AllEventsGlobal event discovery platform with 20M+ users across 40,000 cities
Drive 24K+ organic downloads on AllEvents
Redesigning the viral loop mechanic to turn passive sharing into active referrals for app growth.
About AllEvents
AllEvents is a global event discovery and ticketing platform that helps people find and attend events around them — from concerts and meetups to workshops and festivals. You can explore it on the App Store and Play Store.
My role
Led research and end-to-end design for this viral growth experiment to drive organic app acquisition.
Team
- Achyuth Yarramsetti (Lead Designer & Product Owner)
- Navghan Dabhi (Lead App Developer)
- Kush Malukani (Product Marketing Executive)
Let’s break down the problem
User behaviour
In the real world, people rarely attend events alone — they plan and experience them with friends. Yet, inside AllEvents, this journey was surprisingly lonely. Users were RSVPing in isolation, while shared links often led friends to the web instead of the app.Problem
This fragmentation meant missing a major opportunity for organic app downloads. Instead of forcing installs, we needed a way to naturally bring real-world circles into the app, allowing friend groups to exist inside AllEvents.This insight became the foundation for a new growth initiative to make AllEvents viral within friend groups. If we could encourage users to bring their friends onto the app, we could:
Insight 💡
“Most users attend events with friends who are not yet on AllEvents.”
The Goal
Motivate existing users to bring at least one friend into the AllEvents app to drive organic installs through friend-driven sharing. Our core hypothesis: If we reward or motivate users for bringing their friends to the app, installs will grow organically — and as friend circles form inside the app, users may return more frequently.
Defined Problem Statement
Business Statement
“Drive organic growth by motivating users to bring their real-world friend groups into the app.”
User Statement
“Sharing happened, but friends stayed on the web. We needed a way to pull those real-world circles into the app.”
Ideation & Early Direction
How might we design viral incentives that encourage users to invite their friends, turning social connections into a driver for organic app growth?
We explored multiple acquisition models for social-driven acquisition — referral bonuses, invite-based rewards, and group discounts. While each had potential, they felt transactional and didn't match how people emotionally experience events. Events are social, memorable, shared with friends — not coupons.
The Breakthrough
Then came the insight:
People don’t share events for discounts. They share experiences worth talking about.
Coldplay. Samay Raina. Major festivals.
The kind of events people dream of attending.
People don’t share events for discounts. They share experiences worth talking about.
Coldplay. Samay Raina. Major festivals.
The kind of events people dream of attending.
One key idea:
Win tickets to iconic events by inviting friends.
The emotional pull was strong enough to drive sharing naturally, regardless of where the event was hosted.
Win tickets to iconic events by inviting friends.
The emotional pull was strong enough to drive sharing naturally, regardless of where the event was hosted.
Contest Mechanics
We built a simple contest around a highly popular or sold-out event — something users genuinely cared about.
For each contest, we selected one iconic event and secured four tickets through our contacts: two winners, two tickets each.
For each contest, we selected one iconic event and secured four tickets through our contacts: two winners, two tickets each.
How Users Earned Points
Users earned points by participating and inviting friends. At the contest deadline, the top two scorers won the tickets. A clear event + a clear reward + a simple scoring system made the contest instantly understandable.
• Device IDs
• Email
• Phone number
Suspicious entries were automatically disqualified.
Maintaining Fairness
To prevent spam and fake entries, we verified users through:• Device IDs
• Phone number
Suspicious entries were automatically disqualified.
Execution Plan
Ideation took just two days — a rapid sprint across product, design, and engineering.
The biggest technical challenge was enabling multiple contests to launch dynamically without requiring app updates. To solve this, we built a lightweight contest management system powered by backend APIs, allowing campaigns to go live in real time.
Within two weeks, we moved from:
Concept → Design → Live MVP
The experiment proved how quickly lean execution could validate a viral growth hypothesis.
The biggest technical challenge was enabling multiple contests to launch dynamically without requiring app updates. To solve this, we built a lightweight contest management system powered by backend APIs, allowing campaigns to go live in real time.
Within two weeks, we moved from:
Concept → Design → Live MVP
The experiment proved how quickly lean execution could validate a viral growth hypothesis.
User Flow
Iteration 01 — MVP Design
To drive traffic into the contest flow, we activated a set of high-impact touchpoints: Emailers, Website Contest Page, Social Media, and Meta Ads.
Impact — Iteration 01
We launched 8 contests across Mumbai & Ahmedabad during August and September.
Key Learnings
•
Bigger Events drive higher participation.
•
Sold-out Events are the strongest motivators.
•
The Gap: Most users broadcasted; few recruited.
•
28% Metric: Low conversion of social shares to app joins.
Iteration 02 Direction
→Stronger gamification mechanics
→Clarity in referral motivation
→Mandatory 'Bring 1 Friend' unlock
2nd Iteration
Problem Statement
In Iteration 01, sharing a link was enough to enter. Most users stopped there—so only 28% brought a friend, limiting virality. The contest needed a mechanism that required at least one friend to join.
The Insight
We gave them everything—the tickets, the easy sharing, the hype—but only 28% brought a friend. That was our 'Aha!' moment: users were broadcasting to their feed, but they weren't actually recruiting their friends.
The Solution: We decided to flip the script. We stopped asking for invites and started requiring them. By making 'bring one friend' a mandatory entry requirement, we turned passive broadcasters into active stakeholders.
The Solution: We decided to flip the script. We stopped asking for invites and started requiring them. By making 'bring one friend' a mandatory entry requirement, we turned passive broadcasters into active stakeholders.
Updated User Flow
Iteration 02 — The Solution
We decided to flip the script. We stopped asking for invites and started requiring them—making entry conditional on at least one friend joining. This turned passive broadcasters into active stakeholders and converted social shares into real growth. We also improved the flow, UI clarity, and leaderboard to make participation more exciting and gamified.
Impact — Iteration 02
We launched 8 contests in Mumbai & Ahmedabad again in October.
Before vs After
Future Plan
With more friend circles entering the app, we observed higher RSVP notifications and increased app launches. The next step is to understand how these circles behave and leverage their group activity to improve retention. Next focus areas: Study engagement patterns, identify triggers, build group-activation features, and A/B test reward formats.
The biggest lesson
Virality isn't a feature. It's a constraint. The moment we made 'bring one friend' a requirement instead of a request, the numbers fixed themselves.
In summary, I boosted viral growth by:
Redesigning the Loop
Converted passive sharing into mandatory referral loops.
Gamifying Participation
Tiered leaderboards transformed participation into competition.
Building Trust
Driven 6.1K app downloads via pure organic virality.
It is a wonderful and user friendly app for discovering events. The referral contest made it so easy to invite my friends and win tickets!
22 Oct • Google Play Store
Super fast execution of the contest. The leaderboard updates in real-time which makes the competition very exciting.
20 Oct • Google Play Store