Starter Story · 2026-05-31
I Built A $30K/Month App: Here's My Exact Process [Idea, Build, Marketing]
Benjamin 'Benji' Chen, a 20-year-old NYU student who has built 45+ apps, runs Snag (10x Studio), an iOS app that finds free items nearby. Launched ~4 months earlier, it is at ~$30K MRR with 100K+ users and $80K+ total proceeds. Growth came from vetting UGC creators by interview (~10% pass), paying them a monthly retainer plus CPM, and turning videos over 50K views into Meta ads tested at $50/day and scaled while ROAS stays above 1. He builds apps in 4-5 hours from a marketing-first value proposition.
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Numbers mentioned
| Subject | Metric | Value | Quote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snag | mrr Shown in Superwall dashboard | USD 30K approximate | “As you can see here in Superwall, we have around 30,000 uh US dollars in monthly recurring revenue.” |
| Snag | time to milestone Launch to ~$30K MRR ('less than four months' per host) | 4 months approximate | “his latest one just hit $30,000 a month in less than four months” |
| Snag | users 'Over 100,000' authenticated (signed-up) users | 100K users approximate | “We have over 100,000 authenticated users on Snag, 9,000 conversions, and over $80,000 in total proceeds.” |
| Snag | paying users 'Conversions' in Superwall (purchases/subscriptions to date) | 9,000 users approximate | “We have over 100,000 authenticated users on Snag, 9,000 conversions, and over $80,000 in total proceeds.” |
| Snag | revenue 'Over $80,000' total proceeds since launch | USD 80K approximate | “We have over 100,000 authenticated users on Snag, 9,000 conversions, and over $80,000 in total proceeds.” |
| Snag | count App Store ratings; described as important social proof | 3,300 ratings approximate | “We have around 3.3k ratings on App Store, which is very important social proof when you're promoting uh consumer apps.” |
| Snag | conversion rate Creators interviewed -> creators kept ('9 to 10 good ones' per 100 interviewed) | 9–10% approximate | “typically, we get a 10% conversion rate. So for every 100 creators we interview, we get actually like 9 to 10 good ones.” |
| Snag | views Threshold: UGC videos above this are promoted to Meta ads | 50K viewsper video | “If they're doing over 50,000 views per video, then those are great videos that you can run on Meta ads.” |
| Snag | views Example soft-sell UGC video shown on screen | 240K viewsper video | “So, this video got 240,000 views.” |
| Snag | revenue Subscription profit directly attributable per 100K UGC views | USD 1,000–2,000per 100,000 views approximate | “What we typically see is with every 100,000 views, we can make around 1 to $2,000 that we can directly make from subscription profits.” |
| Snag | ad spend Starting budget for a Meta test campaign per creative; then 100, 200, 300/day | USD 50/day | “So, we spend around $50 a day. We just test whether a specific creative is worth it or not to keep running and to scale up.” |
| Snag | ad spend Total spend on the example ad before its ROAS turned negative (fatigue) | USD 3,000 approximate | “For this ad, we placed around $3,000 in total for this ad before the ROAS became negative.” |
| Pillar | users Reached with 'basically zero CAC' | 11K users approximate | “We scaled to 11,000 users with basically zero CAC.” |
| Benji's first media company | exit price | six figures approximate | “sold my first media company for six figures” |
| personBenjamin Chen, apps built in the past year | count 'Over 45' apps built in about a year | 45 apps approximate | “In the past year or so, I've built over 45 apps.” |
| aggregateCopycat apps of HideGPT | count Copycats appeared after HideGPT launched | 20 apps approximate | “After we launched HideGPT, there were around 20 different copycat apps, but they're also making hundreds of thousands of dollars” |
| aggregateHideGPT copycat apps | revenue Attributed to better UI, marketing and funnels than the original | hundreds of thousands of dollars approximate | “they're also making hundreds of thousands of dollars, because they have a better user interface, they have better marketing, they have better funnels” |