My social app with no upload button went from 0 to 245 users in 6 weeks.

I built a social app SocialHuman where only human-made content can exist. Every photo and video has to be captured inside the app, and each one runs through a verification pipeline (sensor data, EXIF forensics, screen-recapture and moire detection, device attestation, and a few others) before it goes live. The goal was a feed where AI images and reposts basically can't exist.

Six weeks later, here is the honest scoreboard, all pulled from production today:

Growth

- 0 to 245 users

- Signups have held at 30 to 40 per week since launch, so it wasn't a one-day spike

- 51 weekly active, 124 monthly active

Content

- 739 posts (600 photo, 139 video) and 81 stories

- No upload button anywhere, so you physically cannot drop in an AI image, a screenshot, or a saved photo. If it is in the feed, it was shot in the app and passed verification

- 3,134 likes, 1,300 comments, 580 (E2EE) DMs

Business

- 7 paying subscribers (not a lot)

- MRR $27

- Median user age is 35, which genuinely surprised me for a brand new social app.

What is working

- The core promise lands. People are tired of not knowing if what they see is real.

- Older users retain noticeably better than younger ones. This is pretty interesting, they also convert to paying customers more.

- Word of mouth is real. "A friend told me" is my second biggest signup source after social (I run twitter ads).

What is not working

- Leaky bucket. 58% of people who sign up never post a single time. First post is basically same session or never. (Added now to onboarding soft-gated posting)

- No organic or viral loop yet. Growth still comes from ads and me manually showing up in places like this.