some personal things changed the last couple of weeks, so im figuring out whats next while selling the app i am working on.
in july i wrote that the hard part was scaling this profitably. turns out it doesnt at my pricing.
best cpa €13 with spark ads. realized ltv €15.31 gross, €10.94 after apple and vat. so €2 down per user.
break even wouldve needed €18 ltv and i only ever tested my price downward, never up.
dm if the app sounds interesting!
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just saw that the app is kind of "exploding" due to some old pinterest posts.
your reminder to not sleep on pinterest!!!
i just got the first sub on an app i am not really working on anymore. it was the first mobile app i have ever built - kind of a passion project that i poured way too much effort in for it flopping in the end.
its weird what i would have given for this rc notification 2 months ago. now having made 400€ revenue on my main app is not enough anymore 😵💫
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i just got the first sub on an app i am not really working on anymore. it was the first mobile app i have ever built - kind of a passion project that i poured way too much effort in for it flopping in the end.
its weird what i would have given for this rc notification 2 months ago. now having made 400€ revenue on my main app is not enough anymore 😵💫
is anyone using the new revenuecat refund policy systems? so far i just send the consumption data to apple and let them chose. am i leaving money on the table?
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euromaxxed in krakow over the last couple of days. no tikslop, no apple reviews, no token limits reached. just vibes in a city that was not on my radar before.
came back recharged 🚀🚀
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3 months ago I finished my internship and set myself a goal: 300€ revenue by end of july.
just barely missed it. still doing this.
spent most of those months at 0€ on a project that went nowhere, then built something in the last two weeks that seems to finally work.
august: keep scaling. tiktok ads have done nothing for me so far, thats the next thing to figure out. :)
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got a brutal 1 star review a few days ago.
replied shortly after. nice, no defensiveness, just "i am a solo dev and would love feedback. what was missing for you?"
they deleted the review.
do not sleep on replying to reviews and turn on review notifs in app store connect!
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are you ever so excited to work on something that you actually can't work because the excitement is paralyzing you? or is it just me
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one week between "I should just get a job" and "I cant stop now."
2 weeks ago I was at 0€ revenue and close to giving up. months of building an app that went nowhere. 20 active users who seemed to love it, zero paying. years of side projects before that, all fun but broke.
then I built something new in a week and it made money almost the same day. little under 200€ before spending anything on ads. no big exciting idea, just a concept thats already proven and trending, built my own way with taste and polish. its way simpler than I made it for years.
the hard part is scaling this profitably now.
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couldnt agree more. built a lot of shit before and overcomplicated it.
my current b2c mobile app the first time someone ever paid for a product i built. simply because i was "copying" a proven and trending concept and added a layer of taste on it. the only hard pard is scaling this profitably now.
I failed for years: ~14 projects.
And then I tried B2C iOS apps.
I'll hit $10k/m in a few weeks.
I think it's the easiest way to win.
Because the "moat" is the easiest to build.
These are the moats I see:
1. The moat of complexity.
Think Postiz or Revolut. APIs that take weeks to get approved. Or complex industries, like banking need capital or regulatory approval.
You simply can't vibe code these in a weekend. Complex B2B products will survive, because there's too much effort involved in making it.
Can be very hard difficulty I think. You have to put in the grind on the product. And there's still an element of luck involved: for example, there's a lot of PostBridge clones that went nowhere. I tried this and failed!
2. The moat of personality.
Big developers will always be able to sell by virtue of their following. This is true in any domain. Verified MRR existed before Marc, but no one trusted an anon dev with their stripe. It's a really good idea, but it succeeded in part because Marc is so trusted.
This is a very tricky moat to build, as it relies on growing a following. I believe there are clear patterns for social medi growth, but that's a post for another day.
3. The moat of a network.
Think NomadTable or IG. People use these apps because of their network. Anyone can vibe code them in a day. But people still use the app because of their huge network.
This is potentially the hardest moat. Involving either a lot of luck, massive amount of work or a big network from previous experience.
4. The moat of mass distribution (B2C).
Most mobile apps are very technically incredibly simple. The effort instead is 90% marketing. If you have a tiny bit of taste it's easy to stand out massively.
Here, we're not selling to businesses. We're selling to the masses, the normies who doesn't even use ChatGPT!
In my view this is the easiest moat, because it's the one with the least amount of luck involved.
Marketing is not yet a science, but there are a lot of proven patterns for success: AI UGC, paid tikslop/apple ads.
This is just my anecdotal experience! n=1.
I may have gotten lucky: I'm building a new app to do it all again, so we will see if it's a science.
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wow snapchat spotlight is a funny platform.
its easy to get a ton of engagement, views and downloads but the conversion over there is insanely bad.
its basically just full of broke teenagers. fun to try though and yielded some conversions at least. will definitely keep reposting over there 👀
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