A community-first app that pulls a quarter of revenue, every month.

The starting point

Mobile was always about the community

Top of the Mornin' wasn't built like most coffee brands. It grew out of one of the largest communities on the internet: Seán McLoughlin's (Jacksepticeye's) 31M-subscriber YouTube audience. Since then, it's become a craft coffee brand with real personality: bright colors, a mascot named Sonny, and a subscriber base that calls itself “Sonny's Sunshine Club.”

That community wanted a more direct line to the brand than just a website could give. An app was the obvious answer, but most app solutions meant heavy custom development, high cost, and a roadmap a lean team couldn't staff.

Reactiv was the fit. The brand launched its app in November of 2024 and saw results immediately: 2× the conversion of the website and a 17% lift in average order value within three months. That was the launch, and this is what happened after.

The challenge

Will an app earn its place once the novelty wears off?

Plenty of apps light up on launch day, then fade once the holiday traffic and the “new app” buzz are gone. For a brand that built its app to deepen community, not chase a one-time conversion bump, the real test was durability.

Would loyal customers keep choosing the app, month after month, including in the slow seasons? That's the question this case study answers.

Why Reactiv

Low lift, mobile-first, built for loyal shoppers

Top of the Mornin' chose Reactiv for the reasons a lean team has to care about:

• No “custom app” overhead, and fast onboarding: an app without a custom build or a dev team to maintain it.
• Native integrations for the tools they already run: subscriptions, reviews, and email/SMS (Klaviyo).
• A mobile-first experience tuned to their most loyal customers, not a website squeezed onto a phone.

“Reactiv made it super easy to onboard and build an app that's very appealing to our audience. Anything that can make our shopper's life easier makes my life easier.”

Kenzie McAndrewHead of Marketing, Top of the Mornin'

The results

A durable quarter of the business

Some platform launches spike on day one, then drift back to baseline once the novelty wears off. Top of the Mornin's app did the opposite: it settled into a steady, sizable share of the business.

Pulled from Reactiv's platform analytics across the months following launch:

“We expect AOV to be higher in peak season because of all the holiday shopping, but we're seeing the opposite: the app keeps driving higher AOV even in slower months.”

Kenzie McAndrew, Head of Marketing

Under the hood

What's actually running the channel

The numbers hold up because the app is genuinely the brand's home for its community, not a checkout shortcut. Here's what shoppers actually do:

1. Browsing is the core behavior Product and collection browsing are the most-adopted features in the app (70–75% of users). Exactly what a discovery-led catalog wants.
2. Push, for brand-building first Uplifting, non-salesy notes (“Have a great day!”) alongside drops. Among the stickiest features and the repeat-engagement engine behind the sustained AOV.
3. In-app offers + Klaviyo The app-only “Sunny Claus” discount, sent broad on a historically slow day, became one of the brand's strongest sales days. App-exclusive offers and Klaviyo flows drive downloads.
4. Reactiv Clips Experiences that open from ads, social, and QR codes without an App Store detour, reaching customers who haven't downloaded yet.

The win

What changed for the business

The app started as a community play. It became a quarter of the revenue line, and it stayed there. For a lean team, that's the whole point: a channel that compounds loyalty into repeat purchases without adding headcount, custom code, or cost.

“It excites me every time I browse our orders and see someone purchase from the Reactiv app.”

Kenzie McAndrew, Head of Marketing, Top of the Mornin'

The road ahead: more app-exclusive drops and early access, smarter push, deeper Klaviyo flows with app CTAs throughout, and testing Reactiv Clips to reach more of the community without requiring a download.