I built a reward app — but people don’t trust “earn money” apps anymore. How do you overcome that?

I’ve been working on a mobile app for a while that rewards users for actual activity inside the app.

Not crypto mining, not surveys — just small consistent actions (daily check-in, interactions, watching content, etc).
The idea is simple: people already spend time on their phone, so we try to make that time measurable and give it some value.

Technically it works fine.
Users who try it understand it quickly.

But here’s the real problem:

People don’t even install it.

The moment they see:
“earn”, “rewards”, or “points”
they assume scam → and leave.

Which honestly makes sense because most apps in this category abused trust for years.

So I’m stuck in a weird place:

The product isn’t complicated
The onboarding is simple
Early testers keep using it

But strangers won’t cross the trust barrier.

For founders who built products in “suspicious markets” (finance, crypto, rewards, marketplaces, etc):

How did you make the first real users trust you?

Not marketing tricks — real trust.

I feel like growth is blocked not by product quality, but by category reputation.

Would love honest advice.

GooglePlay
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobileweb3.workapp

AppStore
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/work-app/id6758291781