15 total). Focus on showing people using the solution naturally.
3. 3Day 4-7: Post content systematically. Track comments asking about your product. Note which concepts generate the most curiosity.
4. 4Day 7 Review: Calculate curiosity-driven engagement rate for each concept. The winner is your validated concept - build that.

In one week, you'll have more actionable validation data than months of traditional research. And you'll have algorithmic momentum as your engaging content reaches larger audiences.

The old way: spend 6 months building in isolation, launch, pray someone cares, fail 90% of the time.

The new way: spend 1 week testing concepts through content, measure genuine interest, build what people prove they want, succeed because you're building validated solutions.

Every "what app is that?" comment is a customer telling you exactly what they want. The question is: are you listening? Are you testing? Are you building what the market shows you they need?

TikTok and Instagram have given us an unprecedented ability to validate ideas at zero cost before committing resources. The founders who win in 2025 and beyond won't be the ones who build the best products in isolation. They'll be the ones who listen to curiosity signals, validate through content, and build exactly what their audience has already asked for.

Stop guessing what people want. Start creating content that makes them ask. Your next successful product is hiding in the comments of content you haven't created yet.