The street dance app on Pakistan's Top Grossing chart: Groove is paid chat in a hip-hop jacket
What it is A 17+ live-stream and DM app dressed up as a hip-hop and street dance community. It makes money through in-app coin purchases of $0.99 to $99.99, in effect a paid-chat front.
Why it charted It never really took off. It got through review as a lifestyle app using a dance-community cover, and on the Top Grossing charts of small countries such as Denmark, Pakistan, and Peru, where the bar is very low, a few large top-ups put it on the chart for a few days at a time.
DHow you could follow it Not recommended. What's worth learning is seeing that "a few top-ups can chart in a small country's category", and how to spot this kind of front. Only a live-streaming team with its own hosts and agency resources should test this channel.
- Data (updated daily) · Launched 2026-09-19 · Turkey rating 3 · 11-08 charted in 12 stores
iOS · best category chart rank · by store South KoreaItalyPakistanData 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 11 observations). Lower rank is higher; gaps mean it wasn't charted that dayiOS · Rating count · Turkey Data 2026-11-01 → 2026-11-08 (8 days, 3 observations). Apple doesn't publish download counts; rating growth is a proxy for downloads.
In Nov 6, the #35 app on Pakistan's App Store lifestyle Top Grossing chart was a hip-hop community called Groove, which had zero ratings in the country. On the same chart, #6 was a skiing community and #7 a stargazing community. None of these apps sell skiing, stargazing, or street dance. They sell coins for live rooms and DMs. Groove is one of the weaker examples in this batch. For anyone looking for their next product, this piece explains how the playbook works and why it's not recommended.
A strange chart
On Pakistan's lifestyle Top Grossing chart for Nov 6, the top 40 spots were dating giants like Muzz, Bumble, and Tinder, with a run of newcomers in between: Berk (skiing community) at #6, Ceno (stargazing community) at #7, Nana at #8, Renna at #13, Lento at #23, Bello (nightlife) at #26, Groove at #35, Candra at #39, and Melton at #40. A country with hardly any ski fields had a skiing app at #6 on its bestseller chart.
Groove is the same everywhere else. From Oct 28 to Nov 6, over these ten days, it charted in the Lifestyle Top Grossing chart across 20 countries and regions. Its best showings were Denmark #24 (11-03), Pakistan #35 (11-06), and Israel #48 (11-02), plus Peru, Italy, and South Korea. It never made the overall chart in any store. The number of stores it charted in grew from 2 on Oct 28 to 9 on Nov 6, but the lineup changed daily: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Turkey, Germany, and Japan each showed up for a day or two and then dropped off. Adding up the ratings in those stores, there were only 0 to 4 per day (App Store regional charts, 10-28 to 11-06).
Charting with zero ratings shows only one thing: this chart can be topped by a few top-ups. Someone is spending in it, and the people spending are few, today in Denmark, tomorrow in Peru.
What it says it is
The store listing sounds convincing: "A hip-hop community for people who live for the beat: rappers, dancers, DJs, graffiti artists." It has four features: Battle Hub for music and dance live rooms, Feed Hype for practice videos and updates, Connect for direct messages between creators and friends, and personal profiles. The closing line: "Come as you are. Keep it real." (App Store US, 11-06)
The cracks show in the details:
- 7 in-app purchase tiers, named offer1 through offer7, priced at $0.99, $1.99, $4.99, $9.99, $19.99, $49.99, and $99.99. These are coin top-up tiers, not a subscription. A community for watching dance videos doesn't need a $99.99 tier.
- Rated 17+, the package is only 7.9 MB, English only. Launched Sep 19, updated Oct 9 to version 1.0.1 with the release note "bug fix", and not touched since.
- The developer is Frenk Tarves, a personal name, with this as the only app under it. No website, no support page; the privacy policy is a Google Doc link.
The US store has 18 ratings averaging 4.8 stars, but the app has never charted in the US. The 4 visible reviews are all 5 stars, reading "Great", "Good", "Good", "Vaso", clustered between Oct 29 and Nov 1 (App Store US reviews). It looks more like a new account padding its own stars than real users talking (inferred).
Apple's own "You might also like" section on the US listing shows Music & Friends - Livechat, Bobo - GO Chat, Fans Match, several AI girlfriend apps, and TickLiv. All paid chat and dating.
Why it charted
It has nothing to do with the product. Four things stacked together:
- The cover got through review. Listing it with ordinary social descriptions like "hip-hop community, watch live, post updates", without mentioning companionship, dating, or coins, gets it into the lifestyle category, which has less competition.
- The bar for small-country category charts is very low. Pakistan's #35 app had 0 ratings locally, with a ring of similar apps around it.
- High-priced coin tiers. The top tier is $99.99, so a single user willing to spend can push it onto a small country's chart. The money comes back through live-room tips or DM coin deductions, relying on a handful of large spenders. Whether the live rooms have real hosts or staff who fill in as chat companions, and whether there are fake accounts, can't be seen from outside (unverified).
- Cheap disguises. Individual developer name, a 7.9 MB template package, a Google Doc as the privacy policy. When it stops working or gets banned, they switch to the next shell.
The user's origin is still unclear. Meta and TikTok ad libraries (TikTok only shows ads aimed at Europe) return nothing when searched by its App Store ID, and X shows 60 posts in the last 0 days. A TikTok search for "Groove" returns two unrelated apps with the same name. No ad activity found doesn't mean none ran: this kind of app often buys traffic through ad networks, Apple Search Ads, agencies in the Middle East and South Asia, or recruits streamers and users directly through live-streaming agencies. We have no evidence for any of these.
Who it's competing with: a dozen look-alikes in different skins
Street dance is just one coat. In the same period, the same product ran under different themes, and dance is not the only skin (App Store data across storefronts, as of 11-06):
| App | Shell | Persona | Launched | Storefronts charted / best category rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Berk: Ski Tracker & Community | Skiing | Indonesian PT company | 2026-08-28 | 101 / #2 |
| Ceno: Stargazing Community | Stargazing | Indonesian PT company | 2026-08-19 | 87 / #3 |
| Renna-Live Stream&Connect | Straight-up live streaming | Limited company | 2026-08-27 | 86 / #3 |
| Ekko: Handmade Creator Hub | Crafts | Indonesian PT company | 2026-06-16 | 82 / #2 |
| Nana - Live Video / Voice Chat | Video and voice chat | Personal name | 2026-10-05 | 60 / #6 |
| Bello: Nightlife & Friends | Nightlife | Limited company | 2026-09-04 | 44 / #9 |
| Bobo - GO Chat (Meet Dancers) | Dancer | Personal name | 2026-09-16 | 30 / #20 |
| Bloop - Match Your Dance Vibe | Dance | Limited company | 2026-09-05 | 18 / #16 |
| Ringo: Dance & Video Share | Dance | Vietnamese company | 2026-08-21 | 15 / #17 |
| Groove | Hip-hop street dance | Personal name | 2026-09-19 | 20 / #24 |
Berk, which charted in the most storefronts, is on 101 storefronts' charts, five times Groove's count; Nana and Bello each have over two hundred ratings. Groove has a narrower reach and lower ranks, placing it near the back of this group.
The real street dance and hip-hop content lives on TikTok, Instagram live streams, and dance tutorial apps. Groove doesn't compete with them for content. It only borrows the theme as a shell.
If it were you
Verdict: Don't chase this. It isn't a product opportunity. It's a paid-chat distribution playbook, and a dozen shells were running at the same time, some charting in five times as many storefronts as Groove. Groove itself only shows up sporadically on charts, and there's no sign of how much money it actually made.
Who it suits: Teams already running overseas live streaming or voice chat, with streamer or agency resources, able to set up entities in bulk and absorb takedowns. For them, "switch to a hobby skin, enter lifestyle categories, target small-country top grossing charts" is a channel worth testing.
Who it doesn't suit: Indie developers and small teams. What makes this business valuable is streamer supply, top-ups, and risk control. The app itself is the least valuable layer. 17+ ratings plus user-generated content plus in-app coins already put it on Apple's review watchlist, and the account can vanish at any time.
What you can learn:
- Small-country category top grossing charts have a low bar. In one country's one category top grossing chart, a few purchases can get you into the top 50. If you see a new app sitting on a pile of small-country category top grossing charts with ratings near 0, don't read it as traction yet. It's most likely this type.
- Signs that identify these shells: in-app purchases named offer1 and offer2, with the top tier at $99.99; a privacy policy hosted on a Google Doc; a developer entity that is a personal name, an Indonesian PT, or a Hong Kong LTD-type shell company; charting across many storefronts while ratings stay near zero.
How they acquire users: In this playbook, acquisition runs through live-streaming agency referrals, ad networks, and agencies. None of it is visible from outside, and an indie developer can't replicate it.
When the window closes: Shells like this tend to have short lifespans, and the window isn't tied to any single app. If Apple cleans up a batch based on these signals, the whole group drops together.
What would show I've misjudged this: If in three months Groove and its batch are still around, and they stabilize rankings in major-country lifestyle or social top grossing charts with ratings that actually climb, that would mean there are real paying users and retention, and the model is more profitable than it looks. Even then, the barrier is streamers and a top-up operation, not the app.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one Berk: Ski Tracker & Community iOS 2026-08-28 Charted in 101 storefronts, best category rank #2, up to 60 ratings (appstore library) Skiing shell, Indonesian PT shell company entity, charted in 5 times as many storefronts as Groove Ceno: Stargazing Community iOS 2026-08-19 87 storefronts, best category rank #3 Stargazing shell, same playbook with wider reach Ekko: Handmade Creator Hub iOS 2026-06-16 82 storefronts, best category rank #2 Crafts shell, launched earlier Renna-Live Stream&Connect iOS 2026-08-27 86 storefronts, best category rank #3 No hobby skin, straight-up live streaming Nana - Live Video | Voice Chat iOS 2026-10-05 60 storefronts, best category rank #6,266 rating Same personal-name entity, but much higher volume Bello: Nightlife & Friends iOS 2026-09-04 44 storefronts, best category rank #9,272 rating Nightlife shell Bobo - GO Chat (Meet Dancers) iOS 2026-09-16 30 storefronts, best category rank #20 Also a dancer shell with a personal-name entity (GRAYSON PARKER), appearing next to Groove in the US store's "You might also like" Bloop - Match Your Dance Vibe iOS 2026-09-05 18 storefronts, best category rank #16 Dance shell, entity is AUSPICIOUS TRADE LIMITED; not the same developer as the recall notice Ringo: Dance & Video Share iOS 2026-08-21 15 storefronts, best category rank #17 Dance shell, Vietnamese company entity TikTok / Instagram live streams Big-company features Already around Massive (specific figures unverified) Real street dance and hip-hop content lives here. Groove doesn't compete for content, only borrows the theme as a shell - Where users come from
- Confirmed small-country category top grossing charts (low-bar chart entry): Pakistan Lifestyle top grossing chart #35 11-06, with 0 local ratings. The top 40 also includes Berk, Ceno, Nana, Renna, Bello, Candra and other same-type shells (appstore library)
- Inferred incentivized or self-written reviews: US store has 18 ratings averaging 4.8 stars, and 4 reviews are a single word each ('Great', 'Good', 'Vaso'), clustered between 10-29 and 11-01 (review RSS)
- Inferred paid acquisition (Meta / TikTok): Meta and TikTok ad libraries have no records under the App Store ID; no evidence for ad networks, ASA, or agency referrals
- Inferred content, creators, press: web, X (last 60 days), and TikTok searches turn up no content related to it
Groove-Log Your Street Moments (iOS id 6810270105) research report
Storefronts checked: all 115 storefronts in our library's chart data (appstore library, 2026-10-28 to 11-06); US store page and review RSS (scraped 2026-11-06); Meta and TikTok ad libraries; web, X, and TikTok search.
Bottom line
Groove didn't get where it is through its product. It's one of a large batch of 2026 paid-chat shells running "interest skin + live room + DMs + coin in-app purchases" in the second half of the year. Its skin is a hip-hop/street dance community. It sat on low-bar small-country Lifestyle category top grossing charts for a few days, carried by a tiny number of paying users. Absolute volume is small, and it ranks near the back of its batch.
1. What it is
- Developer "Frenk Tarves", a personal account with this as its only app (iTunes lookup developer ID 6810270107; the AppBrain developer page also lists only this app). It looks like a shell entity registered under a personal name. The real owner is unverified.
- First released 2026-09-19, updated to 10-09 1.0.1, with release notes that just say "bug fix"; package size 7.9 MB, English only, 18+ (US store page).
- 简介写的是嘻哈社区(Battle Hub 直播间、Feed、私信、关注),但内购 7 档的名字就叫
offer1–offer7,价格 $0.99 / $1.99 / $4.99 / $9.99 / $19.99 / $49.99 / $99.99,是典型的金币充值档,不是订阅。隐私政策是一个 Google Docs 链接,没有官网,也没有支持页(美区商店页,2026-11-06)。 - Bundle ID
com.HipHop.Groove. The library also hascom.HipHop.Mirrorwith the same prefix (Fun Mirror, developer "毕威 曾"), but that's a very weak lead and doesn't show it's the same team.
2. Data: how far it actually got
- Charts (appstore library chart_rank): over these 10 days, from 10-28 to 11-06, it charted in 20 storefronts in total, almost all in Lifestyle (6012) top grossing, and never on any storefront's overall chart. Best ranks: Denmark #24 (11-03), Pakistan #35 (11-06), Israel #48 (11-02), Peru #56, Italy #62, South Korea #84. The number of storefronts went from 10-28 on 2 to 9 on 11-06, but which storefronts it charted in changed a lot day to day (Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Turkey, Germany, Japan, and Romania all dropped off after a day or two). It looks like a few big-spending users rotating countries for top-ups.
- Ratings: across the storefronts where it charted, the library's rating counts add up to only 0–4 per day. The US store page shows 18 ratings averaging 4.8 stars, but the US never charted it. Of the 4 visible US reviews, every one is a single word: "Great", "Good", "Good", "Vaso", clustered between 10-29 and 11-01 (review RSS). These look like incentivized or self-written reviews and shouldn't be read as real user feedback.
- Chart entry bar: in Pakistan's Lifestyle top grossing chart 11-06, ranks 1–40 include, beyond the big dating companies like Muzz, Bumble, and Tinder, a crowd of new same-type shells: Berk (skiing community) at #6, Ceno (stargazing community) at #7, Nana at #8, Renna at #13, Lento at #23, Bello at #26, FamiGuru, Chatme, Candra at #39, Melton at #40. Groove is #35 with 0 ratings. That shows a few top-ups are enough to chart. In the top 40 of the Denmark and Italy charts, look-alike apps like SeaHaze, Ekko, Ceno, and Wojito also appear.
3. Competitors
The real competitors aren't "hip-hop communities" but the same batch of paid-chat shells. They swap the skin and do the same thing. The data below comes from the appstore library (app_profile, as of 11-06):
| Name | Shell | Persona | Launched | Storefronts charted / best category rank | How it differs from Groove |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Berk: Ski Tracker & Community | Skiing | PT SANDI DAYA GUNA | 2026-08-28 | 101 storefronts / #2 | Widest reach, an order of magnitude larger in volume |
| Ceno: Stargazing Community | Stargazing | PT UTAMA BINA JAKA | 2026-08-19 | 87 storefronts / #3 | Same as above, Indonesian PT shell company |
| Renna-Live Stream&Connect | Straight-up live streaming | CELESTIA TECHNOLOGY LTD | 2026-08-27 | 86 storefronts / #3 | No fake interest shell |
| Ekko: Handmade Creator Hub | Crafts | PT KODE TEKNO PRATA | 2026-06-16 | 82 storefronts / #2 | Earlier, and spread wider |
| Nana - Live Video / Voice Chat | Video and voice chat | Jared Kellan Quentin (person's name) | 2026-10-05 | 60 storefronts / #6 | Also uses a person's name as the entity; 266 ratings |
| Candra - Hobby & Skill Social | Hobby skills | PT SAGE LINK TECH | 2026-08-30 | 58 storefronts / #8 | — |
| Bello: Nightlife & Friends | Nightlife | BOLTRIX TECHNOLOGY LTD | 2026-09-04 | 44 storefronts / #9 | 272 ratings |
| Bobo - GO Chat(Meet Dancers) | Dancer | GRAYSON PARKER (person's name) | 2026-09-16 | 30 storefronts / #20 | Same dance shell; in the US store's "You might also like", it sits right next to Groove |
| Bloop - Match Your Dance Vibe | Dance | AUSPICIOUS TRADE LIMITED | 2026-09-05 | 18 storefronts / #16 | Same dance shell; recall claimed it shares a developer with Groove, which is wrong |
| Ringo: Dance & Video Share | Dance | PHAM HUNG SON COMPANY LIMITED | 2026-08-21 | 15 storefronts / #17 | Same dance shell |
| Music & Friends - Livechat | Music | CONNOR STERLING (person's name) | 2026-09-23 | 1 store | Top spot in the US store's "You might also like" |
| TickLiv | Live streaming | Luzhou Jujiu Zhihe Electronic Commerce | 2026-06-17 | 4 storefronts / #28 | Chinese entity; 226 ratings |
Real hip-hop/street dance community products (like Steezy, a dance-tutorial app, or the livestream and street dance content on TikTok and Instagram) do something different. I won't go into that here, and their scale hasn't been verified. The US store's "You might also like" lists Music & Friends - Livechat, Bobo - GO Chat, Fans Match, AI girlfriend-type apps, and TickLiv (US store pages). That suggests Apple's collaborative recommendations group it with paid chat and dating apps.
4. Growth tactics
- Ads: Neither the Meta Ad Library nor the TikTok Ad Library (only ads targeted at Europe) returns anything for its App Store ID, and neither returns anything for Bloop, Ringo, Bobo, Nana, or Bello (app_link table in the metaads and tiktokads databases). No results doesn't mean no ads ran. Apps like this often use ad networks, Apple Search Ads, or agencies in the Middle East and South Asia, or recruit streamers and users directly through live-streaming agencies. There's no evidence for any of these.
- Content and creators: A web search for "Frenk Tarves" and the full app name only turns up aggregator pages like App Store, AppBrain, and chrome-stats. X (x-radar, last 60 days): 0 posts. A TikTok search for "Groove" returns two unrelated apps with the same name (@groove_social, a nightclub line app, and @groove_theapp), not this one.
- Store ratings: 18 US ratings and 4 one-word five-star reviews, concentrated in October. These were most likely seeded to warm up a new account, so the app looks used after review. This isn't real growth.
- Chart effect: The charts it appears on are small-country Lifestyle grossing charts, where the bar is extremely low. These rankings don't bring much organic traffic. They look more like traces left by a handful of paying users.
- Where the money comes from: Coin tiers go up to $99.99. The model is livestream tipping or pay-per-message, with break-even depending on a few "big spender" users. I couldn't verify whether the chat partners are real people or bots (no post-purchase screenshots or reviews).
5. Why it made it onto the charts (rather than "why it works")
- Shell passes review: It's listed under a generic UGC social description ("hip-hop community, watch live, post updates") and doesn't mention companionship, dating, or coins. That gets it into the Lifestyle category, which has a low bar and little competition (store page description + in-app purchase offers named offer1–7).
- The small-country grossing chart bar is very low: Groove ranked #35 on Pakistan's chart with only 0 local ratings, surrounded by identical clones (appstore database, 11-06).
- High-priced coin tier: up to $99.99, so one big-spending user can push it onto a small country's chart. The charting countries change every day, which suggests few paying users, spread thin.
- Low-cost matrix approach: an entity registered under a personal name, a 7.9 MB package, a Google Doc as the privacy policy, and only one 1.0.1 version. When one account gets banned or stops performing, they swap in the next. More than a dozen shells were running at the same time.
6. Differentiation
No product differentiation. The hip-hop/street dance angle is just a shell. At the same time there were at least three other dance shells (Bloop, Ringo, Bobo), plus more than a dozen other shells for skiing, stargazing, crafts, nightlife, and so on. The shell isn't why it charted; it's just the means of passing review and getting into a category. What actually sets it apart is only two things: the entity is a personal name, and it picked a street culture theme. Compared with its batchmates Berk, Ceno, and Ekko (80–100 storefronts), Groove only spread to 20 storefronts, with a best rank of #24, making it one of the weaker ones in the batch.
7. Visibility and copycats
- Visibility: almost nobody knows about it. No public revenue, no media coverage, nothing on X or TikTok. It only shows up on automated aggregator pages like AppBrain and chrome-stats.
- Copying: there's no clear case of anyone copying anyone. This is a common playbook across the industry. For similar clones during the same period, see the table above. The dance shells include Bloop, Ringo, and Bobo.
8. Takeaways
- If you want to study this playbook: an interest shell + a personal or empty-shell entity + coin tiers up to $99.99 + targeting small-country Lifestyle/Social grossing charts. Launch costs are very low, and a few big-spending users can cover them. But the review risk and ban risk are high, and 18+ and UGC are also things Apple keeps an eye on.
- For our data: among the top 50 new entrants on small-country Lifestyle grossing charts, with ratings counts near 0, most are this kind of clone. When recalling, tag them directly using: "IAP tiers named offerN / top price $99.99, privacy policy is Google Docs, entity is a person's name or a PT/LTD shell, charts across storefronts but ratings ≈ 0." Don't treat them as products worth studying.
9. Uncertain
- Who the real entity behind it is, and which matrix it belongs to (the com.HipHop. prefix matches Fun Mirror by "毕威 曾", but the evidence is too weak).
- Where users were acquired: nothing in the ad libraries, and no evidence for ad networks, ASA, or agency referrals.
- Revenue scale: the only data is category grossing ranks, all in small countries, so it can't be estimated. Whether the in-app chat partners are real people or bots is unverified.
- In the recall, "AppMarketSpy ×11" and "AppBrain Denmark #22–77" were never verified. "Same developer as Bloop" has been disproven (Bloop's entity is AUSPICIOUS TRADE LIMITED).
Sources
- US App Store page apps.apple.com/us/app/groove-log-your-street-moments/id68102… (2026-11-06, read via r.jina.ai): ratings, in-app purchases, privacy policy, "You might also like"
- iTunes lookup API (us/pk/dk), US review RSS itunes.apple.com/us/rss/customerreviews/id=6810270105/sortBy…
- appstore database (agent-im server): chart_rank, app_snapshot, app_profile, app, app_name, 2026-10-28 to 11-06
- app_link table in the metaads and tiktokads databases (2026-11-06): no records
- AppBrain developer page www.appbrain.com/appstore/dev/frenk-tarves/6810270107
- Jina web search, x-radar (last 60 days), TikHub TikTok search: nothing related to it turned up