How I Built It: $15K/month Mobile App

Shared development progress from the start, beginning with the first screenshots; the positive reception told him to hurry and ship. Kept posting authentic content about wins, failures and successes across X, LinkedIn, Bluesky and Threads.

MVP only had basic habit tracking and a tile-based grid chart of progress with a clean, super simple interface. Built for privacy: all data stored locally on the device, no sign-in or authentication. Built in Flutter to ship iOS and Android from one code base; done in 2 months.

Saved money and quit his programming job with no idea, setting a 12-month deadline. Found the HabitKit idea about 6 months in. Kept in touch with his old employer; when the deadline passed with little revenue, returned to the job and ran the app on the side, then quit again at the start of 2024 at ~$3K MRR. Reason: he couldn't find motivation to code his own apps after 8 hours of programming at work.

Runs a super simple, low-budget Apple Search Ads campaign at $100/month, not for direct returns but as a possible ranking boost, on the hope that Apple favors developers who also advertise.

Optimized App Store metadata (keywords, app name, subtitle, screenshots) around the main keyword 'habit tracker', placing it right at the start of the app name. Uses Astro to check keyword popularity and difficulty, and Appfigures for analytics and some keyword research.

Immediately shows the native review dialog ('Do you like HabitKit? Please review it on the App Store') right after the user checks off their first habit, their first success moment.