Why You Must Build a Mobile App

The age of AI apps is here. Brand-new apps are launching every single day. A 19-year-old building a calorie tracking app that sold for tens of millions of dollars. Simple apps like Learna doing $2 million a month.

Lazy Fit doing a million dollars per month. Impulse doing 700K per month. [music] My latest app doing over 150K per month. We're seeing it everywhere and it's because building an app has never been faster and cheaper because of AI [music] tools and vibe coding platforms. Apps produce real passive income every single month once they're listed on the stores.

And on top of that, you are building a digital [music] asset, something that has real potential exit value. So, anyone who is taking advantage of this opportunity and is willing to move fast enough can build a life-changing business with mobile apps. But, the window is closing [music] and we already see it happening. More and more apps are being submitted to the App Store every single day.

In 12 to 18 months, the mobile app space will be saturated and the people who didn't move quickly and take action [music] are going to look back at this moment as one that they missed. And that's why today, in this video, I'm going to lay out the step-by-step blueprint so you're not one of them. For context, I've built multiple apps. One of them was Puff Count, a quit vaping app that I built in college, which we then scaled to 45K per month in recurring revenue before exiting [music] the business.

And now, I'm working on my latest app, Posted, which is a web and mobile app, which we have scaled to over $150,000 per month in revenue. For all of my apps, I didn't write a single line of code. I'm not a developer. I'm not technically talented.

All I did was follow a simple step-by-step process that I'm going to be showing you today in this video. That process consists of three simple parts. How to find a winning app idea, how to build it quickly using AI tools and platforms, and of course, the most important part, how to market your app once it's live on the stores. And make sure you stick around because there is a bonus section I'll be saving for last. [music] I'll reveal the method that all the biggest AI app founders are using to scale past five figures and reach millions of dollars in monthly recurring revenue.

And these companies aren't doing anything special. They're just using methods that most founders don't even [music] know exist. I'll show you exactly how it works at the end. So, with that being said, let's get into it.

Here we have it, the blueprint showing you exactly why and how to build a successful mobile app in today's day and age. First, I want to show you some research that RevenueCat did last year covering the entire app space, the state of subscription apps from 2025. RevenueCat has analyzed over 75,000 subscription apps and tracked over 10 billion dollars in revenue. So, this report is probably pretty accurate.

And what you'll see is the gap between the winning apps and the rest is growing. Only 5% of apps ever hit even close to 10K per month and the top apps are making 400 times as much money in their first year as the losers. The bottom 25% of apps make no more than $19. And as you can see, the gap is growing significantly year over year.

AI apps print money, but only if they stand out. Churn hits hard and fast and price testing keeps users locked in. Now, I've linked the entire research document here, but those top stats, those key insights should show you that the difference between those who win and lose in the app space has nothing to do with their products. It has to do with their marketing and how they approach not only their apps, but also their onboarding, their pricing, their retention, absolutely everything.

And we're going to be covering that here in this video together. So, what does it take to build a successful app? Three simple steps. Step one, of course, is idea invalidation.

We need to make sure that we're building something people actually want. Step two, we're going to build it fast and cheap. Getting your MVP out there, getting your first version out there is very important so you can get feedback and build what your users actually want. And then of course, step three, marketing, the most important step of building a successful app business.

Let's dive into step one, which is idea invalidation. The most important concept to keep in mind when you're thinking about your app idea, when you're approaching an idea to build, is this painkiller versus vitamin mindset. We want our app to be a painkiller, solving a painful problem for a large number of people. Let me put that into perspective with my last app, Puff Count.

It had one simple feature solving one painful problem, quitting vaping. Same with the app that I'm working on right now. We help brands get content from creators. One simple painful problem that a lot of business owners are looking for.

Here's the cleanest way to think about your app idea. If your app is a painkiller, your users will think, I need this now. This app solves an urgent or costly problem. A vitamin type idea is a, wow, this is a nice to have app.

It offers an optional improvement. It's not something that your users need right then and there. Painkiller apps have high urgency. They solve real pain and they save you time, money, risk, they improve your health, anything that needs to be solved urgently.

Some examples are Uber. People need a ride, they need to get around right now. MyFitnessPal. They want to lose weight or they want to gain muscle right now.

Puff Count. People want to quit vaping right now. They're tired of hurting their health. Vitamin apps are the complete opposite of this.

Again, they are nice to haves and they have low urgency. You want to build a painkiller, not a vitamin. Now, I know the advice of go find a good app idea isn't really helpful advice, so let me show you exactly how to research and validate your app ideas before you start building. And by the way, if you want this entire document, I've provided all the important links in here.

It's going to be in the description free to download, so go check that out. First, we can go to the Sensor Tower top charts and we can look at the top grossing, the top earning apps in any category. So, find the category that your app idea is in and go see which ones are making the most. Of course, you have MyFitnessPal, Strava, Flo, the cycle tracker, Calm, Clue.

Go through here and you can click on any one of these apps and you can see exactly how much money and how much revenue they've done in the last month. If your competitors or apps in your niche are making a lot of money, that is a good sign. To differentiate yourself from the competition, we can build unique features and take different marketing approaches, which we'll get to in a second. You can also go to Google Trends.

Is your problem trending? Is it something that people are actively searching for right now? We can type in quit vaping, which was the concept for my last app, Puff Count. We can go search worldwide from 2004 to present.

And as you can see, the search term for quit vaping is at an all-time high. Probably a pretty good sign that people want to solve this painful problem right now. Additionally, we can go into the TikTok Ads Library or the Facebook Ads Library and we can see if our competitors are actively spending on their apps. If they are, this is an amazing sign.

Let's look at Learna, 450 active ads right now. If your competitors or apps in your space have a ton of active ads, that means they are actively spending to acquire customers. And these companies aren't just burning money. They're spending this money profitably.

This is a great sign. Competition is good in the app space. You don't need to worry about the competition taking market share away from you because all you need is to capture one, two, a fraction of a percent of a total market and it will still be life-changing money. Was Puff Count the most successful health tool in the world?

No, but it still made great money and I as a solo founder, it was life-changing amounts. So, once we have our idea validated, let's move to step two, which is building quickly, building fast and cheap. There are a handful of AI app builders out there right now, a handful of vibe coding tools. Use your favorite, try them all.

My favorite is Vork, you can use Bolt, you can use Emergent. If you're a little bit more technical, you can open up Cursor and edit the code directly with Cloud Code. Take your pick, it doesn't matter. The core concepts, the core thing to keep in mind here is we need to build as quick as possible.

Don't spend months or years building. You will burn out as a founder. It's very important to launch as fast as possible so you can start getting real users, get real feedback, and generate revenue that you can use to improve the product. As I always say, these AI tools will get you 70 to 80% of the way there.

And if you are a software developer, yes, you can finish off the rest by yourself. But, even if you're not, I'm not. I use these vibe coding tools to get 70% of the way there and then I can go on to Upwork and you can hire a talented developer to build the last 20 to 30% for you. And yes, hiring is scary, but I've dropped a full video on my exact Upwork hiring guide so you can be sure that you're hiring the correct talented developer to finalize your project.

Build a team. You are a founder at the end of the day. You cannot do everything yourself. So, outsource your weaknesses on Upwork.

One thing to keep in mind when you are building your MVP, when you are getting the first version out there as quickly and as cheaply as possible, keep in mind that you only need one core feature. And once you have that one core feature, we need to turn our app into a funnel. We need to actually convert users. And the easiest way to do that is through a long onboarding and a hard paywall.

You can AB test your onboarding and your paywall all through Superwall, of course. They have AB testing for paywalls and your onboarding flows. But, this is all you need for a successful app. You need strong marketing, which we'll get to in a second.

You need a strong onboarding, a long onboarding, a hard paywall. And once the user commits to a free trial or they pay for your app upfront, you provide them one valuable feature. And you might be thinking, Stephen, what if my users don't want to just pay for one feature? One feature isn't super valuable.

My app isn't valuable enough to charge for. I hear this all the time from first-time app founders, but let me show you something that is going to completely pummel that mindset into the ground. Check this out. QR code reader making $10 million per year.

Storage cleaner app deletes photos on your iPhone making $5 million per year. Track your Instagram followers making 700K per year. All of these apps being sold right now on Acquire all have one simple feature. Here's another one from Sensor Tower, a QR code scanner making 400K per month.

You do not need to build the next Facebook. You just need to build one simple feature that solves one painful problem. That is it. Just ship it.

Getting the app out there, getting the app done, the first version live beats perfecting it. Your app will never be perfected. There will always be something new to do, always a bug to fix. Embrace that as a founder and launch quickly.

If you're building anything online, an app, a brand, a product, your design matters way more than you think. And this is where a lot of people mess up. They either try to do it themselves which if you're not an experienced designer can go very wrong or just try to hire some random influencer and hope things work out. Doing it those ways you have no options and no guarantee it will actually look high quality.

But that's why I use the sponsor of today's video 99 designs. You can go on to 99 designs and start a contest for logos, app design, web design, clothing, packaging, books and magazines and more. By running a contest on 99 designs you're not guessing anymore. You get to see dozens or hundreds of high quality professional options and you only pay for your favorite.

Here's exactly how running a contest on 99 designs works. You post a brief, you explain exactly what you want and professional designers from around the world start submitting their concepts. You have the chance to give feedback, refine direction and pick the one you like the best. It's basically the fastest way to get a high quality design without wasting time or money.

Whenever I'm launching something new this is the only place that I go to get designs. From Wordle to Puff Count to Posted all of my projects have been designed on 99 designs. So if you want to check out 99 designs I'll leave a link below and if you use my link you get $20 off of your contest. I highly recommend 99 designs for any design work, logo, UI, app screen, clothing, you name it.

It is the best place to go. All right, back to the video. Step three, of course, the marketing. The most important part of scaling a successful app business.

Doesn't matter how good your product is, doesn't matter how many features your product has. If you can send more people to your app you will make money than your competitors. Now I want to break the marketing formula down very simply for you and it all comes down to this simple chart right here. To be successful at marketing you first need to understand what is going viral in your space.

You need to conduct market research and understand what types of formats you should be creating. Then we post a lot. We post in mass and especially in the beginning this is where so many founders give up. You have to do a lot of marketing to find a winner.

Whether it's you posting, you're hiring creators, you're building the content with AI, it does not matter. But you cannot give up after your third post. Likely you have to post hundreds of times to find that winning format and once you do find that winner we'll scale it with paid ads which I'll get to here in a second and that is how we're going to be driving traffic into our app. We're going to test a bunch of different marketing angles, find a winner and then that is how we're going to get people into our funnel, into our high converting app and how we're going to make money.

So how do you conduct market research? It's very simple and it's free. All you have to do is go on to TikTok, go on to Instagram and type in the keywords related to your niche. Are you building a study app?

Type in study tips. This will show you all the top videos from within your niche. Type in getting into college. This will show you all the top apps within this niche.

Think about all the sub niches and the sub categories from the app itself. I'll tell you how I did market research and I found many different viral formats for Puff Count. I didn't go just type in quit vaping. I typed in nicotine effects on sleep.

This was a different format that I use for my mobile app. Think about all of the sub niches that you can tap into when marketing for your product. Find the most viral concepts within each one of these and start to test them all. Don't just test one format.

Look for multiple. How many different ways can I market my product? How many different ways can I talk about my app and find one of these and one of these formats will win for you. And this is exactly what I did.

I tested so many different formats. None of my videos were exactly the same. I didn't just post the same AI slideshow a billion times like so many people try to do now. No, I tried it so many different formats with real people in them so that it hit harder for the viewers watching.

I tried nicotine miss. I tried exposing different companies. I tried day one quitting. I tried public interviews.

I tried taking apart vapes. We tried tips to help you quit. We tried absolutely everything and this is again where so many founders fail. They are not willing to do the market research to find unique formats and put in the work, put in the volume necessary to win organically on social media.

If you put in just a little bit of effort you will win and you will succeed more than 85% of the people out there. This is where a lot of you will fail and you will give up. I promise you that. Even if you're watching this video you will give up here.

And the most important part is you sell the transformation. Don't make your video feel like an ad. Make it feel like a natural entertaining piece of content and then pitch your product at the end. This is especially important with organic content.

If you're running paid ads your content can feel a little bit more like an ad. But as a general rule of thumb you want your content to be engaging. Don't talk about your product the whole time because that will feel like an ad. And again, once you find the winning content you simply run that on paid ads and you click run.

You can also do market research for the best paid ads again by looking at your competitors. What are competitors running on paid ads? Because we're paying for the reach on paid ads these can be blatant advertisements for our product. have to be super entertaining. We don't have to rely on the organic algorithm picking it up because we're paying for the views there.

If you want to completely skip the organic part of marketing which I don't really recommend but if you want to you can find one of your competitors paid ads and you can start to copy these formats. I did a full breakdown of my entire paid ad strategy. Obviously it is a little bit more complex to run successful paid ad campaigns. I will also drop that video in the description somewhere.

And of course, the bonus section in this video, how to scale when it's all working. This is what truly separates the winners from the losers. Following this process is how CoinSnaps or how LearnA are able to scale with 500 paid ads. This is how LearnA, companies like LearnA, are able to send millions of installs per month to their products.

It's not because they have one guy making TikToks. No, no, no. They've turned this into a systematized process and they are working with hundreds of different creators testing hundreds of different creatives and scaling them on paid ads. So how do you scale this when it's all working?

First, you figure out what formats work and again you will hit a ceiling if you're doing all this yourself. Once you find the content that works hire other people to make that content for you at scale. Hire influencers, hire creators. The easiest way to scale with creators is to launch a CPM campaign on Posted.

You can set a flat rate per piece of content and you can also set a CPM, a cost per 1,000 views and you can set a daily budget. This is like scaling on paid ads but with creators. You can track all of your detailed metrics here. You can see all of your creators coming in and on top of that you own every single piece of content.

You can download the MP4 file, you can copy the Spark Ads code and that is how you scale organically and on paid at the same time. Every creator is going to be driving organic views and you own these videos that you can scale on paid ads like LearnA. Take your competitors paid ad, copy it, build a brief around that exact format on Posted and get submissions on autopilot that stay within your budget. Creators are going to make those videos and you only pay if the content actually works.

And again, they're going to post organically on their own social media profiles, you will own the footage, you will own the Spark Ads code. The entire goal of your paid ads, again I dropped a full video on running successful paid ads so check that out for sure. But the whole goal being you will have a realized LTV per install. Here was our realized LTV at Puff Count.

As you can see we were earning anywhere from a dollar to upwards of a dollar 50 per install. If you're spending 50 cents per install and you're making a dollar 50 on the other side of that install you are printing money. Again, this is how LearnA and other companies like it are running 450 ads at a time. It's because the math makes sense.

It's a simple math equation. And again, this is how I scaled Puff Count. As you can see we were earning about a dollar, call it a dollar 50 at the very peak, per install and here is our TikTok Ads campaign. This is our installs campaign.

As you can see we got close to a million clicks on this, 31 million impressions and look at our cost per install. We got 60,000 installs from this one campaign alone and it was 42 cents cost per install. I was spending 42 cents to get an install and on average those installs were making me a dollar. All the way up to a dollar 50.

Sounds profitable to me. Putting $1 in, getting $2 out on the other side. This is how you scale. Validate your idea, build quickly, launch your MVP as soon as possible and start marketing.

That is the three-step process and you should always be iterating every part of this, improving your onboarding, improving your paywall, getting more marketing material, testing new paid ads. This is an ever-going process and as long as you put effort in and you work harder than the next founder you will win. If you want to try out Posted for free and you want to get content from creators and only pay for results the link is going to be in the description. And if you watched this far until the end of the video I would appreciate a like and subscribe to the channel because I'll be dropping videos just like this where I give value away for free all the time.

I'll see you on the next one. Peace.