[Journey] Building an iOS & Android App Empire

[Dank19]

Nope, not necessary for iOS.

Why? Because on iOS the Apple staff is manually checking the app if there are mass reportings. On Google Play however, it is not manually, its some AI or algorithm that automatically removes/suspends your app...from my experience.

How's the TikTok Phone farm going so far?
How have the views been?

I had a look into doing this, but browser seems useless so physical devices seems to be the way to go.

 

[nakamura]

It's been an amazing journey so far, and congratulations on exceeding the $20k monthly profit!

Regarding the APIs, do you use them for coding as well, or only for Cursor Pro?

I’ve tried both Gemini and Claude, but sometimes they both fall short, which leads me to jump between them. Often, I end up doing the work myself anyway. I would appreciate it if you could share your work setup.

Thanks, and good luck moving forward!

Cursor Pro is fine, but the costs for the API are quite high.

Right now, I am mostly using Claude 4.0 Opus. What I do is I copy and paste my existing code for context and tell it what to modify and how to modify it.

How's the TikTok Phone farm going so far?
How have the views been?

I had a look into doing this, but browser seems useless so physical devices seems to be the way to go.

So far so good! Most of the time I was warming up the accounts. The only thing I am struggling with is content creation. But I have to step up my level.

I didn't go viral yet. Most videos have 600-2000 views. However, I can already see my page views on the App Store increased. People watch the TikTok videos and search for my app name on the App Store.

 

[Rank Crafter]

Really solid mindset and impressive progress so far. It’s rare to see someone this focused on quality, sustainability, and user value from day one. Will be following along looking forward to seeing how your app empire grows!

 

[Lukmat]

@nakamura
May I ask you:
-you are using subscription or in app purchases
What is average:
-subscription price
-in app purchase price

You are making $20 000/m, that would give me any idea how many users are needed to get such results
Better to find 400 people paying $50 than 4000 paying $5, but I may be wrong

 

[LinkZenith]

Hello!
Solid plan!
Quality and fairness will get you far.
Here to help with retention or ASO anytime!
Thanks!

 

[nakamura]

@nakamura
May I ask you:
-you are using subscription or in app purchases
What is average:
-subscription price
-in app purchase price

You are making $20 000/m, that would give me any idea how many users are needed to get such results
Better to find 400 people paying $50 than 4000 paying $5, but I may be wrong

usually I do:

weekly subscription: between 5-8 USD
monthly subscription: 13-18 USD (it is by far the least popular and in many apps I dont even offer monthly sub anymore)
yearly subscription: 44-59 USD

usually in the first paywall I offer a weekly subscription and a yearly subscription. No free trial. Fuck free trials, people should pay. I don't have good experience with free trials, most people IMMEDIATELY cancel the trial. They just want stuff for free. If you have API cost in any kind, do not use free trial, it will just cost you money.

then, after the people close the initial paywall, another paywall appears "blabla special offer you only see once" for lifetime. Price between 29-39 USD. Cheaper than the yearly sub)

depending on the app I also offer additional credits, token, coins, etc.

Overall, it really depends man. There is no solution for all. Each app or niche can have its own pricing strategy. You will have to test it. Increase / decrease prices to see how it converts, do the math.

Currently I have an app where free users HAVE TO watch rewarded ads. Many people just kept watching rewarded ads over and over again. Some of them watched 30 rewarded ads. No shit, they spent 30 minutes just watching ads. LOL. For me, it doesn't matter. Actually its good, the more time they spend on my app, the better it is for the ranking. I don't care if the money comes from Admob or through IAPs as long as it covers the costs.


You wrote "better to find 400 people paying $50 than 4000 paying $5"

I have people in my apps that made $5 weekly subscriptions and they have already paid $150+, some even more than $200. They totally forgot they subscribed to the app. On RevenueCat I can see when they subscribed, what app version they use and when was the last time they opened the app. They basically downloaded the app, subscribed, used it once and never used it again, but they still pay each week for 6+ months or even much longer.

If you want fast money, go for yearly / lifetime. If you want steady recurring income, go for weekly. Or do it like me: just do both. No matter if its weekly or lifetime/yearly, you still make good money

 

[KillerKoala]

No matter if its weekly or lifetime/yearly, you still make good money

A lifetime? What if you want to remove the app from AppStore after couple of years? What if API costs will exceed lifetime single payment earning? Or do you just assume it will only happen in very rare cases?

 

[nakamura]

A lifetime? What if you want to remove the app from AppStore after couple of years? What if API costs will exceed lifetime single payment earning? Or do you just assume it will only happen in very rare cases?

Why should I remove the app after a few years? I don't do that.

You have calculate the API costs.

If you have high API costs, dont offer lifetime. Or add rate limiting so that a user can do a specific amount of actions within one day. Lifetime doesn't necesarrily have to mean unlimited usage.

From my experience people use the app for a few days and thats it. I never had any problem.

 

[SeoDesignFusion]

Hi!
Nice work!
$5K is a solid start.
Keep going and you’ll grow even more!

 

[nakamura]

Today I finally did something that I should have done a long time ago, I applied for multiple start up programs. Mostly related to cloud.

I applied for:

- Microsoft for Startups Cloud
- Google for Startups Cloud
- Alibaba Cloud Startup Program

There are still a few more that I could apply, for example: Nvidia Inception, Oracle for Startups, IBM Startup Program, etc. but right now these three above makes the most sense.

Why Alibaba tho? They offer "free" access to the Chinese AI models, which are pretty damn good, especially when it comes to video generation.

Basically, once accepted they give you free credits. For me, this means: Almost little to no API costs. Currently my API costs are around $600-1200 per month.

If they accept me, I could change the API models in my apps and use the credits of these platforms. So it is going to save me $2-3k or even more. Will use this money for scaling / app installs.

Btw. if you want to find these programs, the best thing you can do is make a deep research with Gemini or ChatGPT. Tell it your situation and requirements and it will find everything you need to know, where to apply, how to apply, benefits, likely of acceptance, etc.

 

[ybivugad1999]

Good job . Following

 

[Jerichomiles]

The ranking is different, it seems it is because they use iPhones but I need to rank for iPads. KeyApp does not offer installs with iPads. Do you know about a service that offers keyword installs with iPads?

It's a good idea to rank for iPads but not iPads only, you should target both, but with a higher ratio of iPhone downloads.

Oh I see. I am not sure, I never specifally targeted iPad. 98% of my users use iPhone. If you only focus on iPad you will miss out on a lot of traffic

True, but in Apple's eyes it doesn't look very natural if you rank super high on iPhone for certain keywords but nowhere to be seen on iPad. It's better to have a smaller ratio of iPad downloads whenever there are iPhone downloads. That's what happens if people search for your app naturally. Your iPhone rankings will be more stable if you have the iPad rank for the same keyword too.

 

[nakamura]

UPDATE:

The past few weeks have been really busy. Of course I didn't stop working.

I started focusing more on Flutter again to make my apps crossplatform. Published one iOS app using Flutter. The Android version didn't get published. You can guess why. Yup, because of Google. They rejected my app twice (one time because of a translation in the screenshot, second time because there was a report button missing in the app for generated content). After I sent the app for review the third time, they completely suspended the app and said I should make a new bundle, new app listing, etc. and I didn't do it so far because its a waste of time. Will do it later on tho.

Something else happened.

I applied for:

- Google Cloud Start Up Program (got accepted, had a call with a man from Google, they gave me $2000 worth of credits)
- Microsoft Start Up Program (got accepeted, they gave me $5000 worth of credits), thats really huge because they give you access to all OpenAI models
- Alibaba Cloud Start Up Program (they gave me $1000 worth of credits)

Additionally I got free access to Meta's LLAMA models, basically I am a beta tester and can use it all for free.

So yeah, this helps me a lot. So I can spend more on advertising and scaling.

 

[IYASS]

That's really nice congrats on getting the credits.

I'm thinking about applying as well. Can you share what you submitted for the application? What did you include on your website, I think they ask for it right?

Also, I'm considering getting into iOS apps. Would you recommend publishing multiple smaller apps and relying on ASO and Apple boost, or aiming for long-term app and focusing on marketing through TikTok & Instagram reels like Cal AI etc...?

Thanks.

 

[Nicololo]

UPDATE:

The past few weeks have been really busy. Of course I didn't stop working.

I started focusing more on Flutter again to make my apps crossplatform. Published one iOS app using Flutter. The Android version didn't get published. You can guess why. Yup, because of Google. They rejected my app twice (one time because of a translation in the screenshot, second time because there was a report button missing in the app for generated content). After I sent the app for review the third time, they completely suspended the app and said I should make a new bundle, new app listing, etc. and I didn't do it so far because its a waste of time. Will do it later on tho.

Something else happened.

I applied for:

- Google Cloud Start Up Program (got accepted, had a call with a man from Google, they gave me $2000 worth of credits)
- Microsoft Start Up Program (got accepeted, they gave me $5000 worth of credits), thats really huge because they give you access to all OpenAI models
- Alibaba Cloud Start Up Program (they gave me $1000 worth of credits)

Additionally I got free access to Meta's LLAMA models, basically I am a beta tester and can use it all for free.

So yeah, this helps me a lot. So I can spend more on advertising and scaling.

Wow, good man! You need a company to apply, right?

 

[nakamura]

That's really nice congrats on getting the credits.

I'm thinking about applying as well. Can you share what you submitted for the application? What did you include on your website, I think they ask for it right?

Also, I'm considering getting into iOS apps. Would you recommend publishing multiple smaller apps and relying on ASO and Apple boost, or aiming for long-term app and focusing on marketing through TikTok & Instagram reels like Cal AI etc...?

Thanks.

For the Google Startup Application it wasn't so difficult. Just your website basically and some other informations. Then one guy messaged me and wanted to set up a call. I called with him, and he told me ways to improve my business and he also said that if I get into specific programs, they could give me way more credits like $100k or even more. He told me where I should apply. The guy was actually really helpful, also added me on LinkedIn. He said whenever I have a question about business or Google I can ask him.

For Microsoft I first got $1000 credits but after a couple of days there was a button where it said "verify your business to get $5000 credits" and i went through the application. The same day I got the credits. No one talked to me.

Wow, good man! You need a company to apply, right?

Yes, and you need also a professional looking website. And if you alreada have apps published I think its a benefit


Today another person from ByteDance sent me an email. He wants to collaborate with my apps and company. I will have a call with him on wednesday. Not sure what to expect tho


So yeah guys, if you build apps and you reach a specific amount of people, these people and companies will reach out to you by themselves

 

[nakamura]

Update:

I just keep building new apps and improve my existing ones.

Now I totally focus on Flutter again. I want to make it cross-platform, even tho my focus is on iOS. Yes, people are way more likely to spend money on iOS than on Android.

Also, I just notice Google Cloud actually gave me $13k in credits which is huge. $5k from Microsoft Azure which I am already integrating now as well.

Just I have to be careful. I still have to be selective and careful with the spending, otherwise once all of the credits are gone I might have to spend a lot on these costs.

What else?

I integrate server to server tracking to get more accurate data for Meta Ads, TikTok Ads and so on.

 

[yhardel]

Can I ask how many downloads your most popular app has?

 

[Dank19]

Update:

I just keep building new apps and improve my existing ones.

Now I totally focus on Flutter again. I want to make it cross-platform, even tho my focus is on iOS. Yes, people are way more likely to spend money on iOS than on Android.

Also, I just notice Google Cloud actually gave me $13k in credits which is huge. $5k from Microsoft Azure which I am already integrating now as well.

Just I have to be careful. I still have to be selective and careful with the spending, otherwise once all of the credits are gone I might have to spend a lot on these costs.

What else?

I integrate server to server tracking to get more accurate data for Meta Ads, TikTok Ads and so on.

How did the physical device tiktok farm go?

 

[nakamura]

How did the physical device tiktok farm go?

So far I didn't have any viral hit, but let me tell you: For me its so annoying to keep making tiktok videos....i just hate the content creation part. i should probably hire someone who takes care of this