$7.5 million in 10 weeks. Over $300,000 in six days. A quarter of a million dollars in 48 hours.
If you’ve opened Instagram at all in the last couple of months, you’ve watched these launches happen in real time. You’ve probably also watched a whole lot of people trying to copy them.
An Instagram strategist named Annika broke these launches down and put it perfectly. Lots of creators are trying to catch this wave, like the Yap Challenge wave. Only a few of them are actually riding it.
So what did the women who made it work actually do? And what is everybody copying them completely missing?
That’s what I want to dig into, because I’ve been on the wrong side of this more times than I’d like to admit.
Why I Stopped Copying Other People’s Launches
I bought the Yap Challenge back in July. I kept up with it for about a week.
I had just come back from vacation. The kids were home. I was onboarding new clients, prepping for my next paid workshop, and trying to stay inside the working hours I’d set for myself. I was floundering.
And like most of us, I’m a sucker for a challenge. A new course. A mastermind. Anything that sounds like exactly what I need right now.
Here’s the part that stings. I’ve run 14 different styles of launches in five years. Fourteen. I kept bouncing from strategy to strategy.
A challenge did really well for someone? I’m doing a challenge. Oh wait, virtual conferences are crushing it? I’m doing a virtual conference. No, no, webinars are where it’s at. Webinar it is.
Every single time, I was copying the shiny part on top. And every single time, I was rebuilding something from scratch instead of building what actually mattered.
So this time I did it differently. I dug into six of the biggest launches I’ve seen on Instagram in the last couple of months. I watched the interviews these women gave. I went through their posts, their reels, and the numbers they shared themselves.
What I found is that the launch everyone is trying to copy is just the tip of the iceberg. And you can use what’s underneath it in your business without burning down everything you’re already doing.
What the Viral Instagram Launches Looked Like From the Outside
Let’s start with what we all saw.
Jessi Jean opened her Yap Challenge in May. When she reopened it in June, in her words, she did $1 million in 70 minutes. Over 10 weeks of reopening it, she hit $7.5 million. Zero ad spend.
Alex Petrakieva launched her first course on Instagram and closed over $250,000, with more than 1,000 people signing up.
Meg Kilgore taught people how to get Claude to edit their reels and made over $250,000 in 48 hours.
Those numbers are wild. They’re also only the part that’s public.
What you’re not seeing is the back end. You’re not seeing the journey that got them there. So many people say “I was not an overnight success,” and I’d bet every one of these women would tell you the same thing.
We all know the biggest part of an iceberg sits under the water. That’s where the real story is. I found four layers under there that made these launches pop off.
Layer 1: The Content Wasn’t Tips. It Was a Story People Could Root For.
None of these women were posting tips. None of them were posting hacks.
They were talking to the camera and bringing people along on the journey of building something.
Jessica Carter opened a lot of her videos the same way. She’d welcome anyone new, introduce herself as a stay-at-home mom to three boys who finally went all in on content creation, and then say something like this: she’s not a content creator coach or an editing guru. She’s a non-techy mom figuring it out as she goes.
That line does a lot of heavy lifting. Instant connection. The person watching thinks, “Oh, she’s like me.”
Then she built series out of her journey, so people watched one reel and went looking for the next one.
That’s what so many of these women did. They shared the whole process in public. They had no idea how it was going to turn out. But they shared the launch process, the numbers, even their families’ reactions. That was the content that built the connection.
One creator who broke these launches down said it best. People weren’t just watching these women. They were rooting for them.
That’s a completely different relationship than “thanks for the tip, saved.”
How to Use Layer 1 in Your Business
Share your opinion. Share what you’re trying to figure out right now.
Stop just posting tips and pointing at text and dancing. Try a series that makes people want to come back to your Instagram to see what happens next, the way Jessica did.
Here’s the filter I use: create content people want to follow, not just save. A save means “useful.” A follow means “I want more of you.” Only one of those builds a launch.
Layer 2: They’d Been Showing Up for Years Before Anyone Noticed
None of these women had just started on Instagram. Not one.
They’d all been doing something different before their big launches, and most of it didn’t look like success at the time.
Jessica had made a course for real estate agents. She ran a free webinar that nobody showed up to. She posted Amazon links all month long and, in her words, made a grand total of 60 cents.
Sixty cents. That’s the “before” nobody posts a reel about.
Jessi Jean ran a business for seven years before she built the business behind the Yap Challenge. She said it herself: the reason she was able to do this was her history over those seven years.
Alex posted over 400 videos in her first year on Instagram. Four hundred.
And this is the line that stuck with me most. Jessi said in her launch post that she gave herself permission to suck all year and just see what happens.
Permission to suck. Most of us won’t give ourselves permission to post a reel we’re not sure about, let alone a whole year of figuring it out.
How to Use Layer 2 in Your Business
You have to actually stick with the platform you want to be on.
I know some of you are already thinking, “Trena, I’ve been on Instagram for years and it’s just not working for me.”
Fair. But look at what these women were doing differently. The styles of posts. The talking head style. The way they spoke to the camera. Looking closely at that can change how you see your own content.
They were in it to win it. They kept learning from their content, adjusting, and listening to their audience. That’s what kept them showing up every single day, even when the numbers didn’t look like much.
I know how exhausting Instagram can be. I also believe it’s one of the best platforms there is for people to connect with you.
But connection is only half of it. You also need a platform where people can go deeper with you. For me, that’s YouTube. I talked more about this in my video on why I’m coming back to Instagram and how I’m balancing it with YouTube. Instagram is where people get to know and like me. YouTube is where they go deep enough to trust me.
And that leads straight into the third layer.
Layer 3: They Built a Personal Brand, Not a Content Library
I said these women weren’t posting tips and tricks. What they were doing instead was building a personal brand.
Jessi Jean started her account at 35, openly sharing that she was career confused. Not polished. Not “here’s my seven-step framework.” Confused, and saying so out loud.
In her words, the most important decision she made was being willing to embarrass herself publicly.
Jessica was the non-techy mom, and she led with that. She let people know something real about her right away.
This is honestly what makes the difference with Instagram content. You have to focus on getting people to connect with you. Not your framework. Not your offer. You.
How to Use Layer 3 in Your Business
Let people get to know the human behind the business.
And I’m telling you, this works at any price point and any audience size. It is not a low-ticket trick.
My friend Lynette Marie does this. She sells high-ticket coaching to fitness coaches, and every time she opens her program, it sells out. She also teaches her clients her style of showing up on Instagram, and they’re booking clients from Instagram with fewer than 5,000 followers.
Lynette talks a lot about building a personal brand people become obsessed with. And I think that’s the piece so many of us who find Instagram exhausting are missing.
We’re exhausted because we’re trying to out-teach everybody. Nobody gets obsessed with a tip. They get obsessed with a person.
Layer 4: They Let the Community Pick the Offer
The fourth layer under the iceberg is community. Specifically, letting the community tell you what to sell.
Now, before you panic: a lot of you reading this already have an offer. I am not telling you to burn it down. Stay with me.
None of the women behind these big launches really had an offer when they started. So they let demand tell them what to create.
Jessica Carter put it this way. She didn’t create a product and then go find people to sell it to. She built a community first, listened to what they wanted, and then created it.
Jessi Jean said something similar about her own audience. They basically fed her the idea for the Yap Challenge.
The Waitlist Move Everyone Skips
Here’s the part people skip when they copy these launches. Before either of them built anything, they started a waitlist. They moved people from Instagram onto their email list.
That step matters more than the price, the format, or the five-day window.
Alex says it plainly in her launch breakdown. You have to start talking about the product weeks before you even build it. Not to sell it. To grow the waitlist.
Jessica grew her waitlist for six weeks. Her goal was to sell around $25,000 to $30,000.
For the first three days, she opened it to her waitlist at $37. Three days after that, she opened it to the public at $57. Then she closed the doors.
And she meant it. She kept her word.
So when she brought it back, people already knew the doors would actually close. That’s when she passed $700,000 in sales.
Here’s what really happened in between. She hadn’t just built a community that wanted the offer. She built a community that got into the offer and then started marketing it for her. They were talking about how great it was while she was still growing the waitlist for the next round.
Her community did the selling for her.
How to Use Layer 4 When You Already Have an Offer
You don’t need a new offer. You need to start posting reels that build a community around the offer you already have.
How do you build that community? By being more human and sharing more human stuff on Instagram.
I think the first shift is getting out of the “how do I sell on Instagram every day” mindset and into “how do I build a community that wants what I sell.”
From there, it can go one of two ways.
Option one: while you’re posting on Instagram, you’re collecting names for the next time you open the doors to your coaching program, course, or membership. Or you’re running small promo cycles for the offer you already have.
Option two: as you post, you realize your audience wants just one piece of your offer. So you chunk it up and sell that piece.
What I don’t think you have to do is jump into low-ticket offers just because that’s what’s working for other people right now.
Back to Lynette for a second. She does an amazing job teaching her clients how she uses Instagram to sell in the DMs every single day. And if you look at her posts, she’s not constantly selling in her content. She’s building connection. So when she finally says, “Hey, by the way, we could work together,” people say, “Totally. I’m in.”
Stop Copying the Tip of the Iceberg
These four layers are what you don’t see behind every one of these launches. And they’re what made them work.
When you try to copy a viral launch, you can’t just look at the top. You can’t just copy the price, the format, or the five-day open and close. You have to understand the layers underneath and the years of work that went into them.
I know this because I’ve gotten wrapped up in tip-of-the-iceberg launches myself. Every time I created a new launch from scratch, it ate the time I should have spent building my community and connecting with my audience.
That’s where I failed.
So let me be really clear about what this does and doesn’t mean.
It doesn’t mean you have to lower your prices right now. It doesn’t mean you have to come up with a brand new offer right now.
It means you take that personal-brand style of content and tie it into what’s already working in your business.
Feed What’s Already Working Instead of Starting Over
Maybe you already have a webinar. Maybe you already have a challenge. Maybe you have an application for your coaching program.
The question isn’t “what new launch should I build?” The question is “how do I use personal-brand content to feed what I already have?”
Should You Do the Yap Challenge?
If a friend texted me asking whether she should start the Yap Challenge, here’s exactly what I’d text back.
Do you have a funnel that already converts?
If yes, go 100% in and make the time for it, because it will completely change your business.
If no, that’s your first project. Not more content.
The business owners I admire most aren’t the ones with the best strategy. They’re the ones who know what to fix.
So before you change anything, look at what’s already working in your business and ask yourself one question: is this what my numbers are telling me I need to do?
What I’m Doing Differently Now
Yes, I’m back in the Yap Challenge. And this time I know exactly what I want it to do for my business.
I’ve had to figure out how to split my time. Not just between business and life, but between delivering to my clients and marketing my business, which is what the Yap Challenge and my YouTube content are for.
I’ve already freed up enough brain space to get excited about content again.
Part of that is focus. I’m putting my energy into one specific program, Data over Drama, and it’s built around community. The other thing I’m focused on is getting consistent on Instagram.
YouTube every week? No problem for me. Instagram is the muscle I’m still building.
All of this has led me to make a lot of changes in what I will and won’t do in my business in 2027.
Figure Out What to Focus On in 2027
If you’re reading this thinking, “Okay, but what should I be focusing on in my business?” that’s exactly what my CEO Day is for.
It’s happening December 6. We’re going to look at your numbers from 2026. And if you don’t know your numbers, you especially need to be in this room, because your numbers are what tell you what to focus on in 2027.
We’re not adding ten new projects to your list. We’re simplifying your 2027 plan so you focus on what’s already working and add fuel to it.
Go to trenalittle.com/ceo to grab your ticket. Be there live with me so you can build a 2027 plan that lets you stop guessing.
And if you want to see how I keep track of my own numbers every month, watch my video on my monthly numbers routine. I break down exactly what I look at so I can make the best decisions for myself and my business.
