Cardstock · B2C · sports card value scanner
Bring in friends for a three-way revenue split and teach them to code
Team of three grew to five; revenue from a few hundred a month to ~$1.5M a year
Workedteam-process
What they did
When Cardstock made almost nothing, invited two friends (headed for retail/restaurant jobs) to help and split revenue three ways, even though they barely coded. Taught them to code and worked together for 2-3 years while he kept full ownership.
What happened
Grew from three people making a few hundred dollars a month to five people at ~$1.5M a year
- Stage
- Pre-launch (Early (pre-revenue))
“so I asked them if they wanted to come help and split the rev three ways, even though there was basically no revenue and they didn't know how to code very much. So, I taught them how to do that.”
Related topics
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More from Cardstock
All 16 Cardstock tactics- Spend two weeks on keyword research, then put the best terms in your title#1 for 'baseball card scanner' for 2-3 years; ~$9-10K MRR with no marketing
- Film a valuable card, scan it with the app in hand, then reveal its priceFirst one hit 184K views; became the repeatable format behind the TikTok growth
- Pay creators about $1 per 1,000 views to post your slideshow template~7,600 posts in a month for $2,600, about $1 CPM; biggest recent growth driver
- Announce the launch in the same subreddit, linking your earlier idea post12 paid downloads (~$60) on launch day
- Make the app free to download and charge $5 a month instead of $4.99 onceBiggest revenue jump ever; growth took off from the 2021 switch
- Post your app idea in the hobby's subreddit before building it10-15 people said they'd use it; later drove launch downloads
More from this episode
- Cardstock: Build the app you wanted for your own hobby when the App Store has noneGrew into ~$75K MRR over six years
- Cardstock: Give creators TikTok slideshow templates to post and pay them by viewsFounder calls it their biggest success; no numbers given
- Cardstock: Post on Reddit when the app is finishedFirst downloads came almost immediately; no numbers
- Scanémon: Rebuild your working app for a nearby hobby, built in a day with AI$17K MRR and 3,400 subscribers in a year; more new customers a month than the original