I Make $13K/Month From This Simple App

He planned to launch a free app and make money selling ad slots. A more experienced app builder he met on Instagram told him apps need a hard paywall, so the hard paywall was step one, before any marketing. Payments run through RevenueCat.

Only plan is $24.99/year charged upfront (about $2/month). He chose it because he doesn't want a business that relies on people forgetting to cancel a subscription. RevenueCat shows low MRR as a result, but monthly cash revenue is ~$14-15K.

With no budget to pay ~50 UGC creators like big lifting apps, he filmed himself every day, 5-10 videos a day, pushing through the cringe of friends sharing and laughing at them. He reviewed every posted video's hold rate and skip rate to learn which formats work, and fed the best performers into paid ads.

Take the organic videos with the best hold/skip rates and run them as paid ads. Start on a low budget and raise it gradually once there are signs of product-market fit; now ~$250/day, reinvesting all revenue into growth. He finds Meta much better than TikTok: more valuable views, higher-intent buyers, better demographic, higher willingness to pay.

Starting a Sideshift campaign to find five creators who, like him, make videos every single day. He waited to hire creators until he knew which features and angles drive downloads, warning that hiring UGC creators before then burns money.

Started tweeting about 3 months before the interview, documenting the journey publicly rather than building in stealth: what's working, what's not, and his vulnerabilities. Followers who are looking for a lifting app or want to support him become subscribers.

Home page shows each user's leaderboard rank (based on lifting activity during the week) and a social feed of other users' workouts, designed to create healthy competition and accountability.