A video: “115M Downloads, No Business Model – How BeReal Lost Everything”

BeReal was one of the fastest-growing apps in the world. Within a year it leapt to number 1 on the App Store, with over 100 million downloads. It was hailed as the “anti-Instagram” that encouraged healthier social media habits and didn’t push ads down user’s throats. However, as much as these were positive attributes from a third-person point of view, these were actually extremely large disadvantages for BeReal. With a lack of addicting feeds through which you can doom scroll, it became quite difficult for BeReal to retain its users. And, without any revenue from ads, BeReal simply was not able to sustain itself without VC funding which quickly dried up after their growth stalled. So, BeReal was stuck accepting a lowball buyout offer just to stay alive. This video tells the story of BeReal’s explosive rise and fall and why an anti-social media app doesn’t really work in practice.

Here are key timestamps linked to significant moments in the video:

1. 00:00:00 – Introduction: BeReal’s Rise and Sudden Decline
2. 00:00:31 – BeReal’s Rapid Growth to 80M Downloads
3. 00:01:03 – The Concept Behind BeReal
4. 00:01:33 – Why Gen Z Loved BeReal
5. 00:02:07 – BeReal’s Peak: 53M Downloads in 2022
6. 00:02:38 – Declining User Engagement by 2023
7. 00:03:38 – Similarities Between BeReal and Vine’s Failure
8. 00:04:42 – BeReal’s Monetization Problem
9. 00:06:10 – BeReal’s Restrictive Features Becoming a Burden
10. 00:07:20 – BeReal’s Psychological Flaw: Locking Out Users
11. 00:08:40 – The Importance of Rewarding User Behavior
12. 00:09:47 – BeReal’s Late Attempt to Introduce Streaks
13. 00:11:20 – BeReal’s Acquisition by Voodoo for €500M
14. 00:12:20 – The Future of BeReal Under Voodoo