The Superwall Podcast · 2026-03-03
Rafael Kramer - this 14 yr old makes $100k/mo PROFIT building apps with ai (here's how)
Joseph Choi interviews Rafael Kramer, who built meme mobile games from age 13 and later sold an influencer game studio and two consumer apps. Extracted: DaGame (DaBaby car meme game built overnight in Buildbox, TikTok devlogs, AdMob ads; ~2M downloads and $100K+ in a month), 50/50 influencer game partnerships (Skibidi Toilet game: one Short, 2-3M downloads), Instagram-first influencer outreach, Debloat AI (idea from TikTok comments, CPM-paid faceless slideshow accounts, TikTok ads at cents per install, face scan before the paywall), and Amanda AI's ad restrictions.
Play the episode14 tactics
Numbers mentioned
| Subject | Metric | Value | Quote |
|---|---|---|---|
| DaGame | downloads First month | 2M installs/month approximate | “just made a video, and then from there like spread like wildfire. Got like 2 million downloads in a in a month or so. And there, in one month, I made more than 100 grand.” |
| DaGame | downloads Guest's later, revised estimate for the first month | 1.5M–2M installs/month estimate | “it must have been like 1 and 1/2, 2 million uh in in like a month” |
| DaGame | revenue More than $100K in one month, at age 14; all from ads | USD 100K/month approximate | “And there, in one month, I made more than 100 grand.” |
| DaGame | profit Title/description and host teaser call it profit ('six figures in profit in a single month'); body only says 'made' | USD 100K/month approximate | “he turned a viral meme into a simple game that pulled in over six figures in profit in a single month” |
| DaGame | downloads Day one downloads | 300K installs/day approximate | “I remember like day one it got like 300K downloads.” |
| DaGame | downloads Downloads attributed to the first couple of TikTok videos; the rest came from sharing and chart visibility | 300K–400K installs estimate | “maybe like I think, yeah, 300K downloads, 400K downloads just from like the first couple of videos” |
| DaGame | views The TikTok that kickstarted the game | 4M viewsper video approximate | “You can see one of them has 4 million views. Uh, that was like the one that kind of like kickstarted it.” |
| DaGame | views Nine devlog TikToks about the game (host reading the profile) | 100K–1M viewsper video approximate | “There's like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, nine total videos about this game, and each got you know around 100K to a million views each” |
| DaGame | rank Overall App Store chart; possibly #1 in Games or Racing | 2 App Store rank estimate | “We actually got number two on the App Store, I believe, in total, and on games or in racing, I think we were even number one.” |
| personRafael Kramer's TikTok personal brand (2020-2021) | followers | 200K followers approximate | “I had like a personal brand with like a couple hundred thousand followers” |
| DaGame | arpu Average ad revenue per user on his poorly monetized, low-retention meme games | USD 0.1per user approximate | “essentially it's like 10 cents per user on average on like a somewhat poorly monetized game” |
| benchmarkAd-monetized mobile games today | arpu | USD 0.8–1per user approximate | “most mobile games these days, they can get up to like 80 cents, $1 per user” |
| personRafael Kramer's first meme game, age 13 | revenue First ad earnings, from about 5,000 downloads | USD 30 approximate | “I would see like $30 on the back dashboard, because I got like 5,000 downloads on a on a game” |
| Rafael's influencer mobile game company | team size At peak | 10 employees approximate | “we had like 10 employees at one point” |
| Rafael's influencer mobile game company | exit price Guest's figure is missing from the transcript; host says at least six figures | at least six figures estimate | “So, when you were 15 years old and you and you sold for at least six figures” |
| Rafael's influencer mobile game company | activity volume Cold emails to influencers by relationship managers; Instagram DMs worked better | 50–100 emails/day approximate | “we at one point did have like relationship managers that would just like cold email influencers every single day, and, you know, send like 50 emails a day, 100 emails a day” |
| Rafael's influencer mobile game company | share Revenue/ownership split with each influencer partner | 50% | “we made games with influencers, and we did 50/50 splits” |
| Skibidi Toilet mobile game | downloads About two weeks, across iOS and Android | 2M–3M installs estimate | “It was doing super, super well for like two weeks and we got like 2 million downloads, two, maybe 3 million downloads even across iOS and Android.” |
| Skibidi Toilet mobile game | views The creator's single YouTube Shorts promotion of the game | 50M viewsper video approximate | “He made like one video on the game and that got like more than 50 million views, and that drove like a bunch of downloads.” |
| personDaFuq!?Boom!, creator of Skibidi Toilet, when approached | followers YouTube subscribers when Rafael reached out; more than 50M now | 5M subscribers approximate | “But at the time he had like 5 million subscribers.” |
| personInfluencer partner whose game flopped | followers Got ~2M views per video, but the game made with him flopped | 5M followers approximate | “I remember this one influencer that we worked with, you know, he had 5 million followers. He would get like 2 million views a video, but the game completely flopped” |
| personRafael Kramer's influencer outreach today | conversion rate DM'd three influencers one night, woke up to two responses | 2 responses | “Like last night I was scrolling, I had an idea, DM'd three influencers, and I wake up to like two responses, right?” |
| personRafael Kramer across his games and apps | count Host intro: 50+ apps built, 100M social views, three exits; guest says the meme/influencer game playbook ran on almost 50 apps | 50 apps approximate | “You've got 50-plus apps built and 100 million social media views, three exits.” |
| personRafael Kramer across his games and apps | views Total social media views (host intro) | 100M views approximate | “You've got 50-plus apps built and 100 million social media views, three exits.” |
| Debloat AI | downloads Before the sale; took little effort | 40K installs approximate | “I mean, we got like 40,000 downloads, but like that didn't take that much effort to be completely honest.” |
| Debloat AI | cpi TikTok ads at launch; lasted a couple of days before evening out as spend rose | a couple cents approximate | “Like, we were paying a couple cents per download at one point, and then, you know, once we started spending more, it kind of equaled out.” |
| Debloat AI | margin Profit relative to ad spend for the few weeks after the cents-per-install period | 30% estimate | “the next few weeks it was still profitable, but like less, like maybe like 30% profit based off ad spend” |
| Debloat AI | count Faceless UGC slideshow accounts run by hired people paid on CPM | 8 accounts estimate | “I think we had like, I don't know, eight accounts or something” |
| aggregateDebloat app copycats | revenue Some copycats launched after Debloat AI's sale | USD 20K–30K/month estimate | “now there's like a bunch of copycats, some of them are doing like 20, 30K a month” |
| benchmarkHigh-view influencers who flop for app promotion | creator pay Influencers with good views but no active community can charge this and drive almost no downloads | USD 5,000per post illustrative | “there's always influencers that have really good views, but they like they charge 5,000 per post, and then, you know, like it completely flops” |
| aggregateFriends' consumer apps with a few well-matched influencers on retainer | roas Secondhand: influencers whose audience fits the app | 3 x approximate | “these influencers have like a 3x ROAS, cuz like their audience is perfect for the app” |