“There's two things you can do to earn sweat coins you can either start walking or you invite a friend for five sweat coins and that created quite a lot of that intrinsic virality where we made the earning sweat coins essentially earning sweat coins is the user experience.”

Solve Cold Start by Embedding the Referral Mechanism Into the Core User Journey

Sweatcoin's referral program wasn't a separate screen or a growthy pop-up — it was one of two primary actions on the core 'earn' screen, right alongside walking. This made inviting friends feel like a natural part of the product, not a growth mechanic bolted on. Once Anton had the currency (the coin) to fund referral rewards, growth could be self-sustaining. The structure transferred from being stuck at 40K users to growing at 300/day within months.