Caleb Dean - I speedran an ai app from 0 to $100k exit in 26 days

Picked Liftoff (ranked gym app, $100K+/month for 12+ months) as the model and studied how it acquired users. Adapted its rank-ladder video (rank icons with times, icons generated in ChatGPT) to running times per distance. Each video took ~30 minutes to make and was scheduled with a scheduling tool. Posted fewer than 50 in 2 weeks, before any app existed. Race distances were varied; track and field distances went most viral. Three Figma app mockups were pinned on the Instagram profile.

Used ChatGPT to make a one-page HTML site (runify.xyz) with a one-sentence pitch and rank images. Two options: pay $5 via a Stripe link to become an 'early adopter' (lifetime subscription once live) or join the email waitlist. All Reels traffic pointed there.

Posted the same format up to 9 times per day on Instagram. On TikTok, raising post volume after a 700K-view video dropped views to ~5 per video, so they doubled down on Instagram.

CTO built an internal tool in one day that generated ~10,000 versions of the rank-image video in about a minute, varying the times per medal/rank and the caption. Captions were written with GPT in a casual, humorous style with emojis; a few captions kept performing and were reused.

First goal after design was getting a two-tab, no-onboarding V1 approved by Apple so the app could be listed as a pre-order while it was still being built and marketed. Pre-orders auto-download at release and Apple emails users that the app is live. Kept the listing up ~2 weeks. Pitfall: pre-orders require a release date; he pushed it back every 2-3 days, forgot once, and the buggy build auto-released to ~1,000 users, so he had to revert to pre-order.

V1 onboarding was modeled on Liftoff plus top onboardings (Cal AI, Quitter, Life Reset, Clean Eatz). Conversion was low because it only said 'cool app with ranks', so right after launch they rebuilt it to say how ranks help the user achieve a goal (improve as a runner), aligned with the competitive-runner marketing.

During the build, sent ~2 progress-update emails to the 2,000-person waitlist. At launch, sent a launch video with a discount code giving the subscription at half price.

Personally emailed every $5 early adopter (thanks, Instagram link, personal email). Of 50-80 highly engaged ones, added ~20 on WhatsApp, sent them TestFlight builds and used them as bug testers and for feature decisions. At launch, messaged each early adopter to set up their lifetime subscription.

With ~2,000 engaged followers from viral Reels, posted Story polls such as 'What do you want to see from Runify?' and whether users wanted to track in-app, with a watch, or via Strava.

Built anticipation on Instagram Stories to ~2,000 followers, course-launch style. Posted on Reddit. Tweeted a launch demo video made with Rotato (idea borrowed from Blake Anderson's 10x launch). Emailed the waitlist and DMed every early adopter.

Tweeted bullishly about Runify (e.g., heading to $100K/month) from an account with ~200 followers. A PE dealmaker found him, waited a couple of weeks as it was 'too early', then DMed to ask about a sale.

With under a month of revenue, estimated MRR from 26 days of revenue plus 20-30 pending 7-day trials at the current trial conversion rate (~$3K MRR), then priced at ~4.5-5x ARR. Terms: 30% equity retained, 6-month cash earn-out, separate cash bonus; the buyer's studio brings developers, a distribution team and capital. Diligence took a couple of days (App Store Connect access to check users weren't bought), then six contracts negotiated, funds via escrow, then asset transfer. He weighed it as de-risking, capital for the next app, and personal-brand leverage.

Spent 3 days at ~15 hours/day designing the full app in Figma: onboarding, UI, and what every button does, so the developer needed no creative decisions. Recruited the CTO via an Instagram Story call-out that drew inbound from people who knew him from 10x.

App for paruresis. Organic TikToks were hard to make work for the topic; most users came from App Store search for the condition's names ('paruresis', 'shy bladder') from people actively seeking a solution.

Checklist: 1-3 apps each at $100K+/month (not one monopolist; $5K/month is not enough), steady for ~12 months; build an adjacent version rather than a direct clone (ranked gym -> ranked running) and copy their distribution. Discount VC-funded apps (e.g., Reframe raised $24M) whose revenue may be bought at a loss. Also prefers a problem he is personally into (running, gaming) after UriBrave.