Starter Story · 2026-07-05

This Insanely Simple App Makes $50K/Month

Jake Glacer, a 24-year-old ex-Big Four accountant and self-taught coder, built Erly, an alarm clock app where you do push-ups (verified on video) to turn off the alarm. He shipped an accountability MVP in 19 days, added the alarm using iOS 26's AlarmKit API, and grew from launch at the end of 2025 to $50K/month in 4 months and 200K+ downloads, almost entirely through paid day-in-the-life influencer videos on TikTok and Instagram bought on view guarantees at $2-3 CPM.

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5 tactics

Erly · B2C · push-up alarm clock app

Ship a bare app in 19 days, then test demand with one influencer video

Purchases from the first video; first $1,000 three weeks later

“my framework here was just ship fast, validate the ideas as fast as possible. But I wasn't sure if I could get views”

Workedvalidationinfluencer

Starter Story · 2026-07-05

Erly · B2C · push-up alarm clock app

Turn a plain app into a push-up alarm using Apple's new alarm API

Became the hook in every video; $50K/month within 4 months

“Uh thought influencer marketing could kind of maybe work with it, but it wasn't too viral of an idea. So I took a whole day just to kind of walk, think about it, write on the direction I was going to take, and I had a few paths, and decided on the alarm feature.”

Workedpositioning-nicheproduct-virality

Starter Story · 2026-07-05

Erly · B2C · push-up alarm clock app

Pay day-in-the-life creators to show your app in videos they already make

Main growth channel; viewers ask the app name in comments; $0 to $50K/month in 4 months

“I started out uh by finding influencers on TikTok and Instagram just reaching out, sending a ton of DMs. Uh early on, it it's a tough a tough start. You get very few responses, and I was trying to find people who are doing like day-in-the-life or lifestyle content where I thought the app could fit in naturally.”

Workedinfluencercreator-ops

Starter Story · 2026-07-05

Erly · B2C · push-up alarm clock app

Pay creators for 2-4 videos a month with guaranteed views, about $2-3 per 1,000

Low-risk; most profit comes from rare 1M-5M-view videos

“Generally, the deal structure is multiple videos a month, like two to four videos a month with a view guarantee. That's sort of the most important part is that you're paying for the views that you get, and so I view it as pretty low risk honestly.”

Workedcreator-opsinfluencer

Starter Story · 2026-07-05

Erly · B2C · push-up alarm clock app

Track each creator video's views and match view spikes to sales spikes

Founder says it's good enough; judges spend in total, not per creator

“I recommend staying super simple. Just track views and measure spikes is sort of the approach that I take.”

Unknownanalytics-attributioninfluencer

Starter Story · 2026-07-05

Numbers mentioned

Subject	Metric	Value	Quote
Erly	revenue Last 28 days of sales; 'a little over $50,000'	USD 50K/month approximate	“This is the last 28 days uh of sales. We've done a little over $50,000.”
Erly	downloads First-time downloads, last 30 days	50K downloads/month approximate	“First time downloads, a little over 50,000 downloads in the last 30 days.”
Erly	downloads Total since launch ('a little over 200,000')	200K downloads approximate	“we've done a little over 200,000 downloads”
Erly	price Annual plan after free trial	USD 29.99/year	“Free trial, and then $29.99 a year or $9.99 a month.”
Erly	price Monthly plan	USD 9.99/month	“Free trial, and then $29.99 a year or $9.99 a month.”
Erly	time to milestone Launch to $50K/month	4 months approximate	“went from 0 to $50,000 a month in 4 months”
Erly	time to milestone Launch to first $30K month	3 months approximate	“first 30K month in month 3”
Erly	time to milestone First influencer video to first $1,000 in revenue	3 weeks approximate	“I did my first $1,000 in revenue 3 weeks after the first influencer video went up”
Erly	time to milestone First commit to live on the App Store (MVP without alarm feature)	19 days	“it took uh about 19 days from my first commit to live on the App Store”
Erly	time to milestone App live to first influencer video live	7 days	“My first influencer video went live 7 days later.”
Erly	cpm Effective CPM paid to influencers under view-guarantee deals	USD 2–3 approximate	“Generally paying around like $2 to $3 CPM uh based on the view guarantee”
Erly	count Videos per influencer per month in a typical deal	2–4 videosper creator /month approximate	“Generally, the deal structure is multiple videos a month, like two to four videos a month with a view guarantee.”
Erly	views Occasional outlier influencer videos that drive most of the profit (power law)	1M–5M viewsper video approximate	“every once in a while, you'll get a big 1 million view, 2 million, 5 million view video, and that's where you really make money”