EPIK's Rise: AI Yearbook Photo App Takes the App Store by Storm

0:00So the big headline here is that Epic, which is an AI image generator, is going absolutely viral viral right now. and it's essentially for this feature that people are obsessed with they like which is it creates nostalgic ai yearbook photos so i think really kind of riding on the you know the viral wave that has captivated the world um with this whole image generator right we had one last december that kind of went viral for the same thing or for you know ai generated images this is kind of a new angle on this but epic is an innovative ai photo editing application and it's leading the nostalgia to train right now essentially they're embracing a 90s inspired theme and it offers users a kind of funny yearbook photo templates um i have a bunch of different options there but essentially within moments epic you know takes you back in time recreates your yearbook looks from your golden era it's kind of funny too when you when you have these kind of things because um i think it is really nostalgic for a lot of people um but at the same time maybe a lot of you know kids nowadays think it'd be funny to see what they look like back then as well so it kind of appeals to everyone this is actually originating from South Korea's Snow Corporation it's a subsidiary of Naver but Epic is essentially another new little startup in for this company has that it also kind of gives you this whole AI profile app so they have a whole bunch of influencers globally who have kind of I think helped Epic to rise so fast in the ranks here all of them are kind of showing off their AI generated photos.

1:33And I think they're pretty effectively, you know, doing a pretty good social media trend campaign. I've seen a bunch of people in my own circles posting on social media, you know, what their yearbook photos are. So it's kind of funny. And really, I think the reason these apps are so successful, right, like getting to the top of Apple becoming number one, you're passing out a lot of people, right? You're passing out Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and like all these other kind of viral apps. And the reason that these ones are so successful and are able to do that is because really they're kind of like appealing to people's like a viral impact where people see these photos that make them look good, right?

2:11That's the first thing is these photos are going to make you look better or look good. And then you're going to want to share them because everyone wants to share when they look good. And it's kind of funny and quirky. And like, I don't know, it encapsulates that whole social aspect, which I think not a lot of. It's been kind of hard to do the network effect and to do the organic growth. It reminds me a lot of the businesses, these like quiz businesses that popped up, and some of them are made multi, multi-million dollars, but it's like, what kind of dog are you? Like, what Hogwarts team are you in?

2:39Like, when Facebook first came out, there was so many of these like silly quizzes, and people would share them because they thought it was like, it kind of like played to their vanity in a way, like, look, I'm this or that, it kind of makes you feel good, anything that makes a consumer feel good or special about themselves. Of course, we know this makeup, perfume, clothing, everything we buy really is to try to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. I think in a large way, that's just kind of the psychology of buying. But I think that these apps have kind of been able to capitalize on this in a way that not a lot of other products have, right?

3:10You get a bunch of photos that make you look cool and different. You're going to want to share them to show everyone also makes you feel good that you look good, right? So it's kind of, I think, the reason why they're being successful. So as of now, the US App Store sees Epic as number one. Google Play is I think still has Epic around spot number 37 and I've actually seen this play out I have both I have iOS and Android apps out there and it's kind of interesting because they definitely are both a little bit different and they kind of appeal to different audiences so yeah it is interesting I think in the United States the app store is you're going to get a lot more of those kind of users where Android is a little bit more international so if it was you know American influencers posting this and helping this thing go viral in america specifically um it's not going to necessarily translate to an international audience which is where you're going to see um perhaps more of the google play although this is probably geographic specific anyway so maybe that's not super relevant but there definitely is different audiences on the two platforms and maybe that is like uh there's in in-app purchases or something in order to unlock some of this stuff on there and ios is a lot more likely to actually pay for stuff than google play so uh that's just my my own insights what i've seen with my apps i i definitely have a lot more people subscribing and actually paying money on apple versus google so aptopia's recent market analysis reveals that epic's journey since august 2021 that's when it first came out has 92 million installs globally and I think 4.7 million downloads in the US.

4:45So essentially, they've kind of traced back Epic's initial traction to September 19, which was followed by a significant leap just 10 days later. So on the other hand, data.ai suggests slightly lower figures, 82 million lifetime downloads, around$7 million on iOS alone. Now all of these apps, and when you get these kind of like they have X million downloads or X million amount of money that they've made, it's not exact. A lot of them are a lot of them are like kind of estimating now it's kind of really interesting how these companies get this data and this is a whole nother thing but i've looked into it a lot right because i have apps and and are i'm looking for this kind of data looking at doing competitive analysis what i've come to the conclusion on that's kind of crazy is like essentially a lot of this data that's gathered where they're like they have 82 million downloads okay you know how they get this data it's honestly like spyware a lot of these apps or a lot of these companies well they pretty much okay if you go ask them like app radar is one of the big ones that will give you analytics on apps app radars like our our um you know the way we gather data is kind of like proprietary and secret but it's like fairly accurate right they won't like tell you but if you go look them up there's been like some i'm not sure if it was lawsuits but there was actually i think it was lawsuits but um essentially what they found out the app radar was doing is they'd made a bunch of different apps like free vpn apps or um free note-taking apps or like different things like that.

6:08And I think they may have even acquired a few that essentially were tracking what apps were on the phone and then they can kind of extrapolate based off of that. So it's very, very interesting. But like, I think the, I think these analytics are not far off. So when they're saying like 92 or 80 million downloads of Epic, they're probably fairly accurate. It's just kind of crazy to think that how they get that data is kind of like spyware on your phone that you probably didn't know some random app you downloaded is keeping track of like how much how many downloads are on and you know how much money you're spending on stuff it's kind of crazy in any case india has the largest download numbers for epic right now so the u.s has i think it's like sixth place on it but i think surprisingly this is the first time that epic has hit the top overall apps in the u.s um snow corp unfortunately has not said anything about the like authenticated these statistics, right?

7:04If they really do have 98 or 80 million downloads on this, what's interesting about that. And like, first off, I think companies just don't want to give out free information to people usually, but the number one reason why they don't, that I've actually found, um, talking with entrepreneurs and stuff is that, uh, is that sometimes people will over inflate their success and the company doesn't want to be like the one that's like a downer and is like, no, we don't have 80 million downloads. It's only like 15 or it's only like 20 million downloads it just like doesn't make them sound good so they're just like no comment i've also seen this you'll see this exact same thing play out when uh software companies like do an acquisition and it's like you know like the terms of the deal are like under non-disclosure agreement but it's estimated to have sold for 20 million dollars and then like i've heard these same entrepreneurs be like yeah no it was nowhere near 20 million dollars someone in our internal company leaked that to the press or to someone.

7:59I don't know why, but like it was definitely not 20 million dollars. It was like, you know, like a million dollars or something. So but they're like, but it was like NDA. So I didn't want to like correct them on it. And also, you know, I didn't want to say it anyways. So it's kind of funny. Sometimes those numbers are really inflated. And yeah, the company doesn't want to comment on it because it would just make them not look as good in any case i think in a world right now where you know we have instagram and a lot of these other social media platforms that can help stuff go viral um that's actually where i've seen people posting it is like on instagram they'll do like a reel with like a kind of like a slideshow of all their different epic yearbook photo shoots or whatever but um i think there's a whole bunch of different renowned figures including a bunch of and including i think samantha belanthos brettman rock um a whole bunch of different people i'm I'm not going to go name a bunch, all the random people, but there's a bunch of them that have all kind of like posted these pictures.

8:55I think that's kind of making it go viral. So I think diving into the mechanics, Epic's yearbook has, it's going to give you some photos based off of like 8 to 12 selfies, right? So you take 8 to 12 selfies, upload them, and then it processes all of that. And it's going to give you 60 different images based off of this. This is actually very interesting for those that know. I have a friend named Matt. He's been on the podcast before, and he's actually currently working on a company similar to this that is kind of going to do something. It's going to give you niche AI images. So maybe I'll have him on again to talk about when he launches that company.

9:33But definitely an area that's very interesting, especially when people find something like this that kind of has mass appeal. I think they do say like, hey, warning, you know, you might get some unsatisfactory outcomes, you know, extra fingers or things being a little distorted, whatever. that's just normal with these image generating apps i think people understand how that works um but essentially the app gives you a distinct upsell which is you can opt for expedited delivery right so instead of having to wait 24 hours in order to get your photos back um you can get it done like express in two hours for uh six dollars um and i think i think actually the standard 24 hour thing isn't for free they're still going to charge you like four bucks but you can spend a little bit more and get it done faster which is kind of interesting that uh that's a really interesting model right normally i think i don't think this is going to be a business model that's viable in the next year or two but right now while everything's new they'll be like yeah don't have to worry waiting 24 hours like in reality nobody's going to be waiting more than like five minutes for something like this in the future because if they have to they'll just go to a different app or something but well this is all new and novel i think they can get away with this kind of stuff um i think that right now the demand for epic is actually so high that a bunch of people are like posting on twitter and stuff that they're getting a like a sold out notification when they open it up saying that like due to like so many people joining their servers are kind of overloaded um i think while they're kind of getting the limelight right now i would say like just based off of other apps i've seen doing similar stuff to be cautiously optimistic in this um a lot of other people like Lenza and Remini got a whole bunch of attention had their AI driven features like push them all the way to the top of the charts and then they kind of fizzled out a little bit afterwards so they kind of get a sharp drop so right now they're in you know all I'd say is epic like enjoy the enjoy the time in the limelight this is kind of fun everyone wants their yearbook photo so they might make a bunch of money during this but once this kind of like wave is over and everyone's kind of done with their yearbook photo thing, Epic's probably, I don't know, unless they reinvent themselves and reinvest the money and do something really cool, it probably will become obscure again, like a lot of others.

11:47In any case, time will tell. I might be completely wrong on that, and I really do wish the team at Epic, like, all the success in the world, as I do with Lenza and Remini and, like, all the others as well. But, you know, sometimes these viral things are come and go, and they have a little bit harder time making a solid business that sticks around for a long time versus just being kind of like an exciting one-time thing that comes and goes. But in any case, I think it really definitely does show that people are still into all of this AI photo stuff. I think they're really into a lot of these AI features that the novelty has not worn off.

12:18Consumers are still evidently paying for this, downloading it, using it. So it's a lot of fun. And I think that we're going to continue seeing that trend. AI is going to proliferate into everything and people really, really like this stuff. So definitely very, very interesting and that story will continue to follow.