The Exchanges

Q All right, let's, let's switch topics a little bit and talk about how you run this thing and what tools to use. I know you're kind of a one man show here, built this app, did a lot of the marketing in the beginning. What are all the tools? What's your whole stack to run an app that makes 50,000 dollars a month like this?

A Uh, yeah, solo founder, I have help now. I think it's inevitable in terms of running, uh, everything I use, Firebase, uh, for the database authentication and cloud functions within the app, uh, super wall for paywall and subscription management. I use OpenAI for AI API. I use Mixpanel for in-app analytics, and of course, Cloud Code, the absolute best tool for actually building the app. And then for marketing, Kuroi for influencer tracking and payments. SideShift for UGC Creator, sourcing, tracking, and payments. Instantly for emails. This is great for sending out mass emails for influencer outreach. Cal for booking meetings. Agree for contracts. And then Google Sheets, I feel like I have to mention sort of run everything through that. And then just general business tools. These QuickBooks for accounting keeps everything super clean. And then one password for password manager on a personal note, absolute life changer. Could not recommend any more to set up a one password.

AI assessment note: “everything I use, Firebase, uh, for the database authentication and cloud functions”

Q but now you have this app it's crushing it. So I think one important thing is just the idea itself. This idea that you had where it's an alarm clock that makes You do pushups or makes you do something. It's a really cool idea. So I'm curious, how did you actually find this idea? How did you know it was something that could potentially make 50,000 dollars a month?

A So I was having trouble myself waking up early and I started texting my friend the night before, like, Hey, I'm going to send you a video of me doing pushups by six AM tomorrow. And that was to hold me accountable. And so every night I would send that text before, uh, it just held me accountable. It was great. And at that time, a lot of other apps were doing well. And I saw a lot of People on Twitter sort of doing well with apps. And I was at a point where I was sort of brainstorming my next idea and decided this would probably be a great idea. Uh, the MVP, the initial scope of the project was just an accountability app. So there was no alarm feature whatsoever. And I built the app in three weeks and then I realized I didn't know how to market. I 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 right on the direction I was going to take. And I had a few paths. And decided on the alarm feature. Uh, this was right before iOS 26 came out, and iOS 26 allowed you to connect your app to the native alarm system on iPhone using AlarmKit API, so you could build a real alarm app. Up until this point, uh, there were a lot of other alarm apps out there, but they were sort of gimmicky and not reliable because they used different, uh, like app sounds and workarounds to make the quote …

AI assessment note: “So I was having trouble myself waking up early and I started texting my friend”

Q I'm doing 50,000 a month really quickly. This is just crazy numbers. So we're going to get all into that. How you came up with this idea, how you built it and how you grew it. I'm excited, but before we do, what's your background? Do you have a background coding up apps? How do you get to this place where you have a 50,000 dollar per month iPhone app?

A I actually went to school for accounting. I did a four years undergrad in the year for my masters. I got my CPA and I worked in public accounting in a big four firm for a little over a year, but I've been coding. I'm self-taught like the last four years or so had some other businesses in the past. Nothing really worked. I realized through all these failures that marketing is the most important thing. I started focusing on building an app as quickly as possible. That solved a painful problem in a simple way. And then following these models that a lot of these other apps are using, like influencer marketing is the one that I picked. It's proven to work and yeah.

AI assessment note: “I actually went to school for accounting... but I've been coding. I'm self-taught”

Q ones like yours. Simple makes it easier to focus on distribution and growth. And that's the next topic that I want to get into is how did you actually grow this thing? I'm sure there's a thousand alarm clock apps on the app store right now and growing every single day, but yours stood out. So how'd you do that? How'd you go from zero to 50,000 dollars per month?

A I started out by finding influencers on TikTok and Instagram, just reaching out, sending a ton of DMs early on. It's a tough, a tough start. You get very few responses. And I was trying to find people who were doing like day in the life or lifestyle content where I thought the app could fit in naturally. That was like a big thing for me was it fit in naturally. It was a really good sell to the influencer. They could continue making their existing videos, except they would get paid for it. A lot of times with influencer marketing, it comes off as It's too much of an ad. And so the influencer needs a lot more money and a lot of a reason. It needs to be very compelling offer for them to want to pick up a spot on their page. But if you find people that are already doing content where your app fits perfectly, like an alarm, they wake up in their day in the life videos and then pushups, which is inherently viral and intriguing as the viewer, then they're more willing to fit it into their videos.

AI assessment note: “I started out by finding influencers on TikTok and Instagram, just reaching out”

Q want to try that out too. So you can Live a day in the life like that. So I think that's great. A video like that. What, what is the deal structure for people watching this? They're probably wondering how much do I got to pay for something like that? How many downloads does this turn into? Could you give me some of the numbers behind a video like that?

A Uh, yeah, 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, you can sort of tap what you're going to pay and take the risk and then see what the return is pretty quickly once the The video goes live takes about a day to sort of hit the peak on views. And then you see what your returns are generally paying around like a two to three dollars CPM, uh, based on the view guarantee. And then the money's really made on those big videos. It's sort of power law. A lot of the videos will sort of do. Okay. Every once in a while, you know, big, 1,000,002 1,000,005 million view video. And that's where you really make money.

AI assessment note: “generally the deal structure is multiple videos a month, like two to four videos”

Q how to come up with great ideas. It's like ship stuff and think kind of like you did. So for anyone watching this, what would be your advice for people? They're looking for an idea like this, something that can make 50,000 dollars a month, which is like an app you can build. What advice would you have for people watching this that want to do the same as you?

A Yeah. Uh, my framework at this point is just solve a painful problem in a simple way, and it should be inherently viral. If it's not inherently viral, the idea itself, Then add some sort of novel aspect to it to make it inherently viral. Um, with AI, there's so much that's possible. If it's painful, people will pay. And if it's simple, it's easy to show the value in content very quickly. If it's something that's going through your head, at least once a day, it's probably a really painful problem that you really want to solve. And you're actively looking, even if you don't know that you're looking for a solution for it, if it's solution shows up, you're going to jump on it. In college, my roommate and I would talk every single night about how we were going to go to sleep early and how we're going to wake up early the next day. It was just Constant. Every single day is something that we've talked about. Also, this is after the fact, but whenever I talk about the app with people or I show them, they're always, they either say, oh, I need this or I don't need this, but my friend needs this or my girlfriend needs this. Uh, someone in their life needs it. It's pretty much every single time. So it's just a very painful problem.

AI assessment note: “my framework at this point is just solve a painful problem in a simple way”