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Category: App Development
Tags: appsmarketingmonetizationoptimizationstrategy
Entities: Adam O'cineDumb PhoneHabit KitMichael TigusMWMSebastian RollSwipe Wipe
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Most indie apps get stuck earning $500 per month. With the right strategy, one app can jump straight to $100,000 a year.
In this video, I'll show you the exact strategy I use to build breakout apps. Apps built with three main
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ingredients. A solid idea, a distribution engine, and a conversion strategy.
When I started out in 2020, I made zero dollars, followed by three years of barely breaking $20,000 a year. But then in 2024, something changed.
I
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monetized my first Breakout app and generated $369,000. And the crazy part, my revenue is still growing.
This year, I've generated over $592,000 and reached $1 million in total app
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store sales. It blows my mind.
And when I look back, I can pinpoint the exact moment that everything changed. If you've been following my channel for long enough, you know my strategy has been to build apps, lots of apps.
And it turns out that's only half the picture.
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My apps were getting stuck at around about $500 a month. Sometimes, if I was lucky, they would reach $1,000 a month, but they just kind of stayed there.
For years, I felt like I was doing something wrong. I saw all these other developers making tens of thousands of dollars from
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their apps and just couldn't understand how they were doing it. Maybe there's a secret I don't know.
Maybe they're just doing something I'm not. Or maybe they're just better at this than I am.
Or maybe my strategy is simply to build lots of apps earning $500 a month and
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compound my earnings through sheer volume. But then something strange happened.
One of my apps immediately generated over $20,000 a year within weeks of monetization. This is a breakout app and it changed my entire perspective of what's even possible
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building apps. This was the exact moment I had a realization.
The aim of indie app development isn't to overoptimize the small $500 a month apps. Even a 100% increase there only generates an extra $500 a month.
It's a lot of effort for
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such a small game. Instead, I wanted to focus on breakout apps.
Get another Breakout app in my portfolio and I could generate an additional $10,000 every month. What would you prefer?
An extra $500 a month or an extra $10,000 a
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month. It's a no-brainer.
So, I said goodbye to incremental changes, no more price paring, no more payw wall over optimization, no more localization. They were a waste of time.
I became hyperfocused on building my next breakout app. And it paid off.
This
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month, my portfolio crossed a massive milestone, $1 million in total sales over the life of my indie app career, with over 80% of that revenue occurring after I focused on building breakout apps. So, how do you actually build a
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breakout app? Turns out every app has the potential to be a breakout app as long as you have these three important ingredients.
You got to nail down a solid idea. You need users to actually find your app.
And then you need to convert those users into paying
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customers. Idea, acquisition, conversion.
It was when I put these three ingredients together that my portfolio became supercharged. And you may have already nailed one of these ingredients, maybe two.
But it's when you put three of them together working
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in harmony that the idea of building a $100,000 app becomes a whole lot easier. First, you need a solid idea.
Turns out breakout apps are not as complex as you think. Check out Sebastian Roll.
You may recognize him as the developer of Habit
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Kit, the simple habit tracking app that tracks your habits. It was one of the first apps to show a GitHub style progress view.
And last month it generated $40,000 in revenue. That's $480,000 a year.
Then there's Michael Tigus. His
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breakout app is called Dumb Phone and it turns your phone into a dumb phone restricting distractions like Tik Tok and Instagram. It generated $30,000 last month.
That's $360,000 a year. And while I was researching this
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video, I stumbled across this little app called Swipe Wipe. One of the original apps that lets you swipe to delete or keep your photos.
Originally developed by Adam O'cine in 2022, it was recently acquired by MWM and last month generated
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$1 million. All of these breakout apps have one thing in common.
They're super simple. They focus on a single feature and you can explain what they do in a single sentence.
But where do app ideas even come from? It's simple.
Incorporate
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your own passions and hobbies into your indie app development journey. Get away from the MacBook and get into the real world.
Do non- tech things and chat with non- tech people. Get out of the tech bubble and leverage your understanding
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of what can be turned into an app and then apply that to every aspect of your life. Oh, look, a Ferrari.
I wonder what model that is. Car identifier.
Oh, look, a piano. I want to learn that.
learn piano. Oh, look.
We're visiting a new
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city and I have no idea what attractions to visit with a family. Virtual tour guide.
There are so many opportunities that it's exhausting. Like, I've just run out of time building apps.
There's so many ideas and there's so many things to build. Lately, I've been sharing my
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ideas on YouTube in a series I've called the next $100,000 app Idea, where I show the latest trends, the ideas that work, and the research I've done to validate the idea. Check out those videos.
I'll put a link in the description below. Which brings me to my next core
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ingredient, distribution. This is the part of the game that I excelled at early on, getting people to actually see my app, getting people to actually download my app.
my distribution channel of choice, app store optimization. The best part about optimization is that you
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get an endless supply of new users downloading your app every single day and it costs you nothing. There's no ongoing marketing cost.
There's no setup costs. Well, I mean, except for the initial cost of setting up the app itself, but once it's released and
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you've optimized it well, you have a revenue stream for life. Every idea that crosses my mind gets checked first.
It's all about the keywords, baby. If you have seen any of my previous videos, you know this strategy inside and out.
I use an app like Astro to start searching for
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keywords that people will use to download the app. I'm looking for keywords that are high in popularity and low in competition.
The app store is becoming quite saturated now, so chances are the keyword you're targeting is also being targeted by a bunch of other developers. So finding keywords that are
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above 40 in popularity and below 60 in competition is a good guide to run with. Can't find a keyword?
Abandon the idea and move on to the next one. This game is all about spending your time wisely and building breakout apps.
Your time is
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just better spent somewhere else and an app that will actually generate revenue. But because of the current state of the app store, you might find it hard to actually rank your apps.
Don't stress. This is all a numbers game.
The more
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good quality apps you release, the greater your chances of breaking out. It could be your first app.
It could be your 10th app, but you'll know it when you see it. Check for these signals.
0 to 500 downloads a month, that's a flop. 500 to 1,000 downloads a month, that's
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good. You can monetize this app and generate around about $500 a month.
But apps generating 20,000 downloads, 30,000 downloads a month, that's a breakout app. To win at this game, you just need more people downloading your app.
And if
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you have a free source of downloads, then the cost of user acquisition is nothing. You've got the idea.
You've got the distribution channel. And now all that's left is monetization and conversion.
Actually turning those users into paying customers. And this is the
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part of the puzzle that really clicked for me in the past 12 months. You have to turn that simple idea into the main focal point of the entire app.
Don't over complicate it with extra features. Just get the one thing working and get
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it working right. It has to be the first thing the user can do when they launch the app and they need an instant result within moments.
The benefit of an app versus a website is convenience. Most apps these days can be accomplished in Safari, but the user has to Google the
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site, click past the login screens, accept the cookies, and then do what they actually wanted to do. Your app needs to be faster.
It needs to be instant. Prioritize this.
It's important. I absorb my entire life into the app while I'm building it.
When I'm
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testing, I launch the app from the first screen. Even if I'm testing a feature multiple steps in the app, this forces me to use the app over and over again as a user would.
And it's kind of like stress testing. And sometimes I'll
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realize the way things are built could be better. The flow could be improved.
Then I use it in the real world. I show friends.
I show family. I test it in places users would actually be using it.
and I start to find some really
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interesting use cases or things I want to do with the app that are not apparent when I'm just sitting in front of a computer and coding. Use the app.
Use the app daily. Use the app from the first screen.
Yes, it takes some time, but you will unlock insights that you
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never even imagined. Then, just before it's time to launch, you need to add the onboarding flow.
This needs to show the user what the app does before they've even used it. and needs to focus on the benefits.
What does the user get from
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using the app? This is important because it's straight after the onboarding process that you want to show the payw wall.
Over 70% of new trial signups will happen at this step, but only if you have successfully communicated what the app actually does and proven to the user
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that this is the app that they need. I've done a whole video series on onboarding and payw walls and I'll put a link in the description below.
And now you're ready to launch your brand new breakout focused app, but you got to do the screenshots. And that's where most
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of the developers will fall flat. They spent all their energy getting their app onto the app store, getting it through the approval process, and now they're completely burnt out and just can't be bothered with screenshots.
But screenshots are the single most important part to the free user
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acquisition channel on your app on the app store. This is your only real marketing you need to do.
So do it. Get this wrong and you will have less users.
Have less users and you can do all the optimization in the world. You can create the best app that's ever existed
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but nobody's using it. So it's a waste of time.
Focus on storytelling. Screenshots need to be dynamic, bold, impactful, and they need to be benefit driven.
The strategy that works well for me is simple. A bold headline with a subtitle underneath.
Save time shopping.
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Earn rewards with purchases. Unlock gifts and bonuses.
The three main screenshots need to tell the story. So, when I'm just scanning over the App Store listing, I will see it.
In this case, it's save, earn, unlock. Your app
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will be shown in the search results with a bunch of other apps. Communicate to the user the benefits and win.
Monetization isn't about clever tricks. It's about designing the flow so users see real value before they see the price.
First, a solid idea, a simple
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concept that's easy to explain in one line. Second, a distribution engine, a reliable way to get unlimited downloads and people using your app at no cost.
And third, a conversion strategy and smart optimization that's built into the DNA of your app. From the code you
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write, the features you focus on, and the onboarding flow that brings it all together, paired with a payw wall that converts. Idea, distribution, conversion.
You get all these ingredients working just right and you have built an app with the potential to break out and earn you over $100,000
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