The Next Wave of Marketing Is Offline: Inside Avery Kokka’s IRL Viral Growth Strategy

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Hooked with Julia and Nick

Hooked by Playkit

9 episodes

10 hours ago

Most social media advice out there is totally useless, and nobody seems to be talking about how they actually grew their company on social. So we decided to create a podcast that pulls back the curtain on exactly how to grow your brand, your audience, and your impact. Each episode is a radically transparent, fun, and totally real conversation with top creators, marketers, and brand leaders. We'll dig into the actual tactics, real metrics, and actionable playbooks that you can immediately use to dominate on social.

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The Next Wave of Marketing Is Offline: Inside Avery Kokka’s IRL Viral Growth Strategy

Hooked with Julia and Nick

59 minutes 33 seconds

3 weeks ago

The Next Wave of Marketing Is Offline: Inside Avery Kokka’s IRL Viral Growth Strategy

How do you build a tech startup that actually brings people together and then walk away from it to chase your dream?

In this episode of Hooked, Playkit co-founders Julia Pintar and Nick Sanchez sit down with Avery Kokka, the 23-year-old co-founder and former CMO of Plots, a venture-backed startup backed by a16z that’s reinventing how Gen Z connects IRL.

Avery shares how she turned her passion for live events into a viral growth engine and how she’s now channeling that same creativity into a full-time career as a DJ and artist.

Highlights From This Episode:

(00:06:00) – The chaotic truth about growing on TikTok as an artist

(00:08:15) – How Avery and her team used events to acquire their first 100K+ users

(00:14:45) – The college playbook: why LMU’s “boring” nightlife became her unfair advantage

(00:18:50) – The secret to competing with bigger startups: relationships and scrappiness

(00:22:00) – Julia’s lesson on why giving value always wins (in startups and life)

(00:24:30) – The “college page” strategy that took Plots from 0 → 300,000 users

(00:32:30) – Knowing when to drop what’s working (and when to pivot)

(00:38:40) – “People don’t care about your brand… they care about the humans behind it.”

(00:40:10) – How Julia hacked early TikTok growth by adding her face to brand videos

(00:45:30) – Do views really equal conversions? The truth about organic attribution

(00:53:00) – Avery’s transition from startup life to music and what losing someone taught her about risk

(00:55:00) – Why building your life around what you love is the ultimate act of creativity

What You’ll Learn:• How to build community-first products that grow organically• Why authenticity beats polish every time on social• How real-world experiences can power viral growth• What it takes to transition from tech to creative work• How to think scrappy when you can’t outspend your competition

🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

Follow Playkit for more conversations with founders, creators, and operators rethinking what growth looks like in 2025.